Greg Egan: Adam Roberts' Schizoid Review of Orthogonal

[J-Sun]

First, this could well be interesting even to people who have no interest in Egan or the book because Roberts turns it into a generalized aesthetic debate on science fiction (albeit a very familiar debate). (I use "schizoid" as popular shorthand for "split-personality" and as descriptive, even complimentary, and not as an insult.)

Second, I haven't read the book so if this thread provokes any comments by any chance, use those spoiler tags, please.

Pro- and anti-Egan debate.

Personally, I don't see how hard most Egan could be for most people except in two cases (and I'm behind and haven't read Zendegi or all of what's in Oceanic): Diaspora and Schild's Ladder. In the case of the former, I loved it and thought it was an epoch-making book but I'll admit that I can see what Roberts is talking about when it comes to Schild's. That was some tough sledding with very spare novelistic furniture. Still liked it, though.

In terms of the debate, I'm about as far from Harrison as one can get but maybe not quite as far as Egan may be getting. I like to at least have the plot skeleton and the cardboard characters to hang the ideas on.

Oddly, based on other reviews I've read, though, the protagonist of Orthogonal and her plight (character and plot) are supposed to be major positive points in the book.

Either way, I just thought it was a more interesting review than I usually see.

 

[jojajihisc]

Nothing particularly dense about Zendegi and it's as close to literary fiction as it is SF by the way. It was my first novel of Egan's and I thought it was average. I have heard a lot of chatter about The Clockwork Rocket though.

 

[J-Sun]

Yeah, that's what I thought - I thought it was his "take a breather book" (or the "quiet the anti-hard SF critics by doing a novel of character" book) after Schild's and (I think) Incandescence just as Teranesia was after Diaspora but Roberts seemed to describe it as another difficult one. I'm not real inspired to get Zendegi but I wasn't real inspired by the idea of Teranesia, either, and it turned out to be good. A definite letdown after Diaspora, but still good. So I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up agreeing with you, but I'm still hopeful.