The Book of All Skies - Books.Infosec.Exchange

EPUB

English language

Published Sept. 5, 2021

ISBN:: 978-1-922240-36-1
ISFDB ID:: 2909598

(1 review)

Del lives in a world of many skies: by passing through the Hoops embedded in the ground, her people can walk freely between land that lies beneath a new set of constellations for every circuit they make around the edge of a Hoop.

When archaeologists find a copy of the famed Book of All Skies, Del takes delivery of the manuscript in her role as conservator at the Museum of Apasa, hoping it will shed light on the fate of the Tolleans, the ancient civilisation that produced it. But when the book is stolen, the theft sets in motion a series of events that will see her travelling farther than she had ever imagined possible, and her understanding of her world and its history irrevocably transformed.

2 editions

november@bookwyrm.social reviewed The Book of All Skies by Greg Egan

Basically a Greg Egan novel

4 stars

Content warning Spoilies

Rather bummed out that Egan's physics writeup on his site about this book is focused on how gravity works, which I was perfectly willing to take at face value; what I'm more interested in is the geography of the lands beyond the hoops. I think I have an okay idea in my head of how they work, but I'm not 100% sure. And like specifically, I want to know what's through the other side of the hoops at the nubs. More nubs? More void? Do you always have to go that far out to find a nub, or are there some that are a lot closer to Jierra? which I'm imagining as the center of this web of lands.

Also was rather annoyed by-- there's an implication that one character was a trans man, which fascinated me because I wasn't expecting it from a novel by Greg Egan; to be honest, his books are usually much stronger on the science than any sort of characterization. But before that could get followed up, or confirmed or denied, or even addressed by the character in question himself, both he and the character who made the implication die off-page. I'm not saying "don't kill queer characters", but for one thing, I'm also fascinated by the fact that Del was just like "oh, okay", her only concern being why he would obfuscate his past achievements; is transness widely accepted in this world, or is that a quirk of Del's? WE'LL NEVER KNOW.

The book also ends rather abruptly, when I wanted to see more of the aftermath, but I guess that just wasn't in the cards.