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Two novels by Greg Egan: The Clockwork Rocket and The Eternal Flame.
These are both science fiction and fiction about science, set in a universe rather different from our own. It becomes clear within the first few pages that the characters aren't human; it takes a bit longer for the reader to discover exactly how different they are from humans, and the ways the physics of their universe differs from ours unfolds slowly, as the characters learn more about how their world works.
The characterization and world-building are both good (Egan has often been better at world-building than characters). The plot mixes development of physics and chemistry (and, in the second book, more biology) with both impending natural disaster and politics on a variety of scales, including the sexual politics of a species whose reproduction is utterly unlike ours.
The Clockwork Rocket is also the first science fiction novel I've read that comes with an arXiv.org reference and online supplemental material.
This entry is brief because I read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rysmiel's copies while visiting Montreal, and don't have them handy to refer to. These are the first two books of a trilogy; I am looking forward to volume 3, but each of the first two volumes stands alone.)
These are both science fiction and fiction about science, set in a universe rather different from our own. It becomes clear within the first few pages that the characters aren't human; it takes a bit longer for the reader to discover exactly how different they are from humans, and the ways the physics of their universe differs from ours unfolds slowly, as the characters learn more about how their world works.
The characterization and world-building are both good (Egan has often been better at world-building than characters). The plot mixes development of physics and chemistry (and, in the second book, more biology) with both impending natural disaster and politics on a variety of scales, including the sexual politics of a species whose reproduction is utterly unlike ours.
The Clockwork Rocket is also the first science fiction novel I've read that comes with an arXiv.org reference and online supplemental material.
This entry is brief because I read
rysmiel's copies while visiting Montreal, and don't have them handy to refer to. These are the first two books of a trilogy; I am looking forward to volume 3, but each of the first two volumes stands alone.)Tags: