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Ventus #0
Lady of Mazes
Karl Schroeder is one of the new stars of hard SF. His novels, Ventus and Permanence , have established him as a new force in the field. Now he extends his reach into Larry Niven territory, returning to the same distant future in which Ventus was set, but employing a broader canvas. Lady of Mazes is the story of Teven Coronal, a ringworld with a huge multiplicity of human civilizations. It's the story of what happens when the delicate balance of coexisting worlds is completely destroyed, when the fabric of reality itself is torn.
Brilliant but troubled Livia Kodaly is Teven's only hope against invaders both human and superhuman who threaten the fragile ecologies and human diversity. Filled with action, ideas, and intellectual energy, Lady of Mazes is the hard SF novel of the year.
Brilliant but troubled Livia Kodaly is Teven's only hope against invaders both human and superhuman who threaten the fragile ecologies and human diversity. Filled with action, ideas, and intellectual energy, Lady of Mazes is the hard SF novel of the year.
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
61 people are currently reading
1685 people want to read
About the author
Karl Schroeder
95 books383 followersKarl Schroeder is an award-winning Canadian science fiction author. His novels present far-future speculations on topics such as nanotechnology, terraforming, augmented reality and interstellar travel, and have a deeply philosophical streak. One of his concepts, known as thalience, has gained some currency in the artificial intelligence and computer networking communities.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
February 17, 2021
Livia Kodaly lives a life very like that of everyone else in Westerhaven, occupying her chosen manifold, surrounding herself with the Society she prefers, and letting her animas deal with conversations she’s too busy for or would rather not be having.A friend on another book forum read this, and it caught my eye because it sounded intriguing. Which it definitely is. If Glen Cook decided to rewrite Alice in Wonderland, this might be the result.
But she isn’t quite like everyone else. Years ago, she and her friend Aaron experienced a horrific accident, which has affected her reactions and interpretation of the world ever since.
And when Westerhaven is invaded, Livia is one of the few people prepared to cope with reality, or to try to fight back.
It’s a bit tricky to get into, what with all the unfamiliar terms. (I got the hang of manifolds and animas fairly early on, but “tech locks,” which play a big role in the story, left me puzzling a bit until the last few pages. But I can be very dense, so this was probably just my problem and not the fault of the writing or plot.) It took me the first 100 pages to really get into it because it’s not an easy read. The world this is set in just exists, fully built, and the reader is immersed with zero “as you know, Bob” infodumps or anything to help figure it out. Three-quarters of me loved the challenge of it, and the other quarter was mildly annoyed at how I had to keep thinking while I was reading, and flipping back to make sure I’d gotten things straight. So this took me longer to read than I expected.
But once I got absorbed into it, the story itself was fast-paced, streamlined without a lot of description or emotional passages. And yet I found it appearing very vividly in my imagination, and I was deeply invested in what was happening to Livia.
I don’t want to say too much about the book, because everything feels like spoilers. A couple slightly spoilerish comments: At first I thought . And this book seems amazingly prescient to me, because it was published in 2005, yet Last, I keep racking my brain for
I’m glad I read this book. It was challenging and unpredictable and completely worth spending the first third of it being confused. The plot twists were both surprising and gratifying. And the entire story tied together, with the ending calling back to the first few events in a way that made me say “Ahhh!”
This is definitely worth a reread sometime. If anyone would like to do a buddy read in a year or so (whether we’re GR friends or not!), let me know and I would love to do it. This is definitely a book that would be great to discuss with someone else as you read.
As a side note, the quick Blockworld episode made me wonder if this book is what inspired Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series. It was just so right for the character who lived there.
September 12, 2010
Huge ideas drive this book. Action and character much less so, however, and appear sometimes only incidentally.
But the ideas are vast and mind-boggling, and come fast enough to keep any reader wondering if they really know what Karl Schroeder is trying to say, so despite flaws it's still recommended to read.
Why was I disappointed? I read the back cover and found out that this book takes place on a Ringworld. Sounds cool, I thought, and I went into the book bringing my version of reality with me. Big mistake, and the author took the next 360 pages to beat me over the head again and again why my version of reality is not to be projected beyond myself, as it requires my own set of values which may not be shared elsewhere.
More than that however, reality and values require a certain technological worldview. With the right technology set, any particular collection of values and sense of reality will be comfortable enough to work, bringing happiness and fulfillment.
So, my mistake was hoping that the novel would have "real" descriptions of how cool life might be like on a ringworld. I did get snippets of that, surprisingly brief. There was even one very cool part where the residents drop off their ringworld and head to the next one. Yes, that's correct - there's a whole lineup of these ringworlds, and after calculating that dropping off one sends you directly to the next, the characters embark within the strangest spaceship imaginable - a house, floating/flying in free fall.
But then the cool parts ended all too abruptly, and in between was several hundred pages of arcane philosophical arguments, and bizarre post-human virtual reality that made little sense. At least 325 pages of the 360 was a chore for me, bogging down into incomprehensibility.
But it's worth it. The author is definitely saying something. After reading, I do know what the "open-source Government" is, and how the "Votes" emerge. And I do have a better understanding of the "Good Book" and how it functions.
And I can briefly summarize the plot:
If reality is subjective, then any individual can summon up any reality they wish. To avoid madness, there are 3 possibilities:
1) Set up different manifolds, separate from each other by means of horizons, in which similar groups of people can engage in a common reality. The horizons between them are set up via "tech locks". (Because technology dictates your reality, as the author repeatedly informs, and as I mentioned earlier).
2) Create a homogeneous "narrative" in which there is one reality for everybody, and happiness and fulfillment is ubiquitous. Hide the fact from anyone's awareness that basically everybody is doing the same exact thing over and over again.
3) Let reality be governed by rules in the "Good Book", so that people no longer use their own volition to determine reality, but follow the guidelines to adjust accordingly to the interactions they have with others who are likewise playing roles dictated by the good book.
So these are the three options, and the main character Livia Kodaly is trying to save option 1. There are other forces, however, alien and otherwise, that are working for options 2 and 3. Can Livia do things herself? Or if she needs an ally, then from which could she choose? Which foe is truly a foe, and which foe might become an ally?
Or... is there a 4th option?
4) Keep the tech locks, and establish a set of manifolds without horizons?
By now you're got the point. There's a lot of deep ideas here, and some things seem to take on allegorical significance. But it's hard work, and when the novel bogs down, it stays bogged down for huge stretches, when I found myself rereading to be sure I was understanding what was said.
The plot hinges on the tech locks, and the four options, so I spent enough time to think I got the basic idea.... but I'd sure like to have more explanation.
Final score for this book:
for ideas 5 stars
for action 3 stars
for character 3 stars
I guess I'd average it out to 4/5.
But the ideas are vast and mind-boggling, and come fast enough to keep any reader wondering if they really know what Karl Schroeder is trying to say, so despite flaws it's still recommended to read.
Why was I disappointed? I read the back cover and found out that this book takes place on a Ringworld. Sounds cool, I thought, and I went into the book bringing my version of reality with me. Big mistake, and the author took the next 360 pages to beat me over the head again and again why my version of reality is not to be projected beyond myself, as it requires my own set of values which may not be shared elsewhere.
More than that however, reality and values require a certain technological worldview. With the right technology set, any particular collection of values and sense of reality will be comfortable enough to work, bringing happiness and fulfillment.
So, my mistake was hoping that the novel would have "real" descriptions of how cool life might be like on a ringworld. I did get snippets of that, surprisingly brief. There was even one very cool part where the residents drop off their ringworld and head to the next one. Yes, that's correct - there's a whole lineup of these ringworlds, and after calculating that dropping off one sends you directly to the next, the characters embark within the strangest spaceship imaginable - a house, floating/flying in free fall.
But then the cool parts ended all too abruptly, and in between was several hundred pages of arcane philosophical arguments, and bizarre post-human virtual reality that made little sense. At least 325 pages of the 360 was a chore for me, bogging down into incomprehensibility.
But it's worth it. The author is definitely saying something. After reading, I do know what the "open-source Government" is, and how the "Votes" emerge. And I do have a better understanding of the "Good Book" and how it functions.
And I can briefly summarize the plot:
If reality is subjective, then any individual can summon up any reality they wish. To avoid madness, there are 3 possibilities:
1) Set up different manifolds, separate from each other by means of horizons, in which similar groups of people can engage in a common reality. The horizons between them are set up via "tech locks". (Because technology dictates your reality, as the author repeatedly informs, and as I mentioned earlier).
2) Create a homogeneous "narrative" in which there is one reality for everybody, and happiness and fulfillment is ubiquitous. Hide the fact from anyone's awareness that basically everybody is doing the same exact thing over and over again.
3) Let reality be governed by rules in the "Good Book", so that people no longer use their own volition to determine reality, but follow the guidelines to adjust accordingly to the interactions they have with others who are likewise playing roles dictated by the good book.
So these are the three options, and the main character Livia Kodaly is trying to save option 1. There are other forces, however, alien and otherwise, that are working for options 2 and 3. Can Livia do things herself? Or if she needs an ally, then from which could she choose? Which foe is truly a foe, and which foe might become an ally?
Or... is there a 4th option?
4) Keep the tech locks, and establish a set of manifolds without horizons?
By now you're got the point. There's a lot of deep ideas here, and some things seem to take on allegorical significance. But it's hard work, and when the novel bogs down, it stays bogged down for huge stretches, when I found myself rereading to be sure I was understanding what was said.
The plot hinges on the tech locks, and the four options, so I spent enough time to think I got the basic idea.... but I'd sure like to have more explanation.
Final score for this book:
for ideas 5 stars
for action 3 stars
for character 3 stars
I guess I'd average it out to 4/5.
January 21, 2015
It's rare that a prequel is not only better than the original, but also completely stands alone to the point you don't need to have read the other book. Lady of Mazes is one such book. Although set in the universe of Ventus and hundreds of years before, although the antagonist (to use the word loosely) is the same, the main characters and setting are completely different.
Livia Kodalay's world, hidden from the rest of humanity to chart its own path, has been invaded and everything she knows is being torn apart. Her only hope becomes to seek help among the rest of the human civilization, although she's not even sure if her enemy is from them or not.
This is a book filled with ideas, not just about technology but about different ways to live, and what may make our lives meaningful and relevant, about how technology doesn't just define our values, but actually mediates our reality. Just as technology allows us to interact with things, like radio waves, that exist, but wouldn't otherwise affect our lives, become extremely important to us, it can also allow us to edit our senses and make things that are real, even potentially dangerous, not affect our lives at all. Each option is potentially as much an illusion as the other... unless we live naked in a cave, we choose the technology and the illusions it drags along (and in the end, the cave, too, is technology, that mediates our reality by making the weather something that can be occasionally ignored, and therefore not nearly as deadly).
One of the things I've noticed about this particular author over and over again is that rarely he includes true villains... in many cases, it's just conflicts between different points of view, of people doing the best they can... and it's much the same here, where even with the entity/group that's suggested as the big bad, you can see why some of the people choose that path, and of the many types of societies, I honestly don't know which I think is the more appealing path... there are aspects of both types that delight and terrify me a little. I've read this book several times, and each time I do, I go through this shift in my point of view, back and forth, not just seeing but agreeing with both sides and being left more than a little uncertain... which is great. I suppose that's expected a little when the main character's greatest strength is explicitly stated, not as skill with a sword or weapon, but the ability to see and empathize with other points of view.
This has become one of my favorite books and I'm sure I'll be reading it again.
Livia Kodalay's world, hidden from the rest of humanity to chart its own path, has been invaded and everything she knows is being torn apart. Her only hope becomes to seek help among the rest of the human civilization, although she's not even sure if her enemy is from them or not.
This is a book filled with ideas, not just about technology but about different ways to live, and what may make our lives meaningful and relevant, about how technology doesn't just define our values, but actually mediates our reality. Just as technology allows us to interact with things, like radio waves, that exist, but wouldn't otherwise affect our lives, become extremely important to us, it can also allow us to edit our senses and make things that are real, even potentially dangerous, not affect our lives at all. Each option is potentially as much an illusion as the other... unless we live naked in a cave, we choose the technology and the illusions it drags along (and in the end, the cave, too, is technology, that mediates our reality by making the weather something that can be occasionally ignored, and therefore not nearly as deadly).
One of the things I've noticed about this particular author over and over again is that rarely he includes true villains... in many cases, it's just conflicts between different points of view, of people doing the best they can... and it's much the same here, where even with the entity/group that's suggested as the big bad, you can see why some of the people choose that path, and of the many types of societies, I honestly don't know which I think is the more appealing path... there are aspects of both types that delight and terrify me a little. I've read this book several times, and each time I do, I go through this shift in my point of view, back and forth, not just seeing but agreeing with both sides and being left more than a little uncertain... which is great. I suppose that's expected a little when the main character's greatest strength is explicitly stated, not as skill with a sword or weapon, but the ability to see and empathize with other points of view.
This has become one of my favorite books and I'm sure I'll be reading it again.
April 16, 2015
What a richly inventive novel this is. Lady of Mazes is most of all about ideas, the concepts coming quickly and piled on top of each other.
To describe the plot is really to do the novel an injustice. Well, if I must, I'd say it's a kind of travel narrative in a far future solar system, where virtual reality plays a central role. The protagonist, Livia, sees terrible things happen to her home and world, so sets off to address them.
Where does she go? Livia travels between ringworlds. By flung house.
I'd like to describe more, but that's really spoiler time, since exploring this world is one of Lady of Mazes's pleasures. So:
Virtual reality is really central to the plot, which turns on the politics of building, maintaining, and sharing artificial worlds. Which sounds drier than it really is, since Schroeder's dialog keeps discussions thoughtful and fresh.
I was surprised by much of the plot, since it shunned cliches and swerved in odd directions. That's a rare treat for today's sf.
I have some passages to share in my next update.
To describe the plot is really to do the novel an injustice. Well, if I must, I'd say it's a kind of travel narrative in a far future solar system, where virtual reality plays a central role. The protagonist, Livia, sees terrible things happen to her home and world, so sets off to address them.
Where does she go? Livia travels between ringworlds. By flung house.
I'd like to describe more, but that's really spoiler time, since exploring this world is one of Lady of Mazes's pleasures. So:
Virtual reality is really central to the plot, which turns on the politics of building, maintaining, and sharing artificial worlds. Which sounds drier than it really is, since Schroeder's dialog keeps discussions thoughtful and fresh.
I was surprised by much of the plot, since it shunned cliches and swerved in odd directions. That's a rare treat for today's sf.
I have some passages to share in my next update.
March 10, 2018
2018 Reread notes:
Very good book, but hard to follow at times, and the characters aren't very convincing (except when they are). But the sfnal ideas are very, very cool!
Ideas 4.5 stars, characters & flow 3 stars. Overall 3.7 stars.
2006 Booklog notes:
B+/A-. Good far-future speculation. Gets a bit incoherent at the end, and starts out slow. I didn't really get interested until the group from Teven Coronal got out to the Archipelago.
http://www.kschroeder.com/my-books/la...
"Lady of Mazes is a tour de force of far-future science and technology. Among other things, you'll find:
* Vast orbiting ringworld structures with the surface area of Europe, but built using technology that's actually possible;
* A civilization so powerful it engages in the systematic dismantling of the sun for building materials;
* Three distinct visions of what the future of political institutions might look like;
* Swordfights, escapes and chases galore;
* A world of shifting realities where each citizen inhabits their own 'narrative', a customized virtual reality of solipsistic intensity;
* Livia Kodaly, a young woman with an extraordinary past that she wants only to live down, who is called upon to exceed even her own legend in order to save her people."
Here's the review that lead me to reread it. I didn't like the book as much as he did.
https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/...
"Lady of Mazes blew me away. I had to stop every few pages and just think about what happened, and there are dozens more moments, scenes, images, and ideas I want to mention and haven't. I can't do it all justice. You'll simply have to read the book yourself; I know I'm going to do so again."
Very good book, but hard to follow at times, and the characters aren't very convincing (except when they are). But the sfnal ideas are very, very cool!
Ideas 4.5 stars, characters & flow 3 stars. Overall 3.7 stars.
2006 Booklog notes:
B+/A-. Good far-future speculation. Gets a bit incoherent at the end, and starts out slow. I didn't really get interested until the group from Teven Coronal got out to the Archipelago.
http://www.kschroeder.com/my-books/la...
"Lady of Mazes is a tour de force of far-future science and technology. Among other things, you'll find:
* Vast orbiting ringworld structures with the surface area of Europe, but built using technology that's actually possible;
* A civilization so powerful it engages in the systematic dismantling of the sun for building materials;
* Three distinct visions of what the future of political institutions might look like;
* Swordfights, escapes and chases galore;
* A world of shifting realities where each citizen inhabits their own 'narrative', a customized virtual reality of solipsistic intensity;
* Livia Kodaly, a young woman with an extraordinary past that she wants only to live down, who is called upon to exceed even her own legend in order to save her people."
Here's the review that lead me to reread it. I didn't like the book as much as he did.
https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/...
"Lady of Mazes blew me away. I had to stop every few pages and just think about what happened, and there are dozens more moments, scenes, images, and ideas I want to mention and haven't. I can't do it all justice. You'll simply have to read the book yourself; I know I'm going to do so again."
July 27, 2012
Schroeder is a fairly recent discovery for me. (Why is it that I tend to love Canadian SF authors? Do I have some sort of deep-seated genetic affinity?) I haven't read everything by him yet, but I've liked everything I've read so far. 'Lady of Mazes; is admittedly not my favorite selection by him so far, but I still quite liked it. It reminded me of Elizabeth Bear's Jacob's Ladder books - but better.
It took a while for me to get into it. The multi-layered virtual reality these characters live in is challenging to understand - and the reader gets dumped right in.However, once the spray from the splashdown settles, the plot picks up - and there are plenty of plots. Unravelling the various motivations and mysteries, as this virtual world unravels, is a lot of fun.
It took a while for me to get into it. The multi-layered virtual reality these characters live in is challenging to understand - and the reader gets dumped right in.However, once the spray from the splashdown settles, the plot picks up - and there are plenty of plots. Unravelling the various motivations and mysteries, as this virtual world unravels, is a lot of fun.
February 13, 2012
I'm debating on whether to give this book 2 or 3 stars. Normally I'd plow through something this short and accessibly written in a day or two, but I kept finding myself putting this book down to do something else.
I had several issues, but foremost was the fact that for a novel that was billed as "hard sf" on the cover it was remarkably short on science and incredibly long on buzzwords and tropes. You could replace the Artificial Intelligences with Gods or Demons, the 'manifolds' and 'narratives' with astral planes, and nanotechnology with magic and it would quite frankly be a better novel.
My second issue is that I found the characters to be uninteresting and two dimensional. Often if an SF novel is short on the nuts and bolts, you will find that the author has focused on the characters and their interactions. That is the case here as well, really, but it didn't work for me.
Which brings me back full circle to my first issue, which is that to the author's credit he has created a very interesting world, Solar system, galaxy. Actually I'm not really sure what he created, because sometimes he talks about Earth, Jupiter and Venus as if they're very nearby, and other times they seem like they're on the other side of the galactic cluster. Everything is left up in the air like that. There are literally dozens of amazing locales, concepts and ideas introduced, sketchily explained and then ignored except when necessary to prop up the story.
My take: This book would be a MUCH better story if the fluff was trimmed down (there's an awful lot of soul searching, flying houses, unnecessary wooden spacecraft, etc.) and replaced with "nuts and bolts". Exploriation of some of the interesting locales would be a big plus as well.
I had several issues, but foremost was the fact that for a novel that was billed as "hard sf" on the cover it was remarkably short on science and incredibly long on buzzwords and tropes. You could replace the Artificial Intelligences with Gods or Demons, the 'manifolds' and 'narratives' with astral planes, and nanotechnology with magic and it would quite frankly be a better novel.
My second issue is that I found the characters to be uninteresting and two dimensional. Often if an SF novel is short on the nuts and bolts, you will find that the author has focused on the characters and their interactions. That is the case here as well, really, but it didn't work for me.
Which brings me back full circle to my first issue, which is that to the author's credit he has created a very interesting world, Solar system, galaxy. Actually I'm not really sure what he created, because sometimes he talks about Earth, Jupiter and Venus as if they're very nearby, and other times they seem like they're on the other side of the galactic cluster. Everything is left up in the air like that. There are literally dozens of amazing locales, concepts and ideas introduced, sketchily explained and then ignored except when necessary to prop up the story.
My take: This book would be a MUCH better story if the fluff was trimmed down (there's an awful lot of soul searching, flying houses, unnecessary wooden spacecraft, etc.) and replaced with "nuts and bolts". Exploriation of some of the interesting locales would be a big plus as well.
January 20, 2018
A fantastic merging of hard sci-fi and and space opera.
The scale is similar to The Eclipse series, Rendezvous with Rama, or an Iain Banks novel. The ideas are terrific. This is essentially a philosophical thought experiment on the implications of important ideas from computer science today in augmented reality and artificial intelligence. It covers in an accessible way topics like redirected walking, nanotechnology, emergent systems, embodied intelligence, and the socio-political analogues of digital systems. He's also careful to distinguish machine learning (pattern matching) computer behaviour from conscious artificial intelligence, and muses on the nature of intentionality and consciousness.
As an expert in many of those technologies, I found everything extremely well thought out and consistent. Until the deus ex machina ending chapters, the technologies described are all currently envisioned by science. The ones that collectively create inscape are potentially within our grasp in a rudimentary way in the next decade. It was fascinating to see an intelligent exploration this deep and full of new perspectives.
The first few chapters in particular follow the natural conclusion of how AR + AI [plus a bit of highly speculative nanotech] will change human communication. It at first seems fantastical, but consider how cell phones, social media, and texting have transformed social interactions. Where once we had relatively naive, serial face-to-face conversations there are now a sophisticated set of parallel facades and maneuvers...altering reality and perception and aided by machine learning, this could indeed become almost incomprehensible micro-politics and fragmented realities.
On the negative side, the writing is sometimes as opaque as that of William Gibson or Bruce Sterling because Schroeder holds back crucial details for understanding the basics of what is even happening for about half the book. I almost put it down in frustration; I'm glad I persevered, but think this was a poor structural choice on the author's and editor's part. The characters also have as little emotion or interest as Isaac Asimov's humans. That is, this is a book of plot and high ideas, and if you're looking for the appeal of a traditional novel, you won't find it here. At its core, this is a more exciting, modern update of Sophie's World.
The following (hidden in a spoiler tag in case you don't want to read it!) is the explanation that I wish Schroeder had included early in the book. Him holding this information back didn't yield any great revelation or desire to re-read the early chapters for me.
The scale is similar to The Eclipse series, Rendezvous with Rama, or an Iain Banks novel. The ideas are terrific. This is essentially a philosophical thought experiment on the implications of important ideas from computer science today in augmented reality and artificial intelligence. It covers in an accessible way topics like redirected walking, nanotechnology, emergent systems, embodied intelligence, and the socio-political analogues of digital systems. He's also careful to distinguish machine learning (pattern matching) computer behaviour from conscious artificial intelligence, and muses on the nature of intentionality and consciousness.
As an expert in many of those technologies, I found everything extremely well thought out and consistent. Until the deus ex machina ending chapters, the technologies described are all currently envisioned by science. The ones that collectively create inscape are potentially within our grasp in a rudimentary way in the next decade. It was fascinating to see an intelligent exploration this deep and full of new perspectives.
The first few chapters in particular follow the natural conclusion of how AR + AI [plus a bit of highly speculative nanotech] will change human communication. It at first seems fantastical, but consider how cell phones, social media, and texting have transformed social interactions. Where once we had relatively naive, serial face-to-face conversations there are now a sophisticated set of parallel facades and maneuvers...altering reality and perception and aided by machine learning, this could indeed become almost incomprehensible micro-politics and fragmented realities.
On the negative side, the writing is sometimes as opaque as that of William Gibson or Bruce Sterling because Schroeder holds back crucial details for understanding the basics of what is even happening for about half the book. I almost put it down in frustration; I'm glad I persevered, but think this was a poor structural choice on the author's and editor's part. The characters also have as little emotion or interest as Isaac Asimov's humans. That is, this is a book of plot and high ideas, and if you're looking for the appeal of a traditional novel, you won't find it here. At its core, this is a more exciting, modern update of Sophie's World.
The following (hidden in a spoiler tag in case you don't want to read it!) is the explanation that I wish Schroeder had included early in the book. Him holding this information back didn't yield any great revelation or desire to re-read the early chapters for me.
October 13, 2011
The following review ran in Strange Horizons:
Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder
Reviewed by Ursula Pflug
27 March 2006
Nanotech, for those few who might have missed it, is a rapidly developing technology which could make it possible to create absolutely anything by manipulating matter on the molecular level with the help of robotic assemblers, or nanobots, so small as to be invisible. Nanotech is often touted (as, of course, prior technologies have been as well) as potentially bringing a final end to all scarcity, and bestowing upon us lives of endless leisure.
In "More More More: Nanotechnology and the Law of Accelerating Returns," Ronald Bailey, the Reason science correspondent, writes:
"Computing will be integrated into our clothing: no more palmtops and laptops, and going to a Web site will mean going to a shared virtual reality environment. Around 2030, we should be able to flood our brains with nanobots that can be turned off and on and which would function as "experience beamers" allowing us to experience the full range of other people's sensory experiences and if we find ordinary experience too boring, we will have access to archives where more interesting experiences are stored."
Bailey is quoting Ray Kurzweil. More on him later, but there you have it. Toronto-based Karl Schroeder's third novel, Lady of Mazes need not take place off-world in the far future. The technology it describes is coming soon to a theatre near you. Like, next week.
Bailey's quote more or less describes the environment of Lady of Mazes, except that the venue is an AI-built ringworld near Jupiter, called Teven Coronal. Schroeder foresees a future in which entire realities—"manifolds"—inhabit the same physical space, and where there is little delineation remaining between the experience of the real and the experience of the virtual. The cultures of each manifold are kept discrete from one another by tech locks, the implications of which give the book its philosophical underpinning. The book's heroine, Livia Kodaly, is a diplomat between these virtual worlds.
Called by her old friend Lucius to join in an adventure, Livia travels to a neighbouring manifold, Raven, where people live in a neoanimist culture, amidst talking animals and trees. Raven is plagued by the sudden appearance of a rash of "impossibilities": objects of higher technology such as robots which are proscribed in Raven. The tech locks should allow the maintenance of virtual worlds subject not to homogeny but to personal taste. Ergo, the technologies available in Raven will be different from those in Oceanus, or Westerhaven, Livia's home manifold. Even before this, Qiingi, a warrior of Raven, knows his world isn't really "natural," the way we mean it, but is nonetheless content. (This was a bit of a hard sell. More on this later.)
Livia discovers that first Raven, and then the other manifiolds, are being invaded by a mysterious something, perhaps an AI called 3340, which breaks down the barriers between worlds in a bid to create a monoculture.
Inscape, a nanotech extrapolation of the Internet, has replaced reality to the extent that few ever experience the real world, and never for extended periods of time. Due to a systems crash that took place during their childhood, Livia and her best friend Aaron have some experience of the real world, and hence a bit of backbone. Most of the survivors of the localized crash eventually died or lost hope, unable to understand that a severe thunderstorm is a fact of nature and that no food or water means just that. Because they were able to learn this lesson, Livia and Aaron are somewhat less feeble than those around them and take it upon themselves, along with Qiingi, to leave their ringworld in a flying house (which I want), to go to the neighbouring Archipelago and endeavour to discover the nature of the invasion and whether or not it can be stopped.
During their adventures they learn many things, including that in the Archipelago an inscape monoculture subjugates (or is that cares for?) all; Teven Coronal's suppressed history; and the true nature of 3340. They meet a transhumanist, a god, someone called the Government, and some votes, who are a terrifically clever idea. They do save Teven, but it and they are irrevocably changed now that they are privy to the nature of the world outside their petri-dish reality, which, along with many other things, the makers of their world have kept from them: the price of knowledge is innocence lost.
Bill Joy reminded us, in his famous Wired article "Why The Future Doesn"t Need Us," that Thoreau said, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us." Joy wrote his warning after a meeting with author Ray Kurzweil in Tahoe in 1998. I've been to Tahoe, but just for the downhill skiing. I wish I'd been the proverbial fly on the wall at the bar that day, because in a way, Lady Of Mazes is a child of that meeting. Schroeder is keenly aware that we are living through a historical moment in which human lives are increasingly controlled by pervasive technological systems. To his great credit, he questions the inevitability of the railroad riding us. Is technological progress a priori a good thing? Lady of Mazes's impressive achievement is that it takes on this mostly unexamined tenet, not just of hard SF but of post-Enlightenment Western (read global) civilization.
In Qiingi's words, all technologies reflect the values of their designers. Even a culture with little or no technology has chosen: such an environment reflects the values of the citizenry, or at least those with power.
Schroeder's carefully considered solution to this problem, to ensure that we ride the railroad and it does not ride us (I'm constantly amazed by how many people I know who are ridden by their cell phones) is the aforementioned tech locks. I found the questions they raise slightly unexamined, although in general Schroeder's setting is well-realized. Do the citizenry, beyond Livia and Aaron and Lucius, never question the founders? There is on Teven little individual power beyond choosing to live in the manifold or submanifiold most to one's liking. This is not the same as the much greater power of the founders or designers: to themselves create worlds amongst which the masses may pick and choose. As well, the ostensibly natural world is in fact created and maintained by nanobots. But if they're so small you can't see them, it's as if they aren't there, right?
Still, Schroeder's society is seductive, and, in his version, ends up infecting the galaxy, as most people, once they've heard of them, agree the tech locks are what they want.
More:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/review...Lady of Mazes
Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder
Reviewed by Ursula Pflug
27 March 2006
Nanotech, for those few who might have missed it, is a rapidly developing technology which could make it possible to create absolutely anything by manipulating matter on the molecular level with the help of robotic assemblers, or nanobots, so small as to be invisible. Nanotech is often touted (as, of course, prior technologies have been as well) as potentially bringing a final end to all scarcity, and bestowing upon us lives of endless leisure.
In "More More More: Nanotechnology and the Law of Accelerating Returns," Ronald Bailey, the Reason science correspondent, writes:
"Computing will be integrated into our clothing: no more palmtops and laptops, and going to a Web site will mean going to a shared virtual reality environment. Around 2030, we should be able to flood our brains with nanobots that can be turned off and on and which would function as "experience beamers" allowing us to experience the full range of other people's sensory experiences and if we find ordinary experience too boring, we will have access to archives where more interesting experiences are stored."
Bailey is quoting Ray Kurzweil. More on him later, but there you have it. Toronto-based Karl Schroeder's third novel, Lady of Mazes need not take place off-world in the far future. The technology it describes is coming soon to a theatre near you. Like, next week.
Bailey's quote more or less describes the environment of Lady of Mazes, except that the venue is an AI-built ringworld near Jupiter, called Teven Coronal. Schroeder foresees a future in which entire realities—"manifolds"—inhabit the same physical space, and where there is little delineation remaining between the experience of the real and the experience of the virtual. The cultures of each manifold are kept discrete from one another by tech locks, the implications of which give the book its philosophical underpinning. The book's heroine, Livia Kodaly, is a diplomat between these virtual worlds.
Called by her old friend Lucius to join in an adventure, Livia travels to a neighbouring manifold, Raven, where people live in a neoanimist culture, amidst talking animals and trees. Raven is plagued by the sudden appearance of a rash of "impossibilities": objects of higher technology such as robots which are proscribed in Raven. The tech locks should allow the maintenance of virtual worlds subject not to homogeny but to personal taste. Ergo, the technologies available in Raven will be different from those in Oceanus, or Westerhaven, Livia's home manifold. Even before this, Qiingi, a warrior of Raven, knows his world isn't really "natural," the way we mean it, but is nonetheless content. (This was a bit of a hard sell. More on this later.)
Livia discovers that first Raven, and then the other manifiolds, are being invaded by a mysterious something, perhaps an AI called 3340, which breaks down the barriers between worlds in a bid to create a monoculture.
Inscape, a nanotech extrapolation of the Internet, has replaced reality to the extent that few ever experience the real world, and never for extended periods of time. Due to a systems crash that took place during their childhood, Livia and her best friend Aaron have some experience of the real world, and hence a bit of backbone. Most of the survivors of the localized crash eventually died or lost hope, unable to understand that a severe thunderstorm is a fact of nature and that no food or water means just that. Because they were able to learn this lesson, Livia and Aaron are somewhat less feeble than those around them and take it upon themselves, along with Qiingi, to leave their ringworld in a flying house (which I want), to go to the neighbouring Archipelago and endeavour to discover the nature of the invasion and whether or not it can be stopped.
During their adventures they learn many things, including that in the Archipelago an inscape monoculture subjugates (or is that cares for?) all; Teven Coronal's suppressed history; and the true nature of 3340. They meet a transhumanist, a god, someone called the Government, and some votes, who are a terrifically clever idea. They do save Teven, but it and they are irrevocably changed now that they are privy to the nature of the world outside their petri-dish reality, which, along with many other things, the makers of their world have kept from them: the price of knowledge is innocence lost.
Bill Joy reminded us, in his famous Wired article "Why The Future Doesn"t Need Us," that Thoreau said, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us." Joy wrote his warning after a meeting with author Ray Kurzweil in Tahoe in 1998. I've been to Tahoe, but just for the downhill skiing. I wish I'd been the proverbial fly on the wall at the bar that day, because in a way, Lady Of Mazes is a child of that meeting. Schroeder is keenly aware that we are living through a historical moment in which human lives are increasingly controlled by pervasive technological systems. To his great credit, he questions the inevitability of the railroad riding us. Is technological progress a priori a good thing? Lady of Mazes's impressive achievement is that it takes on this mostly unexamined tenet, not just of hard SF but of post-Enlightenment Western (read global) civilization.
In Qiingi's words, all technologies reflect the values of their designers. Even a culture with little or no technology has chosen: such an environment reflects the values of the citizenry, or at least those with power.
Schroeder's carefully considered solution to this problem, to ensure that we ride the railroad and it does not ride us (I'm constantly amazed by how many people I know who are ridden by their cell phones) is the aforementioned tech locks. I found the questions they raise slightly unexamined, although in general Schroeder's setting is well-realized. Do the citizenry, beyond Livia and Aaron and Lucius, never question the founders? There is on Teven little individual power beyond choosing to live in the manifold or submanifiold most to one's liking. This is not the same as the much greater power of the founders or designers: to themselves create worlds amongst which the masses may pick and choose. As well, the ostensibly natural world is in fact created and maintained by nanobots. But if they're so small you can't see them, it's as if they aren't there, right?
Still, Schroeder's society is seductive, and, in his version, ends up infecting the galaxy, as most people, once they've heard of them, agree the tech locks are what they want.
More:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/review...Lady of Mazes
October 7, 2018
In a lit class, sometimes the question comes up about who to "blame" when a text is not understandable. Sometimes, this is due to poor writing. However, other times, it is user error, and it is this case that brings me to this book.
I want to say I "got" the big ideas in the book: there's worlds stacked on top of worlds, virtual instances of a person that interact with the world, demigod AI things and an AI-run government, space travel... on their own, these concepts make sense. However, when joined together, it was a bit more than my brain could handle.
I think, though, that it got better further in, or at least I was more familiar with the ideas being pushed together. That and actual plotting and action.
If you're hot-to-trot on hard SF in the vein of Stross' Accelerando, this book is for you. Elsewise, just check out Accelerando.
I want to say I "got" the big ideas in the book: there's worlds stacked on top of worlds, virtual instances of a person that interact with the world, demigod AI things and an AI-run government, space travel... on their own, these concepts make sense. However, when joined together, it was a bit more than my brain could handle.
I think, though, that it got better further in, or at least I was more familiar with the ideas being pushed together. That and actual plotting and action.
If you're hot-to-trot on hard SF in the vein of Stross' Accelerando, this book is for you. Elsewise, just check out Accelerando.
February 12, 2025
Personally this is my favorite Karl Schroeder book. I bet much love the universe he builds and the exploration of technology and it's potentials. I re-read this book every few years since I first read it in high school and I feel every re-read that I am able to glean new insights into how technologies affect us. Since the writing of this book we have created multiple social medias and our tech and social landscape has grown more and influenced our society more and more. And since the last time I read it, ai has become more widespread and realistic while also giving us toys that can create much of anything, but not too far from what has already been created. Inscape might not be a technology too far off, and with it once day a society like the archipelago - limitless to whim but inherently limited in imagination - or we build a world of our own purpose that pushes us to imagine further.
I really recommend other books by this author and always look forward to new books to make me think about what else happens at the intersection of technology and human imagination.
I really recommend other books by this author and always look forward to new books to make me think about what else happens at the intersection of technology and human imagination.
March 14, 2022
This had vivid characters, lots of clever ideas and was nicely written. However, I have to be honest and say that I didn't understand what was going on quite a lot of the time! So I can't really go higher than 3 stars.
June 4, 2018
Read about 20%... loved the world building - the idea of individual intertwined realities - but the style , the pace and the Roman "flavor" were a major turn off.
April 8, 2013
Livia Kodaly lives in a ring world on the edge of the solar system in a far future in which 'reality' consists of a virtual reality that is superimposed on the physical world. The physics are a little sketchy, but that's beside the point; the conceit takes the notion that for each of us, our sense of reality is socially and culturally constructed, and makes it true on the level of the senses, not just on the level of mind. Livia's world comes under attack by a force that wants everyone to share the same reality; she and a few others escape and go looking for a way to fight back.
The various conflicts that drive the plot are built around competing answers to a set of philosophical questions: is it better to be content or free? In a post-Singularity universe - that is, after the development of beings transcendently greater than human beings - how can humans meaningfully exercise autonomy? If you voluntarily carry out assigned functions as part of a larger institution whose motives or methods you do not understand, have you sacrificed your own independent worth? These are mostly interesting questions. The story fudges on the ending - in fact, I couldn't see how the story's ending was even possible given the logic of the setting constructed through the rest of the book - but apart from that, the philosophic tensions are handled nicely.
On the other hand, the book has a hard time taking death - permanent death - seriously. The initial invasion of Livia's world and especially the end of the book are bloodbaths. One can imagine a future in which people can be readily brought back to life, or replaced with genetic clones and downloaded memories, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Instead, many, many people die violently, and clearly aren't going to be brought back to life. Yet, the protagonists don't really seem as traumatized as one might expect. That disconnect, and a certain plasticity to the main character -- she's always feeling what the story needs her to feel, rather than what this character actually would feel -- keep the story from feeling as fully satisfying as it could.
The various conflicts that drive the plot are built around competing answers to a set of philosophical questions: is it better to be content or free? In a post-Singularity universe - that is, after the development of beings transcendently greater than human beings - how can humans meaningfully exercise autonomy? If you voluntarily carry out assigned functions as part of a larger institution whose motives or methods you do not understand, have you sacrificed your own independent worth? These are mostly interesting questions. The story fudges on the ending - in fact, I couldn't see how the story's ending was even possible given the logic of the setting constructed through the rest of the book - but apart from that, the philosophic tensions are handled nicely.
On the other hand, the book has a hard time taking death - permanent death - seriously. The initial invasion of Livia's world and especially the end of the book are bloodbaths. One can imagine a future in which people can be readily brought back to life, or replaced with genetic clones and downloaded memories, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Instead, many, many people die violently, and clearly aren't going to be brought back to life. Yet, the protagonists don't really seem as traumatized as one might expect. That disconnect, and a certain plasticity to the main character -- she's always feeling what the story needs her to feel, rather than what this character actually would feel -- keep the story from feeling as fully satisfying as it could.
Read
September 14, 2016This is a really cool book that explores what societies built around virtual reality might evolve into. When you finally get used to the one society and how it works (and all the lingo, like animas and manifolds and tech locks, etc.), then you're on another planet which has an even more advanced version of this virtual reality. It's awesome. Interestingly, transhumanism was deemed off limits, but Jupiter's culture is starting to explore the idea.
So I loved the ideas, but I just couldn't stay immersed in this book. I had to fight to keep reading in the beginning, with the steep learning curve. Then I was a little bored because there wasn't much happening that was definite until about 25% of the way through. Just vague hints of things going wrong.
Then when we left the coronals and headed to Jupiter, my interest was renewed, but that didn't last long. I got 52% of the way through with no desire to pick it back up again. Which sucks, because I generally love stories set in virtual reality, and I do love the concepts explored in this one. Maybe I'll come back to this at some point.
So I loved the ideas, but I just couldn't stay immersed in this book. I had to fight to keep reading in the beginning, with the steep learning curve. Then I was a little bored because there wasn't much happening that was definite until about 25% of the way through. Just vague hints of things going wrong.
Then when we left the coronals and headed to Jupiter, my interest was renewed, but that didn't last long. I got 52% of the way through with no desire to pick it back up again. Which sucks, because I generally love stories set in virtual reality, and I do love the concepts explored in this one. Maybe I'll come back to this at some point.
January 3, 2018
This book begins with a good character and huge ideas. Livia Kodaly is an extremely social young woman with a deep connection to home -- except home is a virtual reality and her social group is an always-on group of AI that behave exactly like (and can be replaced by) her closest friends and family. The narrative takes you on an insanely epic, thought-provoking ride that feels like traveling through concepts and universes that are astounding in their imagination and exciting in their thorough and compelling development. By the end of it all it's bursting with mad science: humans, posthumans, and AI angels, open source government, gods, and the freedom to choose technologies defined by our values. But the ideas are all in pursuit of a focused thematic argument that makes Lady of Mazes hard to put down and impossible to stop thinking about.
This may be the best narrative we have about virtual and augmented realities, because it's not just about what's possible if we lose ourselves in emerging technologies, but the philosophical and cultural problems that have emerged because we already have.
This may be the best narrative we have about virtual and augmented realities, because it's not just about what's possible if we lose ourselves in emerging technologies, but the philosophical and cultural problems that have emerged because we already have.
March 1, 2023
I haven't read Lady of Mazes in over a decade, but I realize now that during that time many of its thrilling, futuristic ideas have had a profound influence on me; between the societal breakdowns that have been taking place globally in recent years, and the current rapid development in AI and AR/VR, Schroeder's vision of the future is already becoming startlingly relevant.
July 4, 2017
A book to make you think. I enjoyed the absence of infodumps, and the gradual introductions of technologies and viewpoints. The plot zips along (sometimes a little too smoothly perhaps), but the core ideas underlying the novel are great, addressing interesting philosophical questions without getting lost in them. Hidden gem.
January 1, 2019
lovely but jard to pin down story. well written though sometimes slightly too in love with its own philosophy lectures. still some interesting points made about the future of humanity and its relation to technology, and the nature of reality. I enjoyed the extreme forward leap in time and the way different societies and politics were framed.
January 2, 2019
(Más abajo en castellano)
For those who are not science fiction fans, this book is not just science fiction, it is hard sf. This means, in theory, that the ideas, concepts and scenarios described have a greater preponderance in the novel than the characters and their "psychological development".
That said, I add that the novel, honoring the subgenre, is "hard" to enter to, so I imagine that several readers will abandon it after the first pages. What happens is that the author decided to start with a total immersion in the world of his creation, without providing further explanations or context, and using words of his own creation to name things that obviously doesn't exist yet.
And well, the development of the novel occurs mainly in an orbital ring near Jupiter, but if you expect something like Niven's Ring-world please change your expectations, the mega structure permeates the different cultures it houses, but it is not the narration center or purpose, this focuses on the AI that govern the cultures of the ring and the ring itself. All these cultures are in a state of post-scarcity economy, that is, in them the goods, services and information are universally accessible so that nobody has to work or pay to get them
I won't talk about the action or the plot, because I think the important thing in the book is the exposure of a society completely built on virtual reality, where contact with "real" reality (sorry for the redundancy) can become fatal. Does it sound unreal? for nothing, maybe when this book was written, but now, with the arrival of the Internet of things and IA more and more powerful, the fiction of this book is already seen as an extrapolation of the current software development. In a way, this is a novel that talks about the famous technological singularity, but from another perspective. The philosophical themes that emerge from all this are also interesting, in fact I read that the novel can be qualified as speculative realism, which is a movement of contemporary philosophy.
To finish and not make it longer, I absolutely recommend this book, a pity that is the only one of Schroeder in Spanish so far. It's a pity too that he has not been very successful in the Spanish-American fandom. I confess that I bought it on sale and even still with doubts because the author did not sound me at all. The translation basically fine, although a more attentive corrector would have eliminated several errors that make the reading stumble.
-------------------------------------------------------
Para los que no son fans de la ciencia ficción, este libro no sólo es de ciencia ficción, es cf dura. Eso significa, en teoría, que las ideas, conceptos y escenarios descritos tienen una mayor preponderancia en la novela que los personajes y su "desarrollo sicológico".
Dicho esto añado que la novela, haciendo honor al subgénero, es "dura" para entrar a ella, por lo que imagino que varios la abandonarán luego de las primeras páginas. Pasa que el autor decidió hacer de arranque una inmersión total en el mundo de su creación, sin brindar mayores explicaciones ni contexto, y usando "palabros" de su propia creación para nombrar cosas que -obviamente- aún no existen.
Y bueno, el desarrollo de la novela ocurre principalmente en un anillo orbital cerca de Júpiter, pero si esperan algo como Mundo anillo de Niven vayan cambiando de expectativas, la megaestructura permea las distintas culturas que alberga, pero no es el fin en si de la narración, esta se enfoca en las AI que rigen las culturas del anillo y el anillo mismo. Todas estas culturas se encuentran en un estado de economía post-escasez, es decir, en ellas los bienes, servicios e información son universalmente accesibles por lo que nadie tiene que trabajar o pagar para conseguirlos.
No les hablaré sobre la acción o la trama, por que me parece que lo importante del libro es la exposición de una sociedad totalmente construida sobre realidad virtual, donde el contacto con la realidad "real" (valga la redundancia) puede llegar a ser fatal. ¿Suena irreal? para nada, si cuando se escribió este libro quizás si, ahora, con la llegada del Internet de las cosas e IA cada vez más potentes la ficción de este libro se ve ya como una extrapolación del desarrollo informático actual. En cierta manera esta es una novela en la que se habla de la famosa singularidad tecnológica, pero desde otro enfoque. Los temas filosóficos que se desprenden de todo esto también son interesantes, de hecho leí que la novela puede ser calificada como de realismo especulativo, que es un movimiento de la filosofía contemporánea.
Para acabar y no hacerla más larga, recomiendo absolutamente este libro, una pena que sea el único de Schroeder en castellano hasta ahora. Lástima también que no haya tenido demasiado éxito en el fandom hispanoamericano. Confieso que lo compré de saldo y aún así con dudas pues el autor no me sonaba de nada. La traducción básicamente bien, aunque un corrector más atento hubiera eliminado varios errores que hacen trastabillar la lectura.
For those who are not science fiction fans, this book is not just science fiction, it is hard sf. This means, in theory, that the ideas, concepts and scenarios described have a greater preponderance in the novel than the characters and their "psychological development".
That said, I add that the novel, honoring the subgenre, is "hard" to enter to, so I imagine that several readers will abandon it after the first pages. What happens is that the author decided to start with a total immersion in the world of his creation, without providing further explanations or context, and using words of his own creation to name things that obviously doesn't exist yet.
And well, the development of the novel occurs mainly in an orbital ring near Jupiter, but if you expect something like Niven's Ring-world please change your expectations, the mega structure permeates the different cultures it houses, but it is not the narration center or purpose, this focuses on the AI that govern the cultures of the ring and the ring itself. All these cultures are in a state of post-scarcity economy, that is, in them the goods, services and information are universally accessible so that nobody has to work or pay to get them
I won't talk about the action or the plot, because I think the important thing in the book is the exposure of a society completely built on virtual reality, where contact with "real" reality (sorry for the redundancy) can become fatal. Does it sound unreal? for nothing, maybe when this book was written, but now, with the arrival of the Internet of things and IA more and more powerful, the fiction of this book is already seen as an extrapolation of the current software development. In a way, this is a novel that talks about the famous technological singularity, but from another perspective. The philosophical themes that emerge from all this are also interesting, in fact I read that the novel can be qualified as speculative realism, which is a movement of contemporary philosophy.
To finish and not make it longer, I absolutely recommend this book, a pity that is the only one of Schroeder in Spanish so far. It's a pity too that he has not been very successful in the Spanish-American fandom. I confess that I bought it on sale and even still with doubts because the author did not sound me at all. The translation basically fine, although a more attentive corrector would have eliminated several errors that make the reading stumble.
-------------------------------------------------------
Para los que no son fans de la ciencia ficción, este libro no sólo es de ciencia ficción, es cf dura. Eso significa, en teoría, que las ideas, conceptos y escenarios descritos tienen una mayor preponderancia en la novela que los personajes y su "desarrollo sicológico".
Dicho esto añado que la novela, haciendo honor al subgénero, es "dura" para entrar a ella, por lo que imagino que varios la abandonarán luego de las primeras páginas. Pasa que el autor decidió hacer de arranque una inmersión total en el mundo de su creación, sin brindar mayores explicaciones ni contexto, y usando "palabros" de su propia creación para nombrar cosas que -obviamente- aún no existen.
Y bueno, el desarrollo de la novela ocurre principalmente en un anillo orbital cerca de Júpiter, pero si esperan algo como Mundo anillo de Niven vayan cambiando de expectativas, la megaestructura permea las distintas culturas que alberga, pero no es el fin en si de la narración, esta se enfoca en las AI que rigen las culturas del anillo y el anillo mismo. Todas estas culturas se encuentran en un estado de economía post-escasez, es decir, en ellas los bienes, servicios e información son universalmente accesibles por lo que nadie tiene que trabajar o pagar para conseguirlos.
No les hablaré sobre la acción o la trama, por que me parece que lo importante del libro es la exposición de una sociedad totalmente construida sobre realidad virtual, donde el contacto con la realidad "real" (valga la redundancia) puede llegar a ser fatal. ¿Suena irreal? para nada, si cuando se escribió este libro quizás si, ahora, con la llegada del Internet de las cosas e IA cada vez más potentes la ficción de este libro se ve ya como una extrapolación del desarrollo informático actual. En cierta manera esta es una novela en la que se habla de la famosa singularidad tecnológica, pero desde otro enfoque. Los temas filosóficos que se desprenden de todo esto también son interesantes, de hecho leí que la novela puede ser calificada como de realismo especulativo, que es un movimiento de la filosofía contemporánea.
Para acabar y no hacerla más larga, recomiendo absolutamente este libro, una pena que sea el único de Schroeder en castellano hasta ahora. Lástima también que no haya tenido demasiado éxito en el fandom hispanoamericano. Confieso que lo compré de saldo y aún así con dudas pues el autor no me sonaba de nada. La traducción básicamente bien, aunque un corrector más atento hubiera eliminado varios errores que hacen trastabillar la lectura.
November 4, 2023
I saw this book highly recommended in the comments chain of a brilliant lesswrong article.
I took it up eagerly hoping it would have original insights, made me see a perspective I’d not seen before.
I was disappointed. It was an underwhelming read.
I hope maybe it’s because of how broadly I’ve already read and thought. It is possible I’ve missed the subtle points the book tries to make.
But I was expecting to feel more.
This book covers the ideas of how humanity will deal with post scarcity situations of being able to wirehead ourselves completely. Experience any reality we want, would lead us down paths of growing numb to our base realities.
If the dream world is reliable long enough, people will take the technology that allows this for granted.
The book seemed to be trying to show how this is a bad thing. As if somehow struggling against our mortal coils is somehow meaningful. It’s just a choice of constraints we submit ourselves to. The criticisms of the lack of originality applies in both lifestyles… it’s a matter of scale.
The questions the book tries to tackle is worth thinking about, but I don’t think the author did the subject justice.
The solution of tech locks, of manifolds that allow for clusters of coherent value families seemed like an elegant solution. But it stretched my suspension of disbelief that it wasn’t possible to reconstruct the tech tree if the archipelago has the compute to find the rule for the golden book through brute force computation.
It was interesting the idea of distributed computing emerging from simple rule based interactions between embodied humans. Makes me think what else we don’t give ontological status because of our bias towards objects that are spatially or temporarily continuous.
Definitely 3 stars in terms of the ideas of animas, parallel simulated personas. I would have liked an explainer on how they integrated the data to the main body, seems like the verbal exchange with agents is heavily band limited.
I liked the idea of how they caused manifolds downfall, how the weakness is cultural than attacking through brute force. Kinda makes it funny how Annie’s resorted to brute force at the end.
I liked how the whisper network prevented long distance high fidelity communication. The explanation of fire breaks to prevent criticality states was done wonderfully.
I took it up eagerly hoping it would have original insights, made me see a perspective I’d not seen before.
I was disappointed. It was an underwhelming read.
I hope maybe it’s because of how broadly I’ve already read and thought. It is possible I’ve missed the subtle points the book tries to make.
But I was expecting to feel more.
This book covers the ideas of how humanity will deal with post scarcity situations of being able to wirehead ourselves completely. Experience any reality we want, would lead us down paths of growing numb to our base realities.
If the dream world is reliable long enough, people will take the technology that allows this for granted.
The book seemed to be trying to show how this is a bad thing. As if somehow struggling against our mortal coils is somehow meaningful. It’s just a choice of constraints we submit ourselves to. The criticisms of the lack of originality applies in both lifestyles… it’s a matter of scale.
The questions the book tries to tackle is worth thinking about, but I don’t think the author did the subject justice.
The solution of tech locks, of manifolds that allow for clusters of coherent value families seemed like an elegant solution. But it stretched my suspension of disbelief that it wasn’t possible to reconstruct the tech tree if the archipelago has the compute to find the rule for the golden book through brute force computation.
It was interesting the idea of distributed computing emerging from simple rule based interactions between embodied humans. Makes me think what else we don’t give ontological status because of our bias towards objects that are spatially or temporarily continuous.
Definitely 3 stars in terms of the ideas of animas, parallel simulated personas. I would have liked an explainer on how they integrated the data to the main body, seems like the verbal exchange with agents is heavily band limited.
I liked the idea of how they caused manifolds downfall, how the weakness is cultural than attacking through brute force. Kinda makes it funny how Annie’s resorted to brute force at the end.
I liked how the whisper network prevented long distance high fidelity communication. The explanation of fire breaks to prevent criticality states was done wonderfully.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 19, 2018
Stopped reading around 1/4th in.
I do like the concept -- a post-scarcity future where people spend all their time creating meaning for their lives by choosing exactly what world they want to live in, and who they want to spend it with. Technology allows each person to weave exactly the reality they want, and to block out the parts they don't like. This leads to people coming together to create entirely new cultures, with intricate histories and power relations -- all 100% voluntarily. The various cultures ("realms") can physically exist right next each to other, but their members won't notice each other unless they try. Members can leave, enter and create cultures at will. Cultures can even wage wars upon each other, as long as everyone participates voluntarily (I'm not sure if anyone actually dies in these wars or not).
It's a very attractive, and not entirely impossible, future, and many important ethical questions can, and are, explored. I think, however, the setting loses some power by being closer to fantasy to science fiction. The way the "technology" is supposed to work doesn't always make sense, and seems tailored to create a certain atmosphere, or keep the story going, rather than to be realistic. As another reviewer pointed out, it might as well be magic. But a lot of the time, the ethical implications do depend on the details; and when the details don't make sense, the narrative stops being convincing.
But I didn't read through the whole book, so maybe the details do make sense. Maybe I just needed to read the rest of the book for everything to fall into place. The story was OK, but it didn't really captivate me. The metaphysical explorations seemed to be going in a direction that didn't interest me; I felt I had learnt all I could from the book, and put it away for now.
I do like the concept -- a post-scarcity future where people spend all their time creating meaning for their lives by choosing exactly what world they want to live in, and who they want to spend it with. Technology allows each person to weave exactly the reality they want, and to block out the parts they don't like. This leads to people coming together to create entirely new cultures, with intricate histories and power relations -- all 100% voluntarily. The various cultures ("realms") can physically exist right next each to other, but their members won't notice each other unless they try. Members can leave, enter and create cultures at will. Cultures can even wage wars upon each other, as long as everyone participates voluntarily (I'm not sure if anyone actually dies in these wars or not).
It's a very attractive, and not entirely impossible, future, and many important ethical questions can, and are, explored. I think, however, the setting loses some power by being closer to fantasy to science fiction. The way the "technology" is supposed to work doesn't always make sense, and seems tailored to create a certain atmosphere, or keep the story going, rather than to be realistic. As another reviewer pointed out, it might as well be magic. But a lot of the time, the ethical implications do depend on the details; and when the details don't make sense, the narrative stops being convincing.
But I didn't read through the whole book, so maybe the details do make sense. Maybe I just needed to read the rest of the book for everything to fall into place. The story was OK, but it didn't really captivate me. The metaphysical explorations seemed to be going in a direction that didn't interest me; I felt I had learnt all I could from the book, and put it away for now.
July 30, 2022
I thought I'd love this book. A far-future post-scarcity world has used augmented reality cybernetics to build elaborate structures and separate societies that appear as if they're in different worlds, never interacting despite being in overlapping physical locations. People can clothe themselves in elaborate costumes or redecorate their houses or change their entire surroundings (as seen by themselves) with a word.
And then the augmented reality tech starts failing.
Tragically, this setting isn't presented in an interesting way. It's confusing exactly what is happening, half of the societies presented so far just aren't interesting to me, and on top of that our protagonist hasn't grabbed my sympathies. I abandoned this book almost a quarter of the way through.
But still, the idea behind the setting has grown on me. Hopefully someone else's done it better.
And then the augmented reality tech starts failing.
Tragically, this setting isn't presented in an interesting way. It's confusing exactly what is happening, half of the societies presented so far just aren't interesting to me, and on top of that our protagonist hasn't grabbed my sympathies. I abandoned this book almost a quarter of the way through.
But still, the idea behind the setting has grown on me. Hopefully someone else's done it better.
May 27, 2022
Hilariously bad. But not so hilarious that I can muster the will to finish it. The story is that, basically, the most popular, obnoxious, rich college girl in the whole word finds out that her amazing, vast golf course/country club isn't the only place on earth, and that the poor people are revolting, and insisting she leave her glorious fantasy world. Oh no!
Calling this "hard science fiction" is a pretty slick marketing tool, but this is pure fantasy, just an endless stream of absurd techno-babble that means nothing but what the author, on a sentence by sentence basis, tells you it means. "We've got to reflambulate the gabknockles or the wimky-boos will carpandulize the snugs!" is essentially what every paragraph promises, followed by one explaining whether that's good or bad.
Calling this "hard science fiction" is a pretty slick marketing tool, but this is pure fantasy, just an endless stream of absurd techno-babble that means nothing but what the author, on a sentence by sentence basis, tells you it means. "We've got to reflambulate the gabknockles or the wimky-boos will carpandulize the snugs!" is essentially what every paragraph promises, followed by one explaining whether that's good or bad.
April 25, 2018
The world was interesting, but the characters felt shallow or one dimensional. The plot didn't really feel like the characters had agency but instead like they were just reacting.
The full implications of the world outside the home planet didn't seem to be realized--lots of interesting ideas, but sometimes it seemed like the reality wasn't thought through. For instance, if everyone is always in a virtual reality, why are they wearing clothing in the non-virtual? How is their basic hygiene handled? How do they eat? Why aren't they all fat lumps? How do they actually procreate? Where do the resources actually come from?
The full implications of the world outside the home planet didn't seem to be realized--lots of interesting ideas, but sometimes it seemed like the reality wasn't thought through. For instance, if everyone is always in a virtual reality, why are they wearing clothing in the non-virtual? How is their basic hygiene handled? How do they eat? Why aren't they all fat lumps? How do they actually procreate? Where do the resources actually come from?
November 14, 2020
Sublime
Karl schroeder's Lady of Mazes is so profound and poetic. Livia Kodaly, the protagonist, has much to teach us. The world building is superlative. The animas, societies, manifold realities, and diversities speak to the modern age we live and search for meaning in. The layers if the human psyche are examined and superficial existence laid bare. I was moved, informed and astonished. I consider this epic a masterpiece with many meaningful layers, full of surprises and the unexpected. I know I will return to reading it again and again.
Karl schroeder's Lady of Mazes is so profound and poetic. Livia Kodaly, the protagonist, has much to teach us. The world building is superlative. The animas, societies, manifold realities, and diversities speak to the modern age we live and search for meaning in. The layers if the human psyche are examined and superficial existence laid bare. I was moved, informed and astonished. I consider this epic a masterpiece with many meaningful layers, full of surprises and the unexpected. I know I will return to reading it again and again.
May 27, 2024
I actually enjoyed this book a lot. It takes some concentration to understand what's going on, so it's not one to speed read or read while distracted. The characters could be better fleshed out, but the world-building is phenomenal. Schroeder developed a really interesting universe (this was my first dip, having not read Ventus). I did have to google around to find a couple of reviews with some details I was missing to make sure I really understood the world, inscape, and manifolds. But with that out of the way, I thoroughly enjoyed this story.
November 26, 2016
Really good, really fascinating... yet I can't love a book that took 100+ pages to become comprehensible. Hard sci fi. Slow to come into focus, slow to gather around what it's about. Some fine images and moments, some dreary and turgid ones. I suspect if it was ten percent more comprehensible, it would be half as interesting.
April 21, 2021
Okay, reading the other reviews, I've literally just now discovered this was actually a prequel. Now I need to read the original series! I just love the technology in this book. I am perpetually wishing for a computer in my brain, and would love to live in a society like this where you can manipulate your reality. That was probably the exact opposite point of this book, but oh well :)
August 26, 2020
The techno-jargon is pretty intense (and initially somewhat opaque) and one of the main characters is really annoying. However, the writing is very good, the world-building is amazing, and the characters overall are compelling.
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