Reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/16/2011]

I have a nitpick is with THE CLOCKWORK ROCKET by Greg Egan (ISBN 978-1-59780-227-7). Egan is so rigorous in his science that it is hard to believe I could nitpick this book, but in part that is my complaint. It takes place on another world--indeed, in a different universe--and so Egan creates no units of measure derived from a base-12 system, and then gives you a table of these in an appendix. For time, we have flickers, pauses, lapse, chimes, bells, days, and stints, each twelve times as long as the previous. For length, there are scants, spans, strides, stretches, saunters, strolls, slogs, separations, and severances. All this emphasizes the difference, the alien-ness of the world. However, this is completely undercut on page one by references to gamboge, saffron, goldenrod, and wheat. (I give him a pass on jade and viridian, because conceivably those chemical compounds could exist even in this alien universe. Or maybe not, but I do not understand the science of the universe enough to know.)

I believe this is scheduled for United States release later this year, but if you're ordering books from Britain, you could as well add this to the list and not have to wait.

As usual, Egan packs a lot of ideas into a single novel. Our protagonist, Andrew Worth, is a 21st century science journalist who seems to concentrate on the sensational. But rather than doing a story on Distress (a new mental disease in which the patients display, not surprisingly, extreme distress), he decides to cover a conference at which leading scientists will present their competing Theories of Everything. This conference is being held on a bio-engineered renegade island called Stateless. That's already five science fiction ideas, and we haven't even gotten to the main part of the book.

Egan also has Violet Mosala, a brilliant African physicist who serves as both the apparent target of assassins and a mouthpiece for some decidedly "politically incorrect" ideas. I do not mean this negatively. When asked, "It seems to me that your whole approach to these issues reflects a male, Western, reductionist, left-brained mode of thought. How can you possibly reconcile this with your struggle as an African woman against cultural imperialism?" Mosala replies, "I have no interest in squandering the most powerful intellectual tools I possess, because of some quaint misconception that they're the property of any particular people: male, Western, or otherwise."

Although the interplay of politics and science is part of what makes this book fascinating, the somewhat straightforward political intrigue centering around Stateless does seem like piling Ossa on Pelion. Everything else ties together reasonably well, but that seems somewhat detached. The core of this book is similar to the core of many of Egan's other works (including his Hugo-nominated "Luminous," and his latest, "Reasons for Feeling Cheerful," which is already on my Hugo list for next year): does knowing or understanding something, whether a single phenomenon or the whole universe, change it, or our reaction to it? Does a "law" exist before it's understood? To what extent do our perceptions and understandings control the universe?

Not being a physicist, I can't judge the physics, but there are a couple of small errors I did note. There are no pyramids in the Valley of the Kings and at one point someone is described as a "loose canon."

This is another great Egan novel. Yes, I know that's redundant, but I want to make sure you realize this is a very positive recommendation. I'm sure there's a good reason that it's taken two years to get this book published in the United States; I just can't imagine what it is.

No, this is not a new Greg Egan novel; it is an old Greg Egan novel. Actually, it is a very old Greg Egan novel--his first novel. Someone discovered a case of them in a basement somewhere and they showed up at Aussiecon Three, where I immediately grabbed one. (See last paragraph for availability information.)

The plot of this book is not like Egan's later work, but the wealth of ideas--and many of the same ideas--that characterize his later work is. There is a section on how quantum mechanics restored the concept of free will. The protagonist sends out "viewpoints"--essentially non-material copies of himself--to perform various tasks. The protagonist is (literally) making films in his head, which conjures up a vision of universes within an individual mind, which in turn conjures up the image of layers of universes. (And yes, I mean literally--the protagonist claims to have an actual little film lab in there!)

The protagonist--first-person narrator, in this case--is a student at what appears to be (in United States terms) a private preparatory school. Though it many ways it seems to be run by the same sort of people as the upper management in "Dilbert," the narrator actually finds some method in their madness. That is, their insane methods are actually logical to achieve their goals--it's just that their goals are insane also.

I find it interesting that both Greg Egan and Neal Stephenson both have their first novel out of print, somewhat disowned by themselves, and set in an academic environment. I suppose this may be a function of "write what you know." The value of this suggestion can be judged by comparing the quality of these authors' later works--arguably about things they have no firsthand experience or knowledge of--to their first novels. (And how much did Shakespeare really know about early Scottish politics?)

This book is out of print (and unlikely to come back into print, from what I've heard), but Slow Glass Books, GPO Box 2708X, Melbourne, Victoria 3001 AUSTRALIA may still have a few copies [as of September 1999]. They take credit cards, so a letter with your credit card information and a statement authorizing them to charge it for the price (A$14.95) plus shipping and handling would probably be easiest for those not in Melbourne. (I note that hardback versions are going for US$500.)