Mammoth Books presents Wang's Carpets

Greg Egan

Jul 2012 · Sold by Robinson

About this ebook

Far in the distant, post-human future, the Cater-Zimmermann community set out to refute the theory that the universe is created exclusively for mankind by cloning themselves a thousand times over and sending each copy to a different star within the galaxy. One of the copies of Cater-Zimmermann, Paolo Venetti, arrives at Orpheus; a water-world inhabited by floating mats that perform as a Turing machine.

Ratings and reviews

I like the ability of the book to delve int the various scenarios of bodily fluidity through transhumanism to show the outcomes of different body types: what happens to uploaded minds, what if you take over an entire planet with your cloned minds, how does a cyborg body have an advantage in the future, etc. All these and more are shown. Also great is the bodily form of aliens - that they're different than what we typically think of and not noticeable without taking a closer look and using our intellect to see them. This is a powerful life lesson moving forward into the future. The star that got docked is for the focus on the idea of solopsism, which doesn't really relate to the book at all.

Too confusing

About the author

Greg Egan (b. 1961) is arguably the most accomplished practitioner of ultra-extreme SF. He is an Australian writer whose work builds on the current fascination for nanotechnology and virtual reality. This really took hold with his second novel, Permutation City (1995), wherein personalities become immortal by being copied into virtual reality. Diaspora (1997) brought together and further developed a sequence of stories that explore mankind's journey to the stars.