But the assignment is not the tropical respite Worth was expecting. While the politics surrounding the creation of Stateless grows more turbulent, and ignorance cults stage protests against the gathering scientists, a secretive group known as the Anthrocosmologists, with some very strange ideas about the Theory of Everything, begin to enact their own agenda.
Greg Egan is the author of 13 science fiction novels and more than 60 short stories, including the Hugo-award-winning novella “Oceanic”.