Fine Structure

by Sam Hughes, qntm

Fledgling physicist Ching-Yu Kuang has discovered a Rosetta Stone for all of physics, a treasure trove of advanced scientific breakthroughs beyond all imagination. Exotic energy, teleportation, FTL, parallel universes and near-infinitely more wonders are just within reach; a promise of paradise.

But every attempt to exploit this new science results in sabotage, chaos and destruction. And the laws of science themselves are changing with each experiment, locking out the new discoveries, directly altering the universe to make what should be possible impossible. While Ching watches, humanity's future is being stolen.

Because there's something wrong with his world. There's a fundamental flaw, a defect in its structure...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Superheroes, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Hard Science Fiction

359 pages, ebook

First published February 2, 2010

Reviews

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the science world had a dollar of funding, each time somebody complained in a hard-SF review that the characters/dialogues are poorly written, We would hava terraformed Mars years ago.

It was just amazing. Like a rollercoster, each chapter adding a piece to the puzzle which is this book. As it was being revealed, how the various pieces could come together it left me trying to piece it together, eager to read on.

It honestly felt, like the author picked the sweetest, most decadent elements of the SF genre, and pieces a book from them.

(To add a dollar to the fund :) ) some stylistics elements could be polished to make for a smoother reading.

[S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not perfect. This is almost entirely due to how it was first written: as a series of (unrelated) short stories which were linked together, perhaps more than they should have been. As a result, every chapter is intriguing, has individual merit, and is a great read. However, until perhaps 3/4 of the way through, there isn't a unifying concept which holds all of these stories firmly together.
Several interesting plotlines come up, and are later pruned off. Once those extraneous bits (themselves, independently, some of my all-time-favourite SciFi) have finished wrapping up, what remains is a truly excellent exploration of the same concepts touched on in many of the stories by Sam Hughes, ie: physical laws of the universe as code.

Since first being written, some of the chapters have been shuffled around, and shuffled back. There is also a major revelation at the end which, after massive backlash from the readers, was rolled-back, literally removed from the story. But key elements of this revelation, including hints towards it and the scene in which the "big reveal" was meant to happen, remain. The result is very disconnected from itself, and there are more than minor non-sequiturs left over which can be jarring.

And yet, even with all those caveats, this remains one of my favourite works of fiction, while the individual chapters remain my favourite short stories, and every time I re-read it in its entirety (which is perhaps more than any other story in any medium), I get something new out of it.

It is far from perfect, but I cannot recommend this story enough.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun short stories that instantly fall apart as soon as they're even tangentially connected, which happens very early on. The overarching narrative is overwritten and generic for how creative some of the premises are. Unbelievably bad ending and totally flat characters. I don't wanna be too vicious because it's a weird self published internet serial thing, but I was really hoping for something more "out there" if the author is unbound by publishers or writing standards. Just go nuts.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Messy, weird serialized internet book. What if Dresden Codak had no pictures and way more words? What I'm saying is I loved it.

[Yuri Krupenin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Вот это ебануться злюще

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fine Structure is not well written. The dialogue is hazy, the characters are interchangeable. What makes Fine Structure truly good is its superb use of science, twist, and the generation of "wonder and awe". It hurdled us from one science fiction extreme to the other, and it throws us across eons, beck and forth.

There is no way to be specific about the plot our the themes without ruining it. There is only a few things I can tell you it isn't: it is not cyberpunk (but it does have computer science fiction). that is it.

It does have a high intelligence threshold though. you need to be comfortable reading Flatland, reading books that are based off flatland, and generally imagining things that exist in other dimensions. You needed to be good at tracking characters, Game of Thrones style, as well as settings.

If you can manage that, and find the tune, then you should be able to enjoy Fine Structure.

[Alfredo Amatriain · Rating 4 out of 5]

A demanding but very rewarding read. As others have pointed it's not perfect: some things are explained in a confusing way, and some characters' voices are not very distinctive. Despite this it's very good, even breathtaking once some of the pieces fitting in place. Recommended.

[Reed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Big ideas, no cohesion, a disconnected mess.

A Q&A at the end to explain away readers’ confusion.

Potential for 5 stars with a rewrite but it’s just too damn hard to read at this point.

[Miglė · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ak! Taip smarkiai linksminausi, skaitydama to paties autoriaus There Is No Antimemetics Division, kad į šią knygą nėriau stačia galva - ir susitrenkiau į pasakojimo manierą.

Ir "Antimemetics", ir "Fine structure" naudoja pasakojimus iš įvairių personažų perspektyvų, ten pvz 1) Pagrindinės veikėjos A istorija, 2) šalutinio veikėjo B istorija, kuri labiau atskleidžia pasaulį, 3) Vėl iš A taško sutinkame priešą Z, 4) Kažkoks visai atsitiktinis veikėjas K miške sutinka senį L, 5), 6), 7) vėl A perspektyva, 6) Iš B perspektyvos išaiškėja, kad senis L iš tiesų yra priešas Z! ir t.t.

Bet man atrodo, kad "Antimemetics" turėjo aiškesnę ir konkretesnę (bet ne apčiuopiamesnę, cha cha) centrinę idėją, kur ta personažų plejada netrukdė, o "Fine structure" struktūra nebuvo tokia jau fine. Skaitai, skaitai, jau beveik įsijauti ir šnai - "eina du žygeiviai Ukrainos miškais...". Iš pradžių ok, paskui jau verčia sakyti "Nu ble, kiek galima, duokit skaityt!".

Sci-fi idėjos taškosi - mane kažkodėl ypač džiugina, kai įvedamos papildomos erdvės dimensijos, negaliu, kaip patinka!! To čia buvo apsčiai, kartais (pabaigos link) iki balagano, bet apskritai faina tos dimensijos. Bet ak, jei tik būtų mažiau "Eina du žygeiviai..."!

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my!! This was great fun! I could almost read it again! I don't think it's a spoiler to say the novel is built from entwined short-stories. Most of these could be extended to make novels all of their own!

Check out the qntm website for deleted parts! And notes!

[Fred Nanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tons of great ideas but what a structural mess!
So much so that the author felt compelled to add explanations and a Q&A at the end of the book.

[Dougie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interwoven timelines with fixed characters but fluid roles with some amazing concepts drawing from various SF genres. Loved the depth of some of the characters as they struggled to adapt to the depth and breadth of the ever mounting problems. The ending was breathtaking. Went back and re-read the last few chapters!

[Ardwulf · Rating 1 out of 5]

Total Gibberish

This could have been a real mindblower, but as it is, there's a pile of disconnected ideas, characters and plot threads without a narrative throughline. Not at all worth your time.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual from qntm, this is a mind-bending and incredibly engaging exploration of existential sci-fi concepts including extra-dimensional beings, time travel, and the concept of "intelligence" itself. It's hard (for me at least) to write about his work because it's just so damn complex and there is so much to talk about. And I feel like keeping it short n sweet (kinda). I was exposed to qntm through his SCP series "There is No Antimemetics Division," now also a book in its own right, and have since read Ra as well. Although Fine Structure was not my favorite so far, I still absolutely loved it and had a blast reading it. Like qntm's other work, it immediately pulls you in and keeps you on your toes the whole way - exciting, thought-provoking, and immersive writing. Really awesome existential sci-fi written with creativity and passion. The characters aren't always terribly easy to connect with, and sometimes their interactions can be awkward; there are also a fair few editing mistakes/typos (more in this one, I think, than in Ra, but it's been a while since I read that one). But it's 100% worth reading for the story, the concepts, and the incredible weird worlds that qntm builds.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Less a novel and more of a collection of barely connected sci-fi ideas. So disconnected are the chapters that, 25% in, I was checking to see if what I thought was supposed to be a novel was actually a short story collection. Apparently it is in fact supposed to be a novel.

With some streamlining of the plot, editing to make the characters more than just names that occasionally deliver plot or the author’s latest load of ideas, and maybe a few complete rewrites, this could be an interesting book. As it stands, it’s hard to recommend to anyone that wasn’t taken with it when it first released in dribs and drabs online.

[Buchsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun easy read that never stuck on one character or arc too long before switching to another. Always love a team of scientists coming together to save the day story.

There are parts of the story that feel like they were rushed and needed expansion (the ending) and parts that I wanted to spend more time in (Anne and the post Crash timeline).

3.5/5 (juust ekeing out at 4 instead of 3)

[Paul Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a significantly more ambitious Three Body Problem. The ideas-per-page ratio is off the charts, but as many have pointed out, areas like characterization, pacing, hell even coherence are lacking. Undoubtedly, this is partly due to its status as a stitched-together blog series, and partly due to the genre trappings of “hard sci-fi” (although it really stretches the definition), but nevertheless Fine Structure does not successfully transcend these labels. There is No Antimemetics Division succeeded despite its status as a spin-off of the SCP wiki because it had characters that we liked with motivations we understood, regardless of all the crazy shit happening. Eventually that book went a little off-the-rails as well, but on the whole it was grounded by its fundamentally good storytelling. Fine Structure, on the other hand, is frankly frustrating to read sometimes. Countless plot threads lead nowhere, characters are introduced and abandoned, non sequitur chapters distract from the “main plot” until you realize the plot you thought was the main one is actually sort of inconsequential (…superheroes???). I mean, there’s a plot point where one of the 10 scientist characters is quietly omitted from the narrative and forgotten by the world via advanced antimemetic technology, but since all the characters are so forgettable in the first place I truly hadn’t noticed.

To be fair, there were a few individual moments that really worked. The slow death of the teleportation lab was haunting, and I particularly enjoyed the mystery behind the secret Soviet research lab, which felt like an overt callback to the author’s SCP roots. I don’t regret reading this at all, but I wish it lived up to its initial promise.

[Liam J. MacKay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Massive scope and incredibly addicting. I was always excited to pick it up and read another chapter, not knowing where the journey was going next. Really top notch, mesmerising sci-fi.

[emmy]

weird!

[Yapee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like my favourite writer - Dukaj - qntm writes the same book over and over again, changing the theme between iterations. Luckily, it's a book I'm glad to read over and over again.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like qntm's other books (especially Ra), there are seemingly disconnected stories, characters, and timelines in Fine Structure that are engaging and amazing each on their own, and, while they eventually tie together into one big picture, you shouldn't feel bad if you feel like you've lost the individual threads along the way. Imagine big, exciting ideas in the vein of Greg Egan, but without a proper editor.

[Sergey Volobuev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ну такое..
Идея интересная, проработанная вселенная.

Повествование: основную долю повествования занимает раскрытие идеи. Кусочки пазла разбросаны в случайном порядке. Построить из них связную картинку удаётся, наверное, только к середине? Читать не связанные друг с другом рассказы - удовольствие для каких-то других ценителей

Язык: язык повествования слишком киношно-комиксовый. Это само по себе "meh", но ещё автор в этом стиле повествования выводит свои теории, используя набор реальных научных теорий. И всё это в соусе любительского перевода. В итоге - удовольствия от чтения не получаешь.

[Linz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first thing that came to me as I started this novel is how Greg Egan-esque it was. There's a big clue about whether one should even attempt this book. For me, that was an instant drawcard.

Yes, it is a novel - well edited - but it's also a book of short stories connected in a somewhat confusing manner by being set in universes that are similar to the one in which I'm writing this review, and that share a number of people with the same names.
The order of events is somewhat obscure; maybe it's sequential but it's hard to tell. It does finish at the end though, perhaps a little suddenly but then how do you slowly end a story that traverses some tens of thousands of years, or quite probably more.

I read it too quickly as I often do and I was caught out, like glancing at the Mona Lisa and thinking "nice smile". This isn't Star Wars fiction, it's a way out-there crazy speculative quasi-serious theory about how this universe, and the ones above and beside it, might work - or might not work
when certain characters mess with the underlying rules and be intensely frustrating to the scientists and engineers who expect it to behave.

I see reviews grumbling about the characters being flat. Come to think of it, I suppose they are but it's really the hard science fiction that's the point of this book
and the characters are ... well, I sort of didn't notice them in the way you wouldn't notice the characters in any book that's been marinated in the laws of physics and
information theory. Still, it's not dry, with a delightful smattering of a tongue-in-cheek geeky humour - which improves as the story progresses - suspense, and good vs evil once you can figure out who is which.

And now I'm going to read it again, slowly. And I'll savour every minute.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit of context I wish I'd had before reading is that this is actually a collection of short stories that were originally released online but werent initially revealed to be related. This would have alleviated a bit of my initial feeling of overwhelmed as the story quickly throws several quite large sci fi concepts at you, each alone probably enough to support their own novels.

Another side effect of the incremental storytelling is that each of the chapters has its own emotional journey as it's intended to be a full story. This is extremely cool in some way as the book really goes through a range of genres and tones - but it does mean that each chapter you need to find your footing about what's happening. It's not unusual for a year of time to pass between chapters and you have to work overtime to work out from inferences what people are you to. This is certainly a story that respects the reader's intelligence.

Very cool sci fi novel that initially seems impenetrable but by the end explains makes perfect sense. Plotted out very well in a technical sense as all the characters loop around and become entwined with each other.

As the story progresses I definitely got a Lovecraftian vibe both in the comic horror sense and other reasons I don't want to go into because of spoilers (NOT RACISM).

Last yeah There Is No Antimemetics Division by the same author blew me away and this is of a similar level of quality.

[Tristan Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using cutting-edge communications technology, a mysterious 60 trillion bit repeating binary signal is discovered (named the Script by the group of scientists that found it) and, when decoded, it appears to be an encyclopedia for all of physics. It starts simple but eventually works its way all the way up to the boundary of our current knowledge - and it keeps going, describing technologies we could only dream of; teleportation, faster-than-light travel, particle duplication, antimemetics, time travel, force fields, and more. Every uncovered technology seems to work perfectly at first - but as they are developed and used more, they start to fail one by one, almost as if they are being sabotaged or locked out of the universe, and scientists in those fields start dying.
The core concept of the novel is that our universe, dubbed “Alef”, is not the only one, and that in reality we live within a 5-dimensional ring of about 18 trillion universes. Each universe has three full spatial dimensions, a very slight thickness in the fourth spatial dimension, and the whole stack of universes curves back around on itself in the fourth and fifth spatial dimensions, plus a dimension of time. Additionally, our multiversal ring is only the lowest rung on a massive and infinitely complex “Structure” of higher dimensions and universes, all of it crawling with intelligent life.
The main cause of all the novel’s events is that Oul, a living weapon of incomprehensible power from 80+6 dimensions, came down to 75+5 dimensions to attack a being named Xio. In order to level the playing field, Xio dragged them both all the way down into our 3+1-dimensional world where they couldn’t deal as much damage and where they believed intelligent life couldn’t exist, as well as creating a sentient hyperdimensional cell around Alef, blocking it off from the multiversal ring and the rest of the Structure. However, as we know, intelligent life does exist in Alef, and now humanity is cut off from the rest of the multiversal ring with Oul rapidly approaching Earth from across the universe.
Xio was dropped into the host body of Mitch Calrus, a previously ordinary science teacher who now has the ability to phase through walls using the slight four-dimensional thickness of our universe. Ching-Yu Kuang is a physicist and communications engineer who helped discover the Script. Anne Poole is an immortal woman impervious to all forms of harm. Arika McClure and Jason Chilton essentially have superpowers for reasons thought to be related to the Script. Mitch Calrus must work together with all these people in order to defeat Oul and save humanity.

Overall, I absolutely loved this novel. The chapters were written individually over a few years and slowly connected together, and the timeline isn’t in chronological order - instead, it jumps back and forth across the 20,000 year span that the book takes place during. This created a very fun challenge of sorting out the chapters and deducing when each one happened. The world qntm creates is very rich with detail and there are a lot of interesting quirks in the timeline and implied interactions if you look closely enough. Additionally, qntm’s writing style is very unique and extremely engaging, perhaps my favorite of any author I know.

One of my favorite passages in the novel was when Mitch and Ching were chatting about the Script in a pub and Ching mentions the supertechnology Antimemetics;
“Mitch Calrus has been getting visibly uneasier as Ching has been speaking. "I've never heard of
antimemetics."
"An antimeme is the opposite of a meme. A meme is any idea with a self-replicating property, a hook which causes people to disperse the idea to other people. Any world religion is a meme. Memes can be attached together, they mutate, and they reproduce, like genes do. An antimeme is the opposite. It's an idea with self-censoring properties. An idea which is repulsive. People who have the idea discard it. They don't share it. They try to prevent it from spreading. Secrets. Scandals. 'The public must never know about this.' 'We don't talk about X.'"
"But something that simple is a supertechnology?"
"Oh, sure. You could weaponise it. It'd be completely different from brainwashing or mind-wiping or censorship. You could make a device which could antimemeticise anything you wanted. Or anyone. And then nobody would give a second glance to that person. They'd be an unperson. A ghost, drifting through the world. Even close family would forget that that person had ever existed. They'd just mentally edit him out of their memories and experiences. They might even disappear from photographs and videotapes and public records. And nobody would ever notice."
"That sounds like a terrible thing to do to somebody," says Mitch. "Ching, are you okay? You… look ill."
"I'm fine. You're right, it was a terrible thing to do. Because someone was erased. Not a thing, a person.
Antimemetics were locked out years ago, but it took me years to see through this 'magic eye pattern' and see the extra Script Amendment which had been hidden there in plain sight the whole time. You see, the victim might still exist in some way. If somebody really had been erased from the universe like that, their only hope of being found again would be if someone spontaneously decided to look for ghosts. They could be right here in this room, unable to get anyone's attention no matter how loud they shout. Don't get up."”
This passage resonated with me very strongly because it is where we see the truly horrifying extent of the Script technologies, and where the idea begins that Xio isn’t as benign as we thought. It suggests the idea that Mitch “Xio” Calrus used antimemetics to erase someone from the universe, presumably someone who had opposing intentions as him. We typically root for the underdog in a fight (in this case Xio), so when we met him we automatically perceived him as an ally, but this shows he may be more neutral or even sinister than we first thought.

I give Fine Structure 4.5 stars. It is absolutely stunning, but I wouldn’t recommend this book to the less nerdy readers out there, since it relies on you having a lot of base science knowledge and only briefly explains many things. For those who can take it on, however, it shows unique and enthralling sci-fi concepts and poses an especially interesting challenge in sorting out the timeline.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine Structure presents a sweeping narrative and engaging conceptual science, bogged down by biting off more than it can chew. It is fragmented into disjointed points of view that switch abruptly from chapter to chapter, enough of them to have trouble remembering each character arc. The narrative suddenly ramps up in the last ten percent of the book, as if it remembered it had a story to tell, all the little bits and pieces finally falling together into a grandiose atmosphere far greater than the premise implies. Overwhelming and unnecessary, in my opinion.

Nonetheless, the soft science fiction aspects of Fine Structure were immensely enjoyable. I wish the narrative had focused more on aspects like teleportation and ambient neutrality, but that's more of a personal indulgence than a knock on the book. I'd recommend it to anyone who greatly enjoys pseudo-plausible science in their science fiction, but not to anyone who cares about well-written characters or stories.

[Celestarius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is, truly, a science fiction book. Not a book with a science fiction element throw in, but a book ABOUT science, about scientists, but told in a very epic and metaphysical way. It's very difficult to describe, especially without spoiling anything, but I encourage anyone who likes sci fi or theoretical scientific concepts to try it out and don't give up if it seems weird or confusing. It is weird and confusing, and there are whole sections whose relevance is unknown to the reader until much later, but the explanation always comes around. The last quarter or so is especially confusing, and some of it I really didn't understand at all until I read the author's Q&A in the appendices, which is why I'm only giving it a 4. Still, it was quite enjoyable and one of the most original sci fi stories I've read (or consumed in any form) in a long time, possibly ever.

[Jerico · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a LOT going on and the superhero angle is really only a small part of it. It`s very confusing on the front end as the various threads get pulled together only later in the book, but for me at least, the effect was interest rather than frustration. This is a big scale book, with a lot going on and a very ambitious project in mind. I think it largely succeeds, though it comes a touch undone towards the last fifty pages or so. It`s an idea book mostly though; characterization is fairly flat, dialog voice is not that varied and the individuals mostly sketches that help establish setting and plot. It is extremely imaginative though, and I tore through it in a few days.

Going to read more by this guy.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someday, Sam Hughes will write a book that isn't pure mind candy for me.

[Iris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I generally understood what the book was getting at with its ideas and some of these ideas were intriguing, but the wild magical turns this book took with the underlying attitude of "it could technically be possible" undermines what it tries to do with ideas and their implications. The author acknowledges a link between 'magic' and science early on in the book, but doing so failed to soften the blow of the fantastical scenes that take place. They lacked impact with the knowledge that the rules could arbitrarily change because of a higher dimensional intelligent lifeform that the characters seemingly figured out how to trump with near perfect accuracy eventually. I understand the author wants to paint this figure as a God, but the impersonal nature of the ordeal and the way physics was so intricately manipulated at times made it feel like the book could have easily stood on its own as a superhero book combined with the presence of a theological God. Understanding at least some of the mindset of the God (beyond just wanting to eliminate the two warring powers) and eliminating the incredibly convenient superhero elements of the book along with some other fantastical elements would have allowed it to appropriately stay within the realm of science fiction (not to ask for boring amounts of realism, it just gets frustrating how instantaneous some scientific discoveries happen and then how equally instantaneously they manage to be executed, whether that be by the higher powers or the regular humans).

Towards the end of the book, the characters stop feeling like humans because of this which soured the attachment I had developed towards them from their introduction. The ending was incredibly shoehorned in and the story would have been better off being less disjointed towards the end of the book; it was incredibly exhausting to jump backwards and forwards at a time where it was clear the author was trying to wrap the story up. The character development was not rewarding whatsoever and left much to be desired, which is a shame because I genuinely grew to like quite a few of the characters.

The timeskips and complete disregard for some of the characters towards the end was very disappointing, with some characters being completely abandoned. There are other promising characters who experience their final moments, but are done an injustice when the author neglects to develop their characters further and give the reader some more time with them. Some characters of the book solely exist to serve the narrative and one pair are only in the book for a single chapter, which is a shame because I took a liking to them and would have liked to see them integrated into the wider story like the other characters. There are many characters who we don't know the fate of and just end up presumably dying after the time skips towards the end of the book. Some characters end up essentially vegetative, but there isn't any scene later on where they die and it becomes questionable why the author even bothered with that extra detail if the characters were never going to be mentioned again and if those close to them weren't really agonising about it beyond the initial event. The motives behind some characters are also very questionable, some are far too self-sacrificing and their characters are never developed enough to explain why this is the case. Sometimes watching two characters who were supposed to be attached to each other talk felt like watching two robots trying to communicate with each other.

Overall, it was an interesting book with some interesting concepts and likeable characters who were in need of much more development, but I found that it went too far into the 'fiction' side of 'science fiction' to the point where I was questioning why I didn't just pick a superhero book up. I suspect with a decent rewrite I could bump my rating up to a three or maybe even a four as I would have been much more willing to overlook the fantastical elements of this book if it had very strong characters with satisfying development.