Diaspora

I recently came across an interesting article by philosophy professor Eric Schwitzgebel that suggested a list of 5 philosophically interesting sci-fi novels.  Since I thoroughly enjoyed Stories of You Life and Others, Klara and the Sun, and The Dispossessed, I figured the other two on the list were bound to be interesting.  Unfortunately Greg Egan's Diaspora doesn't hold a candle to these three in terms of writing and storytelling craft.  Egan does broach some philosophically interesting topics like what personal identity might mean for software based life capable of cloning itself at any time, and what existential issues such eternally self-modifiable  gods might confront.  But he's just not enough of a writer to make you feel these questions as anything more than the bland philosophical thought experiments you heard freshman year.  Egan's brand of sci-fi is also so hard that he makes even Liu Cixin's elaborate description of the heat death of the universe look like soft serve by comparison.  Many parts consist of such fantastically complicated reveries departing from real life mathematical or physical problems that by the third paragraph you feel like you're skimming an arvix pre-print.  Sure, Egan might be real smart, but who cares?  

There are at least a few parts that really pull the reader in though.  I particularly enjoyed the description of the neutron star collapse that spelt the end of the "fleshers" (humans who remained on earth in flesh form rather than uploading themselves to become software "citizens" or transferring their selves into the bodies of robot "gleisners").  Apocalypse sells, I suppose.  And there was a certain amount of compulsion in following the citizen diaspora's search for a way to avoid eventually succumbing to the same fate.  Enough, at least, to read the whole thing.  But still, there was a whole lot of novel that could have been short story here.