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The Thing Itself
Adam Roberts turns his attention to answering the Fermi Paradox with a taut and claustrophobic tale that echoes John Carpenters' The Thing.Two men while away the days in an Antarctic research station. Tensions between them build as they argue over a love-letter one of them has received. One is practical and open. The other surly, superior and obsessed with reading one book - by the philosopher Kant.As a storm brews and they lose contact with the outside world they debate Kant, reality and the emptiness of the universe. The come to hate each other, and they learn that they are not alone.
369 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 15, 2015
120 people are currently reading
3318 people want to read
About the author
Adam Roberts
256 books554 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 297 reviews
January 20, 2021
Applied Kant
Immanuel Kant is known among philosophers as the All Destroyer. He undermined most of the philosophical systems which preceded him; and more or less set the agenda for those which followed - either to confirm, deny or modify what he had to say.
One of the things Kant had to say was that human intellect has a severe limitation. Because our physical make-up operates using certain ‘categories’ - space, time, cause/effect among others - we inevitably apply these to not just interpret what we see, hear and feel, but to see, hear and feel anything at all. We are therefore unable to distinguish what is in the world from what we bring to the world. Whatever we perceive is always in some way ‘corrupted’ by our sensual construction.
Thus things in themselves are, according to Kant, permanently beyond our comprehension. And the implication is that if we had different built-in categories of perception, the world would be a rather different thing than we perceive it to be. Einstein’s conflation of space and time into an entirely new category of spacetime is an example of how altering a perceptual presumption has a profound on perceptions by scientists. Phenomena like black holes and quantum entanglement may appear paradoxical only because we're perceiving them within inadequate categories.
But Einstein’s new category doesn’t get us any closer to Kant’s thing-in-itself. Spacetime is still a perceptual filter applied to whatever is actually ‘there’ in the universe. So Roberts’s novel poses an interesting ‘what if.’ What if artificial intelligence had advanced sufficiently to get itself beyond the need for perceptual categories? Or at least the ones human beings need to exist in a comprehensible reality. Would such an advance get us any closer to the thing-in-itself, if only by triangulating through various non-human perspectives?
Roberts suggests a number of possibilities brought about but such AI which are actually rather prosaic and tired (as well as unKantian): time travel, inter-galactic teleportation, the experience of additional dimensions, alien beings, inter-temporal quantum ghosts, etc. But he also alludes to one of Kant’s most important conclusions: the existence of God as the ultimate and universal Thing-in-itself. This was important for Kant because one of the ideas he did not want his philosophy to destroy was the theological concept of God. By putting limits on the abilities of human reason, his intention was in a sense to insulate theology from science and vice versa.
In this Kant succeeded, but not in the way he imagined. Science and theology went their separate ways - science into the vanguard of 19th century human thought, and theology into the intellectual dustbin of sectarian preachers and neo-scholastics. And that status quo has prevailed since in various guises. Evolutionists vs. Creationists; materialists vs. spiritualists; rational thought vs. religious faith. Straw men become the norm in the antipathies of the resulting debate. Ultimately a Richard Dawkins becomes as unpalatable as a Billy Graham. Those of us with any taste at all prefer to avoid these conversations.
It is nonetheless crucial to remember that Kant’s metaphysical point remains as valid as his scientific point: Intellectual investigation must not be impeded by religion; nevertheless the object of that investigation, what exists, is a permanent mystery - not merely where what exists comes from but what that which exists is at all. Kant’s categories may have been incomplete or mistaken, but his assertion that there are such categories is irrefutable. That these are to some degree a matter of choice and not inherent in the universe was demonstrated by Einstein. This recognition has not and should not lead to intellectual despair; but it is most certainly a reason for intellectual humility - for everyone. Scientism and fideism are parallel evils.
“[A]ction and passion are the will and the soul, the two always in dialectical connection. Separate one from the other, and it is hardly surprising that science becomes disconnected from God,” says one of Roberts’s time-travelling ghosts. But what would happen if the will and soul are fully integrated in order to perceive the Thing-in-itself? What sort of God would be found, if God there be? A beneficent, empathetic protector? A self-obsessed demon? An androgynous, somewhat sex-obsessed deity? An ecstasy-producing light? Love? Madness? Given that the harder one looks, the more like oneself the universe appears, perhaps what is to be found is merely oneself writ large.
At one point Roberts’s protagonist is admonished, “... let’s say, you’ve lived your life wearing space-and-time coloured spectacles, and this is a moment with the spectacles removed.” The moment in question could well be that instant before death, when the body - through age, or illness, or injury - gives up its dependence upon the categories of perception entirely and disappears into itself as the thing it always was. Perhaps, that is, only in death is the thing-in-itself attainable. So Roberts suggests. And who am I to disagree?
Immanuel Kant is known among philosophers as the All Destroyer. He undermined most of the philosophical systems which preceded him; and more or less set the agenda for those which followed - either to confirm, deny or modify what he had to say.
One of the things Kant had to say was that human intellect has a severe limitation. Because our physical make-up operates using certain ‘categories’ - space, time, cause/effect among others - we inevitably apply these to not just interpret what we see, hear and feel, but to see, hear and feel anything at all. We are therefore unable to distinguish what is in the world from what we bring to the world. Whatever we perceive is always in some way ‘corrupted’ by our sensual construction.
Thus things in themselves are, according to Kant, permanently beyond our comprehension. And the implication is that if we had different built-in categories of perception, the world would be a rather different thing than we perceive it to be. Einstein’s conflation of space and time into an entirely new category of spacetime is an example of how altering a perceptual presumption has a profound on perceptions by scientists. Phenomena like black holes and quantum entanglement may appear paradoxical only because we're perceiving them within inadequate categories.
But Einstein’s new category doesn’t get us any closer to Kant’s thing-in-itself. Spacetime is still a perceptual filter applied to whatever is actually ‘there’ in the universe. So Roberts’s novel poses an interesting ‘what if.’ What if artificial intelligence had advanced sufficiently to get itself beyond the need for perceptual categories? Or at least the ones human beings need to exist in a comprehensible reality. Would such an advance get us any closer to the thing-in-itself, if only by triangulating through various non-human perspectives?
Roberts suggests a number of possibilities brought about but such AI which are actually rather prosaic and tired (as well as unKantian): time travel, inter-galactic teleportation, the experience of additional dimensions, alien beings, inter-temporal quantum ghosts, etc. But he also alludes to one of Kant’s most important conclusions: the existence of God as the ultimate and universal Thing-in-itself. This was important for Kant because one of the ideas he did not want his philosophy to destroy was the theological concept of God. By putting limits on the abilities of human reason, his intention was in a sense to insulate theology from science and vice versa.
In this Kant succeeded, but not in the way he imagined. Science and theology went their separate ways - science into the vanguard of 19th century human thought, and theology into the intellectual dustbin of sectarian preachers and neo-scholastics. And that status quo has prevailed since in various guises. Evolutionists vs. Creationists; materialists vs. spiritualists; rational thought vs. religious faith. Straw men become the norm in the antipathies of the resulting debate. Ultimately a Richard Dawkins becomes as unpalatable as a Billy Graham. Those of us with any taste at all prefer to avoid these conversations.
It is nonetheless crucial to remember that Kant’s metaphysical point remains as valid as his scientific point: Intellectual investigation must not be impeded by religion; nevertheless the object of that investigation, what exists, is a permanent mystery - not merely where what exists comes from but what that which exists is at all. Kant’s categories may have been incomplete or mistaken, but his assertion that there are such categories is irrefutable. That these are to some degree a matter of choice and not inherent in the universe was demonstrated by Einstein. This recognition has not and should not lead to intellectual despair; but it is most certainly a reason for intellectual humility - for everyone. Scientism and fideism are parallel evils.
“[A]ction and passion are the will and the soul, the two always in dialectical connection. Separate one from the other, and it is hardly surprising that science becomes disconnected from God,” says one of Roberts’s time-travelling ghosts. But what would happen if the will and soul are fully integrated in order to perceive the Thing-in-itself? What sort of God would be found, if God there be? A beneficent, empathetic protector? A self-obsessed demon? An androgynous, somewhat sex-obsessed deity? An ecstasy-producing light? Love? Madness? Given that the harder one looks, the more like oneself the universe appears, perhaps what is to be found is merely oneself writ large.
At one point Roberts’s protagonist is admonished, “... let’s say, you’ve lived your life wearing space-and-time coloured spectacles, and this is a moment with the spectacles removed.” The moment in question could well be that instant before death, when the body - through age, or illness, or injury - gives up its dependence upon the categories of perception entirely and disappears into itself as the thing it always was. Perhaps, that is, only in death is the thing-in-itself attainable. So Roberts suggests. And who am I to disagree?
September 19, 2017
Adam Roberts is the wielder of a megaton-range imagination, allied to a nano-sharp ability to fashion engaging stories populated with interesting characters - he is an author unafraid of taking a concept to the edge, of exploring genuinely challenging ideas.
The Thing Itself continues this conceptual exploration, and while it isn't as brilliant as Roberts' Bete or Stone its still a damn fine novel, with some very interesting things to say. I love stories that explore the Fermi paradox (Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest and Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space stories are particular standouts) and Roberts takes a different angle on this question, playing with the nature of reality and perception to reach some very interesting conclusions about the universe around us.
The Thing Itself begins with a Lovecraftian feel, in an ominous atmosphere ripe with hints of great and terrifying presences. Two men, Charles Garner and Roy Curtius, are working on a SETI project at a remote Antarctic base in the 1980s, when they encounter a terrifying force that derails their lives and scars them deeply, a force that suggests that the reality we experience every day is no more than a perception-generated façade over a seething mass of primal forces.
Of course any Antarctic base story with an alien angle can't help but be indebted to John Carpenter's classic 1982 film the Thing (a personal favourite of mine- I have the poster in my apartment), and Roberts is well aware of this. His characters reference the film, and even humorously mention that 'for obvious reasons' it was not among the VHS films they watched in the base to help pass the endless antarctic night.
Anyway, years later Charles, his once promising career now a series of dead end days bookended with sadness and failure, struggles to forget what he saw out on the ice, and to recover from the resulting mental and physical (from terrible frostbite) injuries. Decades after his experience ,while working as a garbage collector, he is drawn into a group exploring what happened to him, a group that wants him to reconnect with Roy and revisit the painful memories he has long tried to write off as hallucinations.
From here Roberts tells an entertaining and compelling story with a hurt and flawed man (who reminded me a little of Graham Penhaglion in Bete) at its centre, a character beaten down by loneliness and the bottle who is given a chance to reclaim the life he might have had. We follow him as he enters into a very dangerous adventure where the rules of reality are more flexible than they seem.
As the story progresses we get glimpses of earlier and future eras where various individuals appear somehow connected to what Charles and Roy saw in Antarctica. These segments remind me of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas in their varied and flavorsome evocations of past and future lives. Roberts has a gift for strange scenarios and interesting character voices and the contrasts between time periods and the mindsets of the players in them add a great deal of spice to his story.
I really enjoyed the Lovecraftian vibe at the beginning of the Thing Itself, however, unlike Lovecraft Roberts quickly gets to the point, so we get all the benefits of H.P's sinister style married to Roberts' deft conceptualization and pacey plotting. Roberts underpins his concepts with interesting theories and does so again here, with the threatening force in the book based on some fascinating philosophical and scientific theories – particularly those of Immanuel Kant. There are no cop-out mysterious dark tomes, eldritch rituals or indescribable (so horrible they are beyond description!) alien objects here. Once beyond Antarctica the story zipped along, pulling me pell-mell in its slipstream.
As the story neared its conclusion, however, I found myself enjoying it a little less. The novel begins to veer too heavily into its own philosophical underpinnings for my liking, and my attention began to wander away from the thicket of Kantian weeds I found myself in. I still found the story engaging but Robert's strong beginning isn't, IMHO, paired with an equally strong finish. The journey to that finish is however, a trip you should take. Pack your curiosity, prepare to explore some very cool ideas and don't forget to dress warmly.
3.5 stars.
The Thing Itself continues this conceptual exploration, and while it isn't as brilliant as Roberts' Bete or Stone its still a damn fine novel, with some very interesting things to say. I love stories that explore the Fermi paradox (Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest and Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space stories are particular standouts) and Roberts takes a different angle on this question, playing with the nature of reality and perception to reach some very interesting conclusions about the universe around us.
The Thing Itself begins with a Lovecraftian feel, in an ominous atmosphere ripe with hints of great and terrifying presences. Two men, Charles Garner and Roy Curtius, are working on a SETI project at a remote Antarctic base in the 1980s, when they encounter a terrifying force that derails their lives and scars them deeply, a force that suggests that the reality we experience every day is no more than a perception-generated façade over a seething mass of primal forces.
Of course any Antarctic base story with an alien angle can't help but be indebted to John Carpenter's classic 1982 film the Thing (a personal favourite of mine- I have the poster in my apartment), and Roberts is well aware of this. His characters reference the film, and even humorously mention that 'for obvious reasons' it was not among the VHS films they watched in the base to help pass the endless antarctic night.
Anyway, years later Charles, his once promising career now a series of dead end days bookended with sadness and failure, struggles to forget what he saw out on the ice, and to recover from the resulting mental and physical (from terrible frostbite) injuries. Decades after his experience ,while working as a garbage collector, he is drawn into a group exploring what happened to him, a group that wants him to reconnect with Roy and revisit the painful memories he has long tried to write off as hallucinations.
From here Roberts tells an entertaining and compelling story with a hurt and flawed man (who reminded me a little of Graham Penhaglion in Bete) at its centre, a character beaten down by loneliness and the bottle who is given a chance to reclaim the life he might have had. We follow him as he enters into a very dangerous adventure where the rules of reality are more flexible than they seem.
As the story progresses we get glimpses of earlier and future eras where various individuals appear somehow connected to what Charles and Roy saw in Antarctica. These segments remind me of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas in their varied and flavorsome evocations of past and future lives. Roberts has a gift for strange scenarios and interesting character voices and the contrasts between time periods and the mindsets of the players in them add a great deal of spice to his story.
I really enjoyed the Lovecraftian vibe at the beginning of the Thing Itself, however, unlike Lovecraft Roberts quickly gets to the point, so we get all the benefits of H.P's sinister style married to Roberts' deft conceptualization and pacey plotting. Roberts underpins his concepts with interesting theories and does so again here, with the threatening force in the book based on some fascinating philosophical and scientific theories – particularly those of Immanuel Kant. There are no cop-out mysterious dark tomes, eldritch rituals or indescribable (so horrible they are beyond description!) alien objects here. Once beyond Antarctica the story zipped along, pulling me pell-mell in its slipstream.
As the story neared its conclusion, however, I found myself enjoying it a little less. The novel begins to veer too heavily into its own philosophical underpinnings for my liking, and my attention began to wander away from the thicket of Kantian weeds I found myself in. I still found the story engaging but Robert's strong beginning isn't, IMHO, paired with an equally strong finish. The journey to that finish is however, a trip you should take. Pack your curiosity, prepare to explore some very cool ideas and don't forget to dress warmly.
3.5 stars.
March 17, 2025
dense and dizzyingly intellectual, this novel of ideas spins out from its quasi-horror opening (two young scientists in an Antarctic research station face off against each other and the unknown) into a gripping and at times physically grueling thriller set some 30 years later, complete with shadowy institutions and nefarious conspiracies, deep dives into Kantian philosophy, the bending of time and space, fascinating interludes set in the past that detail various unconnected characters and their experiences with the ultra-dimensional, and a vindictive superpowered villain who can and will pull a tendon from a body with the snap of his fingers (and which is as excruciatingly painful an experience as it sounds). our hero is an embittered, horribly scarred alcoholic who just wants to get laid and then get some rest. he, and the book, are a lot to handle. Roberts writes with head in the stars and feet trying to find purchase in the fluid substructure of the human psyche. fortunately, he's an empathetic sort, and his characters feel real and understandable, even when they are mercilessly fucking each other over in their zeal to reach their always unreachable goals. humanity is a species full of self-centered assholes, always overthinking things, but they are certainly entertaining on an anthropological level. will they ever transcend their finite way of thinking, let alone this mortal coil? the author is unsure, but is canny (and kind?) enough to make their antics mordantly amusing rather than completely depressing. as for the nonhumans, the book features a completely devious and terrible AI who is also the most sympathetic character. it just wants to live! relatable.
concepts that you may want to familiarize yourself with, prior to reading this book (thanks, Wikipedia):
concepts that you may want to familiarize yourself with, prior to reading this book (thanks, Wikipedia):
In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself is the status of objects as they are, independent of representation and observation.I read The Thing Itself in the Arctic Circle, in the U.S.'s second-smallest town (current population: 14). apropos.
a noumenon is knowledge posited as an object that exists independently of human sense. The term noumenon is generally used in contrast with the term phenomenon, which refers to any object of the senses.
March 24, 2017
3.5 - 4 stars
At first glance this book seems easy to characterize with a catchy tag line, to wit: the philosophy of Kant meets the cosmology of Lovecraft in a story inspired by John Carpenter's 'The Thing'. Fun, no doubt, even if it was simply that, but once you've made the journey through the book you will find that Roberts is doing something a little more subtle than that tag line implies and even turns many of these tropes on their head.
The main story thread takes place in the present and details the eldritch experience of two SETI researchers stationed in the Antarctic in the 1980's that unhinged both of them in different ways and the aftermath which this trauma had on their subsequent lives. Interspersed with this narrative are chapters that take place in various eras (both past and future) which detail strange experiences with the transdimensional that have occurred, or will occur, throughout human history. This back-and-forth-ing through time element, and the way in which Roberts ties them all together in the end, reminded me somewhat of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and like that book I found this one to be compulsively readable.
To say that parts of the story are disorienting would be an understatement, but it adds a certain verisimilitude to the reading experience. Like the characters themselves we are often not quite sure what is going on and this ties in nicely with one of Roberts’ main themes (derived from Kant) that reality as it truly is 'in itself' cannot be grasped by the mere human intellect and the lenses through which we view it: space, time, cause, and effect, are all merely constructs hard-wired into our brains. Seeing the ‘truth’ of reality might therefore simply drive us mad (hello, Mr. Lovecraft).
I don’t want to go into too much detail about the story, as I think it’s best left discovered by reading the book, but I would re-iterate that I thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience and often found it hard to put the book down. Roberts plays with various narrative techniques in all of the chapters that take place in other times than our own, as well as in some that occur in the here-and-now, and while not all of them are equally successful, they were certainly intriguing and made for a varied reading experience. I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for some philosophically minded sci-fi.
At first glance this book seems easy to characterize with a catchy tag line, to wit: the philosophy of Kant meets the cosmology of Lovecraft in a story inspired by John Carpenter's 'The Thing'. Fun, no doubt, even if it was simply that, but once you've made the journey through the book you will find that Roberts is doing something a little more subtle than that tag line implies and even turns many of these tropes on their head.
The main story thread takes place in the present and details the eldritch experience of two SETI researchers stationed in the Antarctic in the 1980's that unhinged both of them in different ways and the aftermath which this trauma had on their subsequent lives. Interspersed with this narrative are chapters that take place in various eras (both past and future) which detail strange experiences with the transdimensional that have occurred, or will occur, throughout human history. This back-and-forth-ing through time element, and the way in which Roberts ties them all together in the end, reminded me somewhat of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and like that book I found this one to be compulsively readable.
To say that parts of the story are disorienting would be an understatement, but it adds a certain verisimilitude to the reading experience. Like the characters themselves we are often not quite sure what is going on and this ties in nicely with one of Roberts’ main themes (derived from Kant) that reality as it truly is 'in itself' cannot be grasped by the mere human intellect and the lenses through which we view it: space, time, cause, and effect, are all merely constructs hard-wired into our brains. Seeing the ‘truth’ of reality might therefore simply drive us mad (hello, Mr. Lovecraft).
I don’t want to go into too much detail about the story, as I think it’s best left discovered by reading the book, but I would re-iterate that I thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience and often found it hard to put the book down. Roberts plays with various narrative techniques in all of the chapters that take place in other times than our own, as well as in some that occur in the here-and-now, and while not all of them are equally successful, they were certainly intriguing and made for a varied reading experience. I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for some philosophically minded sci-fi.
April 26, 2022
I love it. What a marvelous mash-up of things any reasonable person will probably enjoy. Okay, that may be a bit too presumptuous, but really, Roberts made this action-packed, cosmic horror take on the Fermi Paradox - with a hat-tip to our dearest Kant - work wonders. It all ties in together - Kant's rationalism and relativism (? I only took one introductory module in university so please excuse me) as a way to explore the Fermi Paradox. I don't want to go too much into what these two ideas are because it's a large part of the plot, but for those of you who understood... I hope it stirs some of your interest.
What I also love about speculative fiction is that it usually presents an alternative reality as a way of allowing us to reflect on what makes our reality, well, a reality. A lot of us firmly have our feet planted in our belief in objectivity - that our world is real, tangible, measurable, and here to stay regardless of humanity, the state of our science, our conflicting beliefs on the intangible and the unknown. What if it's not like that? How are we sure that changes to our fabric of reality will not happen randomly? Because it never happened before? What if there is a different reality "out there" from what we are perceiving through our limited human senses?
That's really all I can say, because it is much better to experience the book without knowing much about it. That, and because it's midnight and my thoughts aren't coherent anymore. It's fun, fast-paced, and Robert's imagination knows no bounds. This is just a really good book, people. Go read it.
"Let us imagine that soul and mind are one and the same. Since space and time are structures of the mind, not of the thing itself, does the degradation of mind, through senescence or pathology, lead to an erosion of space and time?"
What I also love about speculative fiction is that it usually presents an alternative reality as a way of allowing us to reflect on what makes our reality, well, a reality. A lot of us firmly have our feet planted in our belief in objectivity - that our world is real, tangible, measurable, and here to stay regardless of humanity, the state of our science, our conflicting beliefs on the intangible and the unknown. What if it's not like that? How are we sure that changes to our fabric of reality will not happen randomly? Because it never happened before? What if there is a different reality "out there" from what we are perceiving through our limited human senses?
That's really all I can say, because it is much better to experience the book without knowing much about it. That, and because it's midnight and my thoughts aren't coherent anymore. It's fun, fast-paced, and Robert's imagination knows no bounds. This is just a really good book, people. Go read it.
February 11, 2016
One might think of philosophy as a vital intellectual endeavor, or little more than fodder for rambling late-night conversations in a college dorm, enhanced by assorted chemical stimulants and some Pink Floyd dialed up on Spotify. But it has provided a dazzling fever dream of a foundation for The Thing Itself, a book in which Adam Roberts quite possibly achieves Peak Adam Roberts, mixing such elements as mad scientists and helicopter chases over Arctic wastes with the curious spectacle of a time-hopping AI having a Platonic dialogue about the existence of God with a physicist. If science fiction is meant to be a truly speculative fiction, where ideas have no limits and the imagination is free, it takes a book like this one to drive home just how rarely that kind of SF is written. Though The Thing Itself may not have changed my own views regarding metaphysics... (continued)
August 1, 2018
What I thought I would be getting from this book: slow, creeping, crippling cosmic horror bathed in a deserted, inhospitable and cold landscape.
What I actually got out of this: a slow and boring over explanation of Kant’s philosophy wrapped in a poor David Mitchell “lots of narratives converging” facsimile.
What I actually got out of this: a slow and boring over explanation of Kant’s philosophy wrapped in a poor David Mitchell “lots of narratives converging” facsimile.
January 23, 2016
Wow, well I’ll try and do The Thing Itself justice, but you’re better off just reading it and marvelling in its mind-blowing awesomeness. The blurb would have you think it’s a version of John Carpenter’s The Thing (a film I love) but really only the first part deals with the isolation and ensuing madness of Antarctica. There’s philosophy, a shady organisation, artificial intelligence, a shoeless man on the run and whole raft of stories throughout time.
At the heart of the book is the theme of how humans perceive reality. We can only experience things in a human way, describe things in a human way. The concepts of time and space are human constructs even if we perceive that we are measuring them scientifically.
Roy is obsessed with the works of Immanuel Kant, an 18th Century German philosopher, so much so that Charles blames Kant for driving his fellow researcher mad. Yet Roy is convinced the answers of the Fermi paradox can be explained by Kant, and perhaps so much more.
The Fermi paradox deals with the argument for the existence of extra-terrestrial life and the fact that there is no proof of said life. The chances of us being the only beings in the universe are slim but, if so, then where are they? Perhaps it’s because we are looking for them in human terms, within the constraints of our perception of reality. Maybe aliens exist outside of what we can perceive, and taken further, this argument can give credence to the existence of a deity without proof too.
You would be mistaken in thinking this is going to be a hard read when in fact, despite all the philosophy, it was a surprisingly fast-paced page-turner, with a dash of humour and plenty of style. It just also happens to be a work out for the brain cells too. The book partly follows Charles in the modern day but it also has pieces from the past and future, a little bit reminiscent of Cloud Atlas, but unlike Mitchell’s book, the connections of the different time periods all came together in the end.
Review copy provided by publisher.
At the heart of the book is the theme of how humans perceive reality. We can only experience things in a human way, describe things in a human way. The concepts of time and space are human constructs even if we perceive that we are measuring them scientifically.
Roy is obsessed with the works of Immanuel Kant, an 18th Century German philosopher, so much so that Charles blames Kant for driving his fellow researcher mad. Yet Roy is convinced the answers of the Fermi paradox can be explained by Kant, and perhaps so much more.
The Fermi paradox deals with the argument for the existence of extra-terrestrial life and the fact that there is no proof of said life. The chances of us being the only beings in the universe are slim but, if so, then where are they? Perhaps it’s because we are looking for them in human terms, within the constraints of our perception of reality. Maybe aliens exist outside of what we can perceive, and taken further, this argument can give credence to the existence of a deity without proof too.
You would be mistaken in thinking this is going to be a hard read when in fact, despite all the philosophy, it was a surprisingly fast-paced page-turner, with a dash of humour and plenty of style. It just also happens to be a work out for the brain cells too. The book partly follows Charles in the modern day but it also has pieces from the past and future, a little bit reminiscent of Cloud Atlas, but unlike Mitchell’s book, the connections of the different time periods all came together in the end.
Review copy provided by publisher.
January 5, 2016
As the recent two Adam Roberts novels did not quite work for me for various reasons, I was a bit wary of this one though the general feeling from the description was positive as the book seemed to go on the "big philosophical" issues side and in most A. Roberts books, the thematic tends to determine my interest more than anything else (there are of course exceptions in his few adventure like novels).
The Thing Itself consists of a main narrative following Charles Gardner some decades after his traumatic Antarctic experience as his life went from promising astrophysicist at 25 to garbage collector at 50, when a mysterious Institute comes with a too good to refuse offer (for a price though), interspersed with side narratives from the past and future, with the ones from the past less interesting, but the AK Utopia one (Applied Kant) being superb
Whether dealing with the Fermi paradox, making a case for the existence of God or more generally dealing with the "real" nature of reality (after Kant) the novel veers between extreme ingenuity and jumping the shark into pseudo-solipsism nonsense where moving one's nose changes the reality for everyone except the one doing the nose moving so to speak (it's a bit more complicated here and with more jargon but it still comes down to that)
The main positive of the book (besides the always excellent prose which handles the multiple narrative voice shifts well in a "I can do this too, not only David Mitchell" way as most of said voices are superfluous imho) is the sfnal content which is quite far away from the usual (Earth doomed/the interstellar empire is at war/aliens are coming) of the current scene and makes the book worth reading for its sense of wonder (shark jumping on occasion and all)
Highly recommended
The Thing Itself consists of a main narrative following Charles Gardner some decades after his traumatic Antarctic experience as his life went from promising astrophysicist at 25 to garbage collector at 50, when a mysterious Institute comes with a too good to refuse offer (for a price though), interspersed with side narratives from the past and future, with the ones from the past less interesting, but the AK Utopia one (Applied Kant) being superb
Whether dealing with the Fermi paradox, making a case for the existence of God or more generally dealing with the "real" nature of reality (after Kant) the novel veers between extreme ingenuity and jumping the shark into pseudo-solipsism nonsense where moving one's nose changes the reality for everyone except the one doing the nose moving so to speak (it's a bit more complicated here and with more jargon but it still comes down to that)
The main positive of the book (besides the always excellent prose which handles the multiple narrative voice shifts well in a "I can do this too, not only David Mitchell" way as most of said voices are superfluous imho) is the sfnal content which is quite far away from the usual (Earth doomed/the interstellar empire is at war/aliens are coming) of the current scene and makes the book worth reading for its sense of wonder (shark jumping on occasion and all)
Highly recommended
March 17, 2019
Rare, these days, for me to bother reading a reasonably long book only to give it such a low rating. I kept trying to like this, but by the end it actually made me angry, partly because it could have been so good. A brilliantly original and intelligent concept wasted on a dreadful protagonist, terrible humour, and constant, pointless, infuriating, exhausting, BORING sexism.
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February 18, 2017
I wanted to like this book more because it has such a great premise (which I won't spoil), but it just didn't totally click with me. Finishing it was a struggle.
October 22, 2017
The cleverest most mind blowing novel I've ever read.
September 1, 2017
First things first; this has nothing to do with the film The Thing. Nothing at all except one throw away mention of it on VHS, and the first chapter is in the Antarctic. That’s it. A massive case of confused (false?) advertising.
I’ve seen many books in my local library by this author and they all seem to have interesting blurbs and being a big fan of The Thing (well that worked) chose this one first.
That wasn’t a good decision. Despite this book having tonnes of glowing reviews, I think I might be close to hating this book. The book seems overly complicated, pretentious, confusingly written and reaches its end with no satisfying conclusion.
The premise at the start at least does seem very interesting. In the 80s, two British scientists in Antarctica working on a SETI project, are debating the Fermi Paradox. This, for those who don’t know, is the disconnect between the Drake equation which suggest life should be very common through the universe and the fact we haven’t found any. Then the problems start. Just loads and loads of references to Kant. Kant who you ask. Kant was an 18th century philosopher, who said we only see the world based on our own limited consciousness. This was a slightly interesting concept, that time and space are created in effect by us, and whole worlds could be hidden from us by our limited awareness, and we can’t see alien life as it exists in this part. However, its wrapped up in batches of bad writing, sluggish explanations of Kant's theories and poor characters.
The main character, Charles Gardener, one of the scientists is not very likable and the rest of the characters…are barely there, ones appear and then go (like love interest? Imra), the other scientist Roy Curtius who is kind of the villain of the piece who discovers this aspect of the universe, is in the beginning, a bit in the middle and then at the end, but never has a character other than spout philosophical stuff endlessly. Then there is Peta. Essentially an AI. This started as another interesting idea, an intelligent computer built to think outside of human frame of reference to be able to see the ‘world outside’. But just ends up again as another AI with attitude on the run from the government like an average sci-fi film.
Every other chapter is one set outside the main story either in the past or in the future. The ones set in the past are supposed to be in way similar to how people spoke at that time. Which makes them very hard to read. One set in about the 17th century about a young abused boy in an aristocrats house took me ages to read, it was such a slog to get through. The others are set in the future, which have some interesting ideas in them (a Utopian society, where there are clubs to catch diseases and to earn money) and one where time travelers are appearing and are old news. But these aren’t linked together or seemingly to the main plot, and just a couple of sentences at the end to somehow link them together just seemed a massive let down and cheat.
Apparently, this book was supposed to be about finding God. I didn’t get that. Perhaps I’m too stupid to ‘read between the lines’. Or perhaps the writing at the end was so lifeless, confusing I kind of blanked parts as I read. The whole thing about finding aliens was never solved so didn’t get the whole thing about the Fermi paradox being central to the start of the book.
This took me longer to read than it should have. This was such a massive disappointment that it will take me a lot now to pick up another of this authors books.
I’ve seen many books in my local library by this author and they all seem to have interesting blurbs and being a big fan of The Thing (well that worked) chose this one first.
That wasn’t a good decision. Despite this book having tonnes of glowing reviews, I think I might be close to hating this book. The book seems overly complicated, pretentious, confusingly written and reaches its end with no satisfying conclusion.
The premise at the start at least does seem very interesting. In the 80s, two British scientists in Antarctica working on a SETI project, are debating the Fermi Paradox. This, for those who don’t know, is the disconnect between the Drake equation which suggest life should be very common through the universe and the fact we haven’t found any. Then the problems start. Just loads and loads of references to Kant. Kant who you ask. Kant was an 18th century philosopher, who said we only see the world based on our own limited consciousness. This was a slightly interesting concept, that time and space are created in effect by us, and whole worlds could be hidden from us by our limited awareness, and we can’t see alien life as it exists in this part. However, its wrapped up in batches of bad writing, sluggish explanations of Kant's theories and poor characters.
The main character, Charles Gardener, one of the scientists is not very likable and the rest of the characters…are barely there, ones appear and then go (like love interest? Imra), the other scientist Roy Curtius who is kind of the villain of the piece who discovers this aspect of the universe, is in the beginning, a bit in the middle and then at the end, but never has a character other than spout philosophical stuff endlessly. Then there is Peta. Essentially an AI. This started as another interesting idea, an intelligent computer built to think outside of human frame of reference to be able to see the ‘world outside’. But just ends up again as another AI with attitude on the run from the government like an average sci-fi film.
Every other chapter is one set outside the main story either in the past or in the future. The ones set in the past are supposed to be in way similar to how people spoke at that time. Which makes them very hard to read. One set in about the 17th century about a young abused boy in an aristocrats house took me ages to read, it was such a slog to get through. The others are set in the future, which have some interesting ideas in them (a Utopian society, where there are clubs to catch diseases and to earn money) and one where time travelers are appearing and are old news. But these aren’t linked together or seemingly to the main plot, and just a couple of sentences at the end to somehow link them together just seemed a massive let down and cheat.
Apparently, this book was supposed to be about finding God. I didn’t get that. Perhaps I’m too stupid to ‘read between the lines’. Or perhaps the writing at the end was so lifeless, confusing I kind of blanked parts as I read. The whole thing about finding aliens was never solved so didn’t get the whole thing about the Fermi paradox being central to the start of the book.
This took me longer to read than it should have. This was such a massive disappointment that it will take me a lot now to pick up another of this authors books.
December 30, 2015
This latest book from the master of intellectual science fiction, Adam Roberts, is a mind-bending delight - and nothing like the combination of the title and the cover suggests (yet even this deception is not entirely straightforward). Anyone versed in the genre would instantly make the leap, with the combination of 'The Thing' and a polar setting, to the classic science fiction film The Thing - and indeed Roberts does make a passing bow to this in the opening of the book. However, the monster in the movie is about as crude as they come - here, what we experience as alien is both horrible and transfigured as a possible reality for the concept of god.
Another classic theme we meet in the book is SETI - the search for extraterrestrial intelligence - but, once again, Roberts subverts the standard genre concepts. Here what is alien is not just not-human, but involves a different perception of the universe itself.
The way that Roberts makes this near-impossible portrayal of something truly alien come to life is to invoke the work of Immanuel Kant, where the 'Thing Itself' in the title is not so much a monster in the manner of the movie, but Kant's concept of the 'Ding an sich', which seems to be rather like Plato's world outside the cave where we only perceive via the shadows we see in the cave. However, in Kant's case this is taken to an extreme, where human perception of aspects of the universe like space, time and causality are simply our veneer on the underlying 'thing itself' which could be perceived totally differently by an alien species.
If this all sounds a bit heavy, it can be in places. There certainly is an awful lot of exposition and discussion of Kant and the relevance of his ideas to physics - and the implications of finding a way of messing around with the 'modalities' we perceive like space and time. In fact, while I'm in warning mode, I ought to also say there's a lot of sex of various ilks, and the book has my least favourite structure for a novel, having a main storyline in alternate chapters with a series of apparently unconnected chapters set in other times and places. I always find with this kind of structure that I want to get back to the main thread and tend to skip-read the intervening chapters - not helped in this case by one of them being written in a Joyce-like stream of consciousness that I really couldn't be bothered with.
So, without doubt this book is sometimes hard work. But it repays the effort of reading because it is so cleverly written (those apparently unconnected chapters slot nicely in by the end), because nothing is what you expect it to be, and because the idea of taking Kant's metaphysical waffling and turning it into science fiction is absolutely genius, producing one of the few ever glimpses I've ever seen of something truly alien in science fiction. And part of it is set in Swindon. What more can you ask?
I ought to briefly say something about the 'science fiction' label. One of the reviews quoted on the back of the book says 'in the tradition of Swift, Orwell and Atwood', which smacks to me of someone in typical literary fashion considering that something is 'not really science fiction' if it is well written and clever. It's a bit like the way I was recently interviewed about science fiction by a journalist who said that something I referred to presumably wasn't science fiction because there were no ray guns and spaceships. I am absolutely sure that Adam Roberts would proudly say that this book really is science fiction, and so he should, because this is classic SF material.
I can say without any doubt that this by far the best science fiction book I've read all year. I can also say that it won't be to everyone's taste - so don't blame me if you don't like it - but to some it will be a revelation of what science fiction can be. This is the kind of science fiction that should be winning the Booker Prize. Simple as that.
Another classic theme we meet in the book is SETI - the search for extraterrestrial intelligence - but, once again, Roberts subverts the standard genre concepts. Here what is alien is not just not-human, but involves a different perception of the universe itself.
The way that Roberts makes this near-impossible portrayal of something truly alien come to life is to invoke the work of Immanuel Kant, where the 'Thing Itself' in the title is not so much a monster in the manner of the movie, but Kant's concept of the 'Ding an sich', which seems to be rather like Plato's world outside the cave where we only perceive via the shadows we see in the cave. However, in Kant's case this is taken to an extreme, where human perception of aspects of the universe like space, time and causality are simply our veneer on the underlying 'thing itself' which could be perceived totally differently by an alien species.
If this all sounds a bit heavy, it can be in places. There certainly is an awful lot of exposition and discussion of Kant and the relevance of his ideas to physics - and the implications of finding a way of messing around with the 'modalities' we perceive like space and time. In fact, while I'm in warning mode, I ought to also say there's a lot of sex of various ilks, and the book has my least favourite structure for a novel, having a main storyline in alternate chapters with a series of apparently unconnected chapters set in other times and places. I always find with this kind of structure that I want to get back to the main thread and tend to skip-read the intervening chapters - not helped in this case by one of them being written in a Joyce-like stream of consciousness that I really couldn't be bothered with.
So, without doubt this book is sometimes hard work. But it repays the effort of reading because it is so cleverly written (those apparently unconnected chapters slot nicely in by the end), because nothing is what you expect it to be, and because the idea of taking Kant's metaphysical waffling and turning it into science fiction is absolutely genius, producing one of the few ever glimpses I've ever seen of something truly alien in science fiction. And part of it is set in Swindon. What more can you ask?
I ought to briefly say something about the 'science fiction' label. One of the reviews quoted on the back of the book says 'in the tradition of Swift, Orwell and Atwood', which smacks to me of someone in typical literary fashion considering that something is 'not really science fiction' if it is well written and clever. It's a bit like the way I was recently interviewed about science fiction by a journalist who said that something I referred to presumably wasn't science fiction because there were no ray guns and spaceships. I am absolutely sure that Adam Roberts would proudly say that this book really is science fiction, and so he should, because this is classic SF material.
I can say without any doubt that this by far the best science fiction book I've read all year. I can also say that it won't be to everyone's taste - so don't blame me if you don't like it - but to some it will be a revelation of what science fiction can be. This is the kind of science fiction that should be winning the Booker Prize. Simple as that.
February 19, 2016
Well, I started this book very dubious because of some negative reviews, but I trust Tudor's assessments and plus I've loved all of Adam Robert's other works.
And I was immediately drawn in, dazzled and delighted at the scope of this ambitious, and in my eyes, successful work on the nature of reality according to Kant. The narrative is puzzling at times, but all becomes clear and relevant eventually after many twists and leaps backwards and forwards in what we experience as time and space.
We start and end with two men in a frozen wasteland. Like ice cracks, so does their perception of their reality. The Antarctic and the Arctic are the boundaries of the events - but a sphere has no true boundaries, like the thing itself.
Unforgettable.
I couldn't put it down.
Bravo.
And I was immediately drawn in, dazzled and delighted at the scope of this ambitious, and in my eyes, successful work on the nature of reality according to Kant. The narrative is puzzling at times, but all becomes clear and relevant eventually after many twists and leaps backwards and forwards in what we experience as time and space.
We start and end with two men in a frozen wasteland. Like ice cracks, so does their perception of their reality. The Antarctic and the Arctic are the boundaries of the events - but a sphere has no true boundaries, like the thing itself.
Unforgettable.
I couldn't put it down.
Bravo.
April 28, 2016
Another great Adam Roberts' novel. The first 100 pages will be a real surprise for the reader because The Thing Itself certainly defies expectations. Among others, this extremely clever novel, written by an atheist, tries to prove the existence of god. Let's say it partially succeeds, but in order to do this, Roberts uses some of the most crazy science-fictional ideas I have ever read. And I'd say that if you need to use extreme speculative ideas in order to prove the existence of god than certainly god is only another extreme speculative idea.
January 7, 2017
Категориите на Кант като рамка на история за строго-секретни супер компютри, извънземни, преследване във времето, антиутопичен секс, Джойсов монолог, английски от 17-ти век и хиляди препратки към какво ли не? Ъм? ОК, да, първият рефлекс е човек да преглътне на сухо и се запита каква ли огромна локва с лепкава кал е всичко това. Но то не е. Този роман е мек и забавен, бих казала "кич" в най-добрия смисъл на тази дума.
Разбира се, виждам основанията зад сравнението с Дейвид Мичъл. За мен обаче Cloud Atlas е книга с особено широк размах, мечтателна и интелектуална, по прекрасен начин лениво футуристична и магична. The Thing Itself е осторумна и динамична книга, Adam Roberts просто си играе с най-различни идеи, сменя перспективите и настороението и най-хубавото е, че накрая (особено в подследната глава) мъничко неочаквано наистина :-) успява искрено да развълнувна, да сложи няколко идеи в няколко изречения, така че да затвориш книгата с онова усещане, че нещо важно ти се е случило току-що.
Не съм сигурна, че Adam Roberts би искал книгата му да се чете по този начин. Но аз я харесах така. И има защо. Според мен, темата за границите на възприятията е една от най-интересните теми на този бял свят, а идеята на Кант за времето и пространството като форми на нагледа е една от най-зашеметяващите идеи, които някога са хрумвали на някого. (Мислейки за Кант, ще споделя, че харесвам и темата за трансценденталната аперцепция, но не чак толкова.) Това е философска идея, която заедно със своята обосновка в "Критика на чистия разум", е толкова светла, че ако някой се опита да я "вплете" в свой текст, който на свой ред да действа просветляващо и зашеметяващо, ще трябва да се постарае много, много повече. Харесва ми да мисля за The Thing Itself като за книга, която в никакъв случай не е смешна или елементарна, а просто е лека, защото ѝ лиспва всякаква претенциозност и превзетост, въпреки почти умопорачителната сериозност на темите, които ползва за отправни точки. Като такава е чудна!
А, и - харесаха ми малките странни концепции, които украсяват линията на действието (напр. Гибралтар като гигантски жив организъм с извънземен произход, чийто размери се променят в сихнрон с нечии любовни преживявания, ха!).
Разбира се, виждам основанията зад сравнението с Дейвид Мичъл. За мен обаче Cloud Atlas е книга с особено широк размах, мечтателна и интелектуална, по прекрасен начин лениво футуристична и магична. The Thing Itself е осторумна и динамична книга, Adam Roberts просто си играе с най-различни идеи, сменя перспективите и настороението и най-хубавото е, че накрая (особено в подследната глава) мъничко неочаквано наистина :-) успява искрено да развълнувна, да сложи няколко идеи в няколко изречения, така че да затвориш книгата с онова усещане, че нещо важно ти се е случило току-що.
Не съм сигурна, че Adam Roberts би искал книгата му да се чете по този начин. Но аз я харесах така. И има защо. Според мен, темата за границите на възприятията е една от най-интересните теми на този бял свят, а идеята на Кант за времето и пространството като форми на нагледа е една от най-зашеметяващите идеи, които някога са хрумвали на някого. (Мислейки за Кант, ще споделя, че харесвам и темата за трансценденталната аперцепция, но не чак толкова.) Това е философска идея, която заедно със своята обосновка в "Критика на чистия разум", е толкова светла, че ако някой се опита да я "вплете" в свой текст, който на свой ред да действа просветляващо и зашеметяващо, ще трябва да се постарае много, много повече. Харесва ми да мисля за The Thing Itself като за книга, която в никакъв случай не е смешна или елементарна, а просто е лека, защото ѝ лиспва всякаква претенциозност и превзетост, въпреки почти умопорачителната сериозност на темите, които ползва за отправни точки. Като такава е чудна!
А, и - харесаха ми малките странни концепции, които украсяват линията на действието (напр. Гибралтар като гигантски жив организъм с извънземен произход, чийто размери се променят в сихнрон с нечии любовни преживявания, ха!).
February 10, 2017
A book filled to the brim with interesting concepts, as all good Science Fiction should be. Within these pages, Adam Roberts takes us on a wild ride that leads from 18th century philosophy to Artificial Intelligence, time travel, aliens, telekinesis and a plethora of other off-the-wall topics. The downside is that there's no heart to the story. While we may love the ideas, we do not love the characters. This, along with the disappointingly forced experimental style of the historical narratives woven into the main story line, and the unsatisfying ending, deducts the book some stars.
January 10, 2025
After a bright promising start this book comes to a screaming halt before it really gets started. It ends up being a rather poor novel jumping from storyline to storyline. The underlying theme trying and failing to tie it all together is the philosopher Immanuel Kant. Quasi intellectual nonsense is what it ends up being. An original concept is the only thing saving this waste of time from getting 1 star.
October 30, 2016
I'm not sure anything will ever be as rich as the splendid and insightful Bete-- which is something completely different and one of my favorite SF novels ever-- but this satisfies that craving for something smart and funny and full of SF and literary love, which is what I've come to expect from Roberts.
January 3, 2018
Such a fabulous clever novel. While I can't claim to have understood every bit of it (at least not on this first reading), Adam Roberts' wonderful, wonderful writing made sure I enjoyed every page of it.
June 15, 2021
I've read the first 30 pages of The Thing Itself, and it seems to be built on bullshit, in the Frankfurtian sense, not even once, but twice. That is all the more infuriating as it tries to give itself a veneer of seriousness by using Immanuel Kant - and whatever you think of him, at least he tried being consistent and honest.
Two cases of bullshit? Two cases of bullshit? One: the Fermi paradox is not about being unable to perceive aliens because of Kant: it deals with aliens in the universe that is observable to us, not in the universe an sich. It's obviously possible that there are aliens we cannot perceive because of a Kantian reason, but again, that's not what the Fermi paradox is about - actually Egan's Schild's Ladder touches on alien aliens in a way that's more interesting. Two, and more importantly: it is total bullshit that you could program A.I. to circumvent Kant: also an A.I. would have specific senses and conceptualizing frameworks, and as such no access to the Ding an sich - you'd need at least an infinite amount of different senses and frameworks to get around it, and that's impossible.
I also didn't like the smug narrative voice - but I acknowledge that could have changed as I understand other chapters are written in other registers, etc.
While I'm not claiming all this to be the definitive take on this book - this is very much a DNF review after 30 pages only - I'm having a hard time envisioning how Roberts wrote himself out of these two theoretical objections, and either way, while I was already annoyed after 15 pages, I wasn't interested anymore after I read Robert's review of Greg Egan's Incandesence.
Click here for more reviews on Weighing A Pig
Two cases of bullshit? Two cases of bullshit? One: the Fermi paradox is not about being unable to perceive aliens because of Kant: it deals with aliens in the universe that is observable to us, not in the universe an sich. It's obviously possible that there are aliens we cannot perceive because of a Kantian reason, but again, that's not what the Fermi paradox is about - actually Egan's Schild's Ladder touches on alien aliens in a way that's more interesting. Two, and more importantly: it is total bullshit that you could program A.I. to circumvent Kant: also an A.I. would have specific senses and conceptualizing frameworks, and as such no access to the Ding an sich - you'd need at least an infinite amount of different senses and frameworks to get around it, and that's impossible.
I also didn't like the smug narrative voice - but I acknowledge that could have changed as I understand other chapters are written in other registers, etc.
While I'm not claiming all this to be the definitive take on this book - this is very much a DNF review after 30 pages only - I'm having a hard time envisioning how Roberts wrote himself out of these two theoretical objections, and either way, while I was already annoyed after 15 pages, I wasn't interested anymore after I read Robert's review of Greg Egan's Incandesence.
Click here for more reviews on Weighing A Pig
May 12, 2016
The first 60% of this book is a four-star book. The last 40% of the book drags it down to a two-star book — and here is why:
Adam Roberts, like some of my favourite science fiction writers, is not afraid to tackle big ideas with simple, straightforward language. I frequently cite Arthur C Clarke as one of my favourite science fiction writers because he makes the effort to draw the common man into big philosophical questions about humanity and our place in the universe. Roberts, too, seems to have a gift for that.
In this book, the standout concept is akin to that of the fifth dimension — that is, because humans exist within the boundaries of space and time, we are unable to see or even imagine what it is like beyond those constraints. A creature living in the second dimension, for example, will never be able to perceive what it is like to exist in the third, where time exists. I am sure someone out there will have a better, more accurate explanation for this concept, but that is the way I understood Roberts' exposition in the first half of this book. With that foundation, I was able to grasp Kant's theory about 'the thing itself', and how humans are unable to see reality for what it is because we are unable to perceive anything beyond space and time — all good? Good.
Now, I really enjoyed the way Roberts played around with the concept, and the narrative is never too complicated for me — at least for the first 60% of the book. I was also intrigued by the idea that, if humans cannot see beyond space and time to 'see' the 'thing itself', why not build a supercomputer that can?
Roberts, through his character, then begins to explain the barriers that need to be overcome in order to see reality and, in turn, the thing itself. So far, so good. All very exciting, intellectual stuff.
Then, things went wrong. For me.
The book doesn't then explain how the supercomputer, which is a character itself, goes about breaking said barriers. At one point of the book, we are told that, OK, the supercomputer cracked the code and was thus able to go beyond space and time and manipulate reality. OK, Roberts, that is cool, but HOW? The supercomputer has no answers for that, and the characters have no answers for that, because Roberts has no answers for that. He, too, is a mere human, and thus has no idea how to transcend Kant's various categories/limitations. If someone tells you that he can catch a bullet with his hand, and he shows you that he can, in fact, catch a bullet with his hand, you want to know how it is accomplished, right? The problem here is that the guy is being coy about it, and he doesn't outrightly tell you how the bullet can be caught with barehands. He does it and leaves the stage, leaving you none the wiser.
At least that is how I felt when I reached about the end of the novel. I did not think the concepts and ideas were difficult to understand or swallow (having a basic understanding did help). However, I just didn't think that it amounted to anything more than a mental exercise. Questions should lead to more questions, but Roberts' book here is a series of questions that don't seem to lead anywhere. What if a supercomputer can go beyond space and time? What if it can manipulate reality? The computer does all those things but it fails to answer the question: so what?
The book is also intercut with a series of stories set in different times and involving (mostly) different characters. Like many reviewers have pointed out, it does feel like David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas at times. However, most of them are difficult to get into as they feel too experimental and obtuse for my taste (the second one written in a stream of consciousness was especially difficult and unnecessary). You see how they all add up and join with the main story arc at the end, but they don't matter very much when all is said and done. I did not enjoy these intersecting stories, even if the one involving Thomas is a particularly good standalone tale.
Lastly, I would like to say that the marketing for this book left a bitter taste in my mouth. I found this book because it is advertised to resemble "The Thing", but with philosophy. Sounds great, right? The truth is that the Antarctica plot is just the bait. Once you are on the hook, the story switches to something else altogether. I feel more than a little cheated because what I got in the end feels a lot less exciting and fascinating than the synopsis. Altogether, somewhat disappointing book that collapsed under its own unexceptional weight.
Adam Roberts, like some of my favourite science fiction writers, is not afraid to tackle big ideas with simple, straightforward language. I frequently cite Arthur C Clarke as one of my favourite science fiction writers because he makes the effort to draw the common man into big philosophical questions about humanity and our place in the universe. Roberts, too, seems to have a gift for that.
In this book, the standout concept is akin to that of the fifth dimension — that is, because humans exist within the boundaries of space and time, we are unable to see or even imagine what it is like beyond those constraints. A creature living in the second dimension, for example, will never be able to perceive what it is like to exist in the third, where time exists. I am sure someone out there will have a better, more accurate explanation for this concept, but that is the way I understood Roberts' exposition in the first half of this book. With that foundation, I was able to grasp Kant's theory about 'the thing itself', and how humans are unable to see reality for what it is because we are unable to perceive anything beyond space and time — all good? Good.
Now, I really enjoyed the way Roberts played around with the concept, and the narrative is never too complicated for me — at least for the first 60% of the book. I was also intrigued by the idea that, if humans cannot see beyond space and time to 'see' the 'thing itself', why not build a supercomputer that can?
Roberts, through his character, then begins to explain the barriers that need to be overcome in order to see reality and, in turn, the thing itself. So far, so good. All very exciting, intellectual stuff.
Then, things went wrong. For me.
The book doesn't then explain how the supercomputer, which is a character itself, goes about breaking said barriers. At one point of the book, we are told that, OK, the supercomputer cracked the code and was thus able to go beyond space and time and manipulate reality. OK, Roberts, that is cool, but HOW? The supercomputer has no answers for that, and the characters have no answers for that, because Roberts has no answers for that. He, too, is a mere human, and thus has no idea how to transcend Kant's various categories/limitations. If someone tells you that he can catch a bullet with his hand, and he shows you that he can, in fact, catch a bullet with his hand, you want to know how it is accomplished, right? The problem here is that the guy is being coy about it, and he doesn't outrightly tell you how the bullet can be caught with barehands. He does it and leaves the stage, leaving you none the wiser.
At least that is how I felt when I reached about the end of the novel. I did not think the concepts and ideas were difficult to understand or swallow (having a basic understanding did help). However, I just didn't think that it amounted to anything more than a mental exercise. Questions should lead to more questions, but Roberts' book here is a series of questions that don't seem to lead anywhere. What if a supercomputer can go beyond space and time? What if it can manipulate reality? The computer does all those things but it fails to answer the question: so what?
The book is also intercut with a series of stories set in different times and involving (mostly) different characters. Like many reviewers have pointed out, it does feel like David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas at times. However, most of them are difficult to get into as they feel too experimental and obtuse for my taste (the second one written in a stream of consciousness was especially difficult and unnecessary). You see how they all add up and join with the main story arc at the end, but they don't matter very much when all is said and done. I did not enjoy these intersecting stories, even if the one involving Thomas is a particularly good standalone tale.
Lastly, I would like to say that the marketing for this book left a bitter taste in my mouth. I found this book because it is advertised to resemble "The Thing", but with philosophy. Sounds great, right? The truth is that the Antarctica plot is just the bait. Once you are on the hook, the story switches to something else altogether. I feel more than a little cheated because what I got in the end feels a lot less exciting and fascinating than the synopsis. Altogether, somewhat disappointing book that collapsed under its own unexceptional weight.
November 11, 2017
I found this highly entertaining. It's a kinda funny pitch, in that it's basically Eli Cash saying, "Everyone knows Kant's metaphysics of the Ding an Sich is a metaphorical attempt to describe reality; what this book presupposes is: maybe it's literal?" Roberts then turns that into a twisting, turning, philosophically spitballing SF/eldritch horror story about AI, (maybe?) aliens, time travel, Arctic madness, and crazy reality-warping super-powers. It's also very funny, mind-bending, and ultimately pretty uplifting. You have to give Roberts a pass on the more technical aspects of Kant, but he acquits himself surprisingly well for the purposes of this story. It's not really high art, but if you like novels informed by German metaphysics, John Carpenter's The Thing, The Matrix, and/or British humor, this is most assuredly worth a read.
January 9, 2017
An extremely deceptive book about philosophical musings over humanity's inability to perceive the actual existence around us, but rather just our perception of 'the thing itself'. The first chapter sets up a very interesting premise, but it drags on without much payoff, interspersed with short vignettes about humans over time, past and future, who have glimpsed in some way 'the thing itself'. Frankly the book is a bit tiresome and annoying and at around the halfway mark I just got tired of reading it. The ending does try and wrap around to the beginning but it doesn't do so in any meaningful way. Not recommended.
July 19, 2016
Astounding novel. I didn't expect too much because it was such an unusual premise for a sci-fi novel, I figured he would wring 400 pages out of that and job done. But there is so much richness to the storytelling here, great inventiveness in prose style throughout and genuine humour peppered across the present-day storyline particularly. Then throw into the mix an explanation of Kant that I actually felt I understood properly for once, and you get a very satisfying experience. I hadn't read Roberts before but now here's another whose canon I have to add to my to-read list [sigh]
June 13, 2017
Very good until some point when it deviates and starts to explore its philosophic agenda. However, still an interesting book that tries to deal with the existence of God (perhaps not very successfully, since the author is an atheist trying to make a different claim).
November 27, 2024
The first and final chapters were really strong but I Kant see myself reading this one again any time soon
February 21, 2019
One scientist tries to kill the other at a SETI research station in 1986, the reason: to get rid of the other's infringing consciousness, so that he might better experience "the Thing Itself", or the reality that exists "beyond" the human ability to perceive the universe. This violent event coincides with both men having extraordinary experiences, each attributing them to different causes (one being a true believer, the other a skeptic). Is this just a case of a mentally disturbed man losing his mind in the bleakness of the Antarctic, or is there something more profound knock, knock, knocking at reality's door? Like aliens, or God?
"The Thing Itself" traces the lives of both scientists post-event, while also interspersing vignettes at various places in various times, both past and future, like a David Mitchell novel. But this is an Adam Roberts' joint, and instead of going a more commerical route, he dives headlong into the intellectual by making the philosophy of Immanuel Kant the backbone of the whole narrative. This may sound like a giant authorial LAMP, but it's not really: Roberts is fantastically creative, fantastically intelligent, and is not at all unaware that he's telling a sci-fi story, and while it's definitely not a bestselling conventional yarn-burner, the initial threads that start the novel are woven together at the end, more or less.
Whether you find all this to be more or less will depend on your willingness to sift through the application of hefty abstract thought to a fictional narrative. Each of the 12 chapters here is sub-titled with one of Kant's 12 category and sub-category titles, which is interesting and sometimes completely brilliant, but also forces the narrative to fit the pre-conceived structure. Thus the strength of what's going on is also its weakness: the tight-rope walk between didacticism and plot is well traveled but not completely satisfying. But Roberts' isn't trying to convert: he's a professor of 19th century literature in his day job, and as such, has that natural arrogance that doesn't give one whit whether or not you find him insufferable, or find his works less accessible than your preference. Which makes it ironic, perhaps, that Roberts' best books are the ones which hew closest to a conventional narrative, which makes "The Thing Itself" not one of his best, but perhaps his most thought-provoking and accomplished.
"The Thing Itself" traces the lives of both scientists post-event, while also interspersing vignettes at various places in various times, both past and future, like a David Mitchell novel. But this is an Adam Roberts' joint, and instead of going a more commerical route, he dives headlong into the intellectual by making the philosophy of Immanuel Kant the backbone of the whole narrative. This may sound like a giant authorial LAMP, but it's not really: Roberts is fantastically creative, fantastically intelligent, and is not at all unaware that he's telling a sci-fi story, and while it's definitely not a bestselling conventional yarn-burner, the initial threads that start the novel are woven together at the end, more or less.
Whether you find all this to be more or less will depend on your willingness to sift through the application of hefty abstract thought to a fictional narrative. Each of the 12 chapters here is sub-titled with one of Kant's 12 category and sub-category titles, which is interesting and sometimes completely brilliant, but also forces the narrative to fit the pre-conceived structure. Thus the strength of what's going on is also its weakness: the tight-rope walk between didacticism and plot is well traveled but not completely satisfying. But Roberts' isn't trying to convert: he's a professor of 19th century literature in his day job, and as such, has that natural arrogance that doesn't give one whit whether or not you find him insufferable, or find his works less accessible than your preference. Which makes it ironic, perhaps, that Roberts' best books are the ones which hew closest to a conventional narrative, which makes "The Thing Itself" not one of his best, but perhaps his most thought-provoking and accomplished.
October 30, 2025
Really great read. The relationship to The Thing is very minor, basically non-existent, and actually the story becomes, at one point, an almost Frank Burly + HAL 9000 buddy trip. But Frank Burly if the goal was more than just unending buffoonery. The vignettes from other eras is great and in particular the change in writing style is quite fun. Honestly laughed out loud and had to stop reading at several points. Required reading.
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