Diaspora

Greg Egan

Sep 1997 · Greg Egan

About this ebook

In 2975, the orphan Yatima is grown from a randomly mutated digital mind seed in the conceptory of Konishi polis. Yatima explores the Coalition of Polises, the network of computers where most life in the solar system now resides, and joins a friend, Inoshiro, to borrow an abandoned robot body and meet a thriving community of “fleshers” in the enclave of Atlanta.

Twenty-one years later, news arrives from a lunar observatory: gravitational waves from Lac G-1, a nearby pair of neutron stars, show that the Earth is about to be bathed in a gamma-ray flash created by the stars’ collision — an event that was not expected to take place for seven million years. Yatima and Inoshiro return to Atlanta to try to warn the fleshers, but meet suspicion and disbelief. Some lives are saved, but the Earth is ravaged.

In the aftermath of the disaster, the survivors resolve to discover the cause of the neutron stars’ premature collision, and they launch a thousand polises into interstellar space in search of answers. This diaspora eventually reaches a planet subtly transformed to encode a message from an older group of travellers: a greater danger than Lac G-1 is imminent, and the only escape route leads beyond the visible universe.

Ratings and reviews

Absolutely mind bending and gave me emotional whiplash time after time. I'll admit most of the physics went over my head, but the beating heart at this book's core can be understood by anyone. This story's scale is unmatched by any other.

Quite possibly the greatest book I have ever read. I'm a theoretical physics major by trade, so naturally all of the concepts were so exciting and familiar. The prospect of the true theory of reality being what it is that the alien gives, or all of the alien encounters that he details were all so endlessly fascinating.

About the author

Greg Egan is the author of 13 science fiction novels and more than 60 short stories, including the Hugo-award-winning novella “Oceanic”.