Egan, Greg- Diaspora

[ray gower]

Synopsis
A dramatic insight into the future of Man in the 30th century and beyond where life is divided into three; fleshers - true homo-sapines; Gleisner robots - human minds within machines; and polises - supercomputers teeming with intellgent software containing copies of human personalities.

Sadly the 'Fleshers' are not met until 'Part2' by the end of which they have all been wiped out. Lucky them. Nor are they exactly what we might call human as they can change their genetic make-up at the drop of a syringe.
After the small accident, the 'polises' all the various vims and vers of them get a sudden dose of something (not explained) and launch into space to find a new planet.

 

[ray gower]

Okay there is Hard Science Fiction and there is hard science fiction. This will suit both titles.

There is really no excuse for making a Hard Science Fiction novel this dull to read. I've read better telephone directories!

Apart from the destruction of the human race, when it almost staggered to its knees for a whole paragraph on page 150, nothing much happened. What ever happened with engaging your reader!

I almost gave up on page 15 after 12 pages on how to create an intelligent computer programme. Then again when I realized that Vim was not a missed typesetting error, but somesort of virtual sex and that could change as vim was described as ver later in the same sentence!

Sorry I can only recommend this to insomniacs.