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Ra
Magic is real.
Discovered in the 1970s, magic is now a bona fide field of engineering. There's magic in heavy industry and magic in your home. It's what's next after electricity.
Student mage Laura Ferno has designs on the future: her mother died trying to reach space using magic, and Laura wants to succeed where she failed. But first, she has to work out what went wrong. And who her mother really was.
And whether, indeed, she's dead at all...
Discovered in the 1970s, magic is now a bona fide field of engineering. There's magic in heavy industry and magic in your home. It's what's next after electricity.
Student mage Laura Ferno has designs on the future: her mother died trying to reach space using magic, and Laura wants to succeed where she failed. But first, she has to work out what went wrong. And who her mother really was.
And whether, indeed, she's dead at all...
506 pages, ebook
First published December 13, 2014
488 people are currently reading
3842 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 236 reviews
August 10, 2014
There have been many stories which say they are about defining what magic is and giving it strict rules. All these stories have nothing on this one.
minor spoilers for chapter 4ish on
This is book by a science nerd, for science nerds. It's got heaps and heaps of techno babble, which rather than sounding completely ridiculous (star trek), it sounds like the author has a deep understanding of the way that magical physics works, and how people would use and think about it. The technobabble builds off of real concepts in ways that make sense, and made a very solid foundation for a hard sci-fi story.
This story also raises the stakes continuously, and in super unique, surprising ways. Or not so surprising. I'm not sure how to describe it. Let me see. Often a story will present a situation where the heroes are in a situation where something Terribly Bad could happen. Like, someone is threatening them point blank with a gun, oh no! How will they escape the terribly bad thing of getting shot? Deus ex machina? Talking cleverly? Creating a distraction to gain advantage? In an Anyone-Can-Die story, perhaps the Terribly Bad thing happens and the person is shot. The End for them. In this story, there are things where I thought "The author wouldn't do *that*", and then he does, and the story bends through some extra dimensions so that it's possible.
So that was pretty cool. It happens multiple times, and often, each time the scale of the story increases.
As this happens, the abstraction often increased, and focused more on managing the intricate plot/setting than on the characters which were introduced during the beginning. I didn't enjoy the story as much, and was pretty much floundering trying to understand what was going on, and there weren't many character moments for me to be grounded by. I pretty much gave up on a clear understanding of what is going on in the story near the end. When the author said in the comments that he was confused as to which layer of abstraction (reality-dream-real-dream-within-dream-reality reality?? a character was in, and it was 4 or 5 layers deep, and whether or not a character was convinced of something depended on whether they were levels 4 or 5, I knew I was doomed.
A lot of times the exposition couldn't keep up with what was going on in the author's mind. I don't think I was skimming, but I often felt like I kept missing things in the complex story. OR it was the writing style or the screen font.
Characterization---not very good. Well, the author does a good job of talking about how physicists think about physics, but not a good job of talking about how people think about much else.
I would like to see what a good editor could do with this.
minor spoilers for chapter 4ish on
This is book by a science nerd, for science nerds. It's got heaps and heaps of techno babble, which rather than sounding completely ridiculous (star trek), it sounds like the author has a deep understanding of the way that magical physics works, and how people would use and think about it. The technobabble builds off of real concepts in ways that make sense, and made a very solid foundation for a hard sci-fi story.
This story also raises the stakes continuously, and in super unique, surprising ways. Or not so surprising. I'm not sure how to describe it. Let me see. Often a story will present a situation where the heroes are in a situation where something Terribly Bad could happen. Like, someone is threatening them point blank with a gun, oh no! How will they escape the terribly bad thing of getting shot? Deus ex machina? Talking cleverly? Creating a distraction to gain advantage? In an Anyone-Can-Die story, perhaps the Terribly Bad thing happens and the person is shot. The End for them. In this story, there are things where I thought "The author wouldn't do *that*", and then he does, and the story bends through some extra dimensions so that it's possible.
So that was pretty cool. It happens multiple times, and often, each time the scale of the story increases.
As this happens, the abstraction often increased, and focused more on managing the intricate plot/setting than on the characters which were introduced during the beginning. I didn't enjoy the story as much, and was pretty much floundering trying to understand what was going on, and there weren't many character moments for me to be grounded by. I pretty much gave up on a clear understanding of what is going on in the story near the end. When the author said in the comments that he was confused as to which layer of abstraction (reality-dream-real-dream-within-dream-reality reality?? a character was in, and it was 4 or 5 layers deep, and whether or not a character was convinced of something depended on whether they were levels 4 or 5, I knew I was doomed.
A lot of times the exposition couldn't keep up with what was going on in the author's mind. I don't think I was skimming, but I often felt like I kept missing things in the complex story. OR it was the writing style or the screen font.
Characterization---not very good. Well, the author does a good job of talking about how physicists think about physics, but not a good job of talking about how people think about much else.
I would like to see what a good editor could do with this.
March 22, 2017
This novella has made me realize something about myself as a reader: there is a threshold of awesomeness beyond which I stop caring about a story. Ra starts small and personal, lays out the rules of an intriguing world (magic treated as real-world engineering, how cool is that?) and lets us know the main character, an interesting brilliant but damaged girl. But about halfway the story starts trying too hard to surpass itself in scale and grandioseness, going so over the top that it totally shattered my immersion and quickly became boring. If it had stayed more grounded maybe I'd have liked it more, but it got lost in a melange of cosmic events and godlike characters until I lost interest.
The other work by the same author I've read, Fine Structure, was written later. Fine Structure makes a much better work of making the reader care about its character and their struggles, despite having a similar grandiose scope, so I'm interested in whatever Hughes writes next.
The other work by the same author I've read, Fine Structure, was written later. Fine Structure makes a much better work of making the reader care about its character and their struggles, despite having a similar grandiose scope, so I'm interested in whatever Hughes writes next.
October 3, 2019
I got immediately turned off by the use of aggressive technobabble. I had seen this book recommended because of its well thought out and understandable magic system I found something that is essentially the opposite. In books like WoT you have Nynaeve going 'hmm it feels like i should weave fire just so' and healing someone. In this book we have Laura creating spells using 'heavyweight theoretical results' of Quantum Mechanics and Vector Calculus. The point being, theres no difference between saying that 'the spell does X because we used fire just so' and saying that 'the spell does X because quantum mechanics'.
Now this wouldn't be a problem in itself but the author seems to devote an enormous amount of time to that technobabble and repeatedly emphasizing how un-magical the magic is as though that somehow gets the reader to be better able to comprehend what is and isn't possible. Its one thing to create a soft magic world with a compelling story/settings/characters, its another to create a soft magic world and to constantly try to convince the reader that its something else.
In addition to that, the characters didn't seem especially compelling, i couldn't tell you a single thing about Laura's boyfriend and Natalie is a PC just because shes the main character's sister.
The writing is average, I found the ongoing plot boring and unclear. Its never quite clear which characters have agency and which don't and the background mysteries don't seem especially interesting. After resolving each problem so far with deus ex machina and then having the supposedly brilliant main character act aggresively petulant and stupid, my suspension of disbelief was broken and I stopped.
Now this wouldn't be a problem in itself but the author seems to devote an enormous amount of time to that technobabble and repeatedly emphasizing how un-magical the magic is as though that somehow gets the reader to be better able to comprehend what is and isn't possible. Its one thing to create a soft magic world with a compelling story/settings/characters, its another to create a soft magic world and to constantly try to convince the reader that its something else.
In addition to that, the characters didn't seem especially compelling, i couldn't tell you a single thing about Laura's boyfriend and Natalie is a PC just because shes the main character's sister.
The writing is average, I found the ongoing plot boring and unclear. Its never quite clear which characters have agency and which don't and the background mysteries don't seem especially interesting. After resolving each problem so far with deus ex machina and then having the supposedly brilliant main character act aggresively petulant and stupid, my suspension of disbelief was broken and I stopped.
April 23, 2020
Holy shit that was mindblowingly creative - reading that was probably like reading early Gibson or Stephenson when they first came out.
May 27, 2021
Incredible world building but poor storytelling
Really amazing ideas here, great hard sci fi concepts, big picture cosmology stuff and far future. So many ideas, really dazzling, but just so damn choppy. The storytelling is just unpleasant. I’m sad to say since I love the ideas. And the characters all feel so flat. I could have stopped reading many times. It felt almost like a book of micro stories in the same universe thrown together — although there was a plot and progress it was hard to care about.
I guess it’s kinda a big “meh” to me. Which is super weird actually since some of the ideas are really top notch.
Really amazing ideas here, great hard sci fi concepts, big picture cosmology stuff and far future. So many ideas, really dazzling, but just so damn choppy. The storytelling is just unpleasant. I’m sad to say since I love the ideas. And the characters all feel so flat. I could have stopped reading many times. It felt almost like a book of micro stories in the same universe thrown together — although there was a plot and progress it was hard to care about.
I guess it’s kinda a big “meh” to me. Which is super weird actually since some of the ideas are really top notch.
May 15, 2020
While it starts off like a weak young fantasy story about a school girl learning magic, towards the middle it turns into a great proper mature fantasy story. Then everything goes off the deep end and all of the sudden it's an over the top sci-fi which feels disconnected and again rather weak. But then it continues to develop into ending as good sci-fi and it all ties in together nicely.
And even through the early more fantasy part, I really enjoyed the idea of scientific approach to magic, the cynicism about it being called magic, and the very comp-sci terminology and plot aids such as quines and observations about maintainability of legacy-code.
It's nice that in the end Laura is flawed and powerslave and Natalie sort of becomes the main character.
When it first turned into crazy sci-fi, far out in the future, many earths etc. I was fully expecting it to go back to the main plot as before with everything being part of the simulation (and of course the story acknowledges that options and Natalie and Anil consider it) and thought that if it were to be the actual plot than it's annoying, but again, somehow it manages to continue on that path and take me along for a ride I enjoyed despite myself.
Was recommended to me by Tamir.
And even through the early more fantasy part, I really enjoyed the idea of scientific approach to magic, the cynicism about it being called magic, and the very comp-sci terminology and plot aids such as quines and observations about maintainability of legacy-code.
It's nice that in the end Laura is flawed and powerslave and Natalie sort of becomes the main character.
When it first turned into crazy sci-fi, far out in the future, many earths etc. I was fully expecting it to go back to the main plot as before with everything being part of the simulation (and of course the story acknowledges that options and Natalie and Anil consider it) and thought that if it were to be the actual plot than it's annoying, but again, somehow it manages to continue on that path and take me along for a ride I enjoyed despite myself.
Was recommended to me by Tamir.
February 17, 2019
Fantastic ideas in a not-so-great novel.
World-building alone and some of its secrets brought me in a wonderful and terrible voyage full of technobubbles, computer language style magic system and unsettling illusions but redundant style and excess confusion made it a climb too hard to be objectively excellent.
World-building alone and some of its secrets brought me in a wonderful and terrible voyage full of technobubbles, computer language style magic system and unsettling illusions but redundant style and excess confusion made it a climb too hard to be objectively excellent.
June 29, 2025
Firstly, I’m really happy that Sam’s writing has evolved for the better with his later works. You can see that he has put a lot of thought into his themes and I can’t wait to read more.
Coming to the review of this book, ‘Ra’ is deeply frustrating. The book tries its absolute best to be scientific, but ends up as fantasy with a ton of jargon. This is something I’m personally okay with if and only if the characters are well developed. They are not. I may have been spoiled by ‘There is No Antimemetics Division’ but the storytelling in ‘Ra’ also lacks the punch and thrill it could have had. The first quarter and the last quarter of the book are semi-decent. But with malnourished characters and sci-fi themes that feel forced, on the whole ‘Ra’ does not make the cut for me.
:(
Coming to the review of this book, ‘Ra’ is deeply frustrating. The book tries its absolute best to be scientific, but ends up as fantasy with a ton of jargon. This is something I’m personally okay with if and only if the characters are well developed. They are not. I may have been spoiled by ‘There is No Antimemetics Division’ but the storytelling in ‘Ra’ also lacks the punch and thrill it could have had. The first quarter and the last quarter of the book are semi-decent. But with malnourished characters and sci-fi themes that feel forced, on the whole ‘Ra’ does not make the cut for me.
:(
January 10, 2020
The book's concept is fascinating but held back by jumping around without helping the reader follow, confusing narrative at times, and over-reliance on jargon. It also didn't help that I disliked one of the PoV characters.
Also, I feel like the blurb describing the book is incorrect.
Also, I feel like the blurb describing the book is incorrect.
September 5, 2016
When I complained that Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality had little scientific exploration of magic even though the protagonist was eager and well equipped to do so, a friend recommended this book. I was not disappointed.
It takes place in a world much like ours except that a new branch of physics was discovered in the 1970s. It was called magic because its practice vaguely resembles the old superstitions (staff, spells in a weird language, bracelets, drawings on the floor, etc.). It is however, a serious (if young) scientific field with well-worked-out theory and a widespread use in engineering processes.
The book's a pleasant read and hard to put down. It focuses more on the world than on the characters, though. I didn't really get attached to anyone, but they were quite intriguing and far from stereotypical. The final part was genuinely surprising and well done (which is rare).
Definitely an interesting read, though more to intrigue your imagination than to trigger an emotional response.
It takes place in a world much like ours except that a new branch of physics was discovered in the 1970s. It was called magic because its practice vaguely resembles the old superstitions (staff, spells in a weird language, bracelets, drawings on the floor, etc.). It is however, a serious (if young) scientific field with well-worked-out theory and a widespread use in engineering processes.
The book's a pleasant read and hard to put down. It focuses more on the world than on the characters, though. I didn't really get attached to anyone, but they were quite intriguing and far from stereotypical. The final part was genuinely surprising and well done (which is rare).
Definitely an interesting read, though more to intrigue your imagination than to trigger an emotional response.
August 15, 2024
Dnf; thought I’d love this book but by the second half it just veers off into unintelligible technoblabber. The first few chapters were great -- an Indian physicist and ascetic finds a missing connection between mental energy with thermodynamics -- but I lost interest when the gods/Exa and personal politics became involved.
Tech is the closest thing to magic
> Two things, I have realised. One, that the future isn't something that happens just by sitting still watching digits roll over. The future's something you make a conscious decision to build. Two, what you build, you can sell. Magic makes the world a lot more confusing, but I think you'll agree that admitting that there's something in the world that will never be fully understood is the exact opposite of science. With magic, we're going to cut the cost per kilogram to LEO in half. And after that, actual God-damned flying cars.
Tech is the closest thing to magic
> Two things, I have realised. One, that the future isn't something that happens just by sitting still watching digits roll over. The future's something you make a conscious decision to build. Two, what you build, you can sell. Magic makes the world a lot more confusing, but I think you'll agree that admitting that there's something in the world that will never be fully understood is the exact opposite of science. With magic, we're going to cut the cost per kilogram to LEO in half. And after that, actual God-damned flying cars.
November 1, 2024
This book had real potential to become a favorite, but unfortunately, the second half fell off hard. The first half was an interesting exploration of humanity discovering magic and approaching it as a scientific mystery, but around the three-quarters mark, it drifted too far into make believe fantasy. After a certain point, it was impossible to follow the story and make sense of it all.
Thankfully, the end brings the story back to a more grounded place.
Overall, I enjoyed most of the book. 3.5
Thankfully, the end brings the story back to a more grounded place.
Overall, I enjoyed most of the book. 3.5
April 7, 2025
Compared to There Is No Antimemetics Division and Valuable Humans in Transit, this one was a bit of a step down for me. Big ideas and ambitious, but it got to be a bit of a drag and somewhat more convoluted than I think was strictly a good idea. This one could have used a more thorough editor to trim the fat.
May 7, 2023
What a fun book!
October 1, 2024
"Every time he splits himself, he runs a fifty percent chance of being the one who dies. That means that he - the one in the shower - is the one who won the coin toss two hundred times in a row. This is impossible, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. He is alive, and he doesn't have the mathematics to explain how."
* * *
Bechdel test: 5/5
* * *
I've never read a book that truly made me, personally, happy to read it like this one did. If I ever did, it was when I was a kid and didn't know better. But that's what it was; I felt like a kid again, running through an intellectual playground.
This book is made for a specific person. That person is someone who, at the very least, understands what science is (cliché version optional, but allowed). That person is someone who loves thinking. Honestly, it's someone who loves some mental calculus. By calculus, I mean two things: a particularly logical and structured reasoning pattern AND, yes, literal calculus.
I have been doing work on some of my own hopeful contributions to my field, and this book was a helpful push for me when I needed it. In many ways it romanticizes that which I've never seen romanticized, and that which I never knew needed romanticizing. After reading it, though, I think I may have hit the peak of literature attuned to my love of math. Of course, there are mathematical articles galore, but they aren't what this is. This is a story that shows what abstract mathematicians dream of every night.
* * *
Every day, you have something to work towards. You must add more to that work as much as you can before either someone else reaches it or the world gets to you first. Before you can even add to that work, though, you must know the limitations, the background, the terminology that has been found, examined, tested long before you were even born. Where do you start? What do you write? When given the entire history of humanity regarding a subject, how do you even balance a pebble of your own on top of such a mountain? Now, there are plenty of new fields being created/found every week and month, so perhaps your work is the first of its kind. But what if it's not the first of its kind, or even remotely close? What if the babylonians were studying the very same things as you and gave up? That's abstract math. As old and complex as time.
Now, what if that very system that you studied for your whole life never comes to fruition? What if it's just what it sounds like - abstract - nothing more? Think about how that would make people view you and how it would degrade you over time into nothingness, despite the difficulty of your work. Now, instead of all that, imagine that one day you find out that you actually, literally, found magic from your work? Suddenly, abstract math is the holy grail, the new age, the future. And you? A superstar.
To say that it felt like I was dancing through this story is putting it lightly, as you can tell by my extended analogy. It felt like swinging across integrated vines onto a distributed platform of operands and leaping towards a sea of prime numbers. It was fun!
Some reviews mentioned that the author "peaked" at this story and many people hate his other works after reading this one. I think it may not be a flaw of the other stories, but rather a testament to the greatness of this one. I concur with the beauty of it, myself.
And despite perhaps never getting another story as deeply suited to my tastes as this one was ever again, Im okay with that. At least I got to experience it once.
That said, if you know what a derivative is or you love unique magic or power systems, read this.
* * *
Bechdel test: 5/5
* * *
I've never read a book that truly made me, personally, happy to read it like this one did. If I ever did, it was when I was a kid and didn't know better. But that's what it was; I felt like a kid again, running through an intellectual playground.
This book is made for a specific person. That person is someone who, at the very least, understands what science is (cliché version optional, but allowed). That person is someone who loves thinking. Honestly, it's someone who loves some mental calculus. By calculus, I mean two things: a particularly logical and structured reasoning pattern AND, yes, literal calculus.
I have been doing work on some of my own hopeful contributions to my field, and this book was a helpful push for me when I needed it. In many ways it romanticizes that which I've never seen romanticized, and that which I never knew needed romanticizing. After reading it, though, I think I may have hit the peak of literature attuned to my love of math. Of course, there are mathematical articles galore, but they aren't what this is. This is a story that shows what abstract mathematicians dream of every night.
* * *
Every day, you have something to work towards. You must add more to that work as much as you can before either someone else reaches it or the world gets to you first. Before you can even add to that work, though, you must know the limitations, the background, the terminology that has been found, examined, tested long before you were even born. Where do you start? What do you write? When given the entire history of humanity regarding a subject, how do you even balance a pebble of your own on top of such a mountain? Now, there are plenty of new fields being created/found every week and month, so perhaps your work is the first of its kind. But what if it's not the first of its kind, or even remotely close? What if the babylonians were studying the very same things as you and gave up? That's abstract math. As old and complex as time.
Now, what if that very system that you studied for your whole life never comes to fruition? What if it's just what it sounds like - abstract - nothing more? Think about how that would make people view you and how it would degrade you over time into nothingness, despite the difficulty of your work. Now, instead of all that, imagine that one day you find out that you actually, literally, found magic from your work? Suddenly, abstract math is the holy grail, the new age, the future. And you? A superstar.
To say that it felt like I was dancing through this story is putting it lightly, as you can tell by my extended analogy. It felt like swinging across integrated vines onto a distributed platform of operands and leaping towards a sea of prime numbers. It was fun!
Some reviews mentioned that the author "peaked" at this story and many people hate his other works after reading this one. I think it may not be a flaw of the other stories, but rather a testament to the greatness of this one. I concur with the beauty of it, myself.
And despite perhaps never getting another story as deeply suited to my tastes as this one was ever again, Im okay with that. At least I got to experience it once.
That said, if you know what a derivative is or you love unique magic or power systems, read this.
September 17, 2021
I read this due to the convergence of two factors: I had to return an unfinished nonfiction that I borrowed from the library because I too busy watching the Olympics and just after that I saw Tom Scott's YouTube video where he read a sentence from this book. Anyways, everything about this story screams that it should have been a short. The entire thing is on a website in 38 chapters but me thinks that it should've been half of that. On the positive side, one might be able to improve their skimming abilities. Moving on, the amount of world building and techno-babble is outrageously extreme that there is absolutely no way that anyone other than the writer is able to visualize all of it and understand how all of the parts fit; hell, I wouldn't even be surprised if the author, himself, reveals that he was pulling a Lost mid-way through. A good writer would have floated only the higher-lever technological/magical concepts and not have bothered with the details at all. What's far more damning about the work is the utter lack of character development and depth for all of its characters. Combine this with incomprehensible tech elements you have conflicts being resolved due to ideas being created apparently out of thin air, and thus rendering the entire work to be mostly forgettable. It's "mostly" because the story's theme on the futility of living in a dream peeks through.
2/5
2/5
March 22, 2023
Dans le monde de Ra, la magie a été « découverte » en 1972, et est devenue une science à part entière, notamment dans le milieu de l’ingénierie et de l’industrie. Laura Ferno, une mage très puissante, marche sur les traces de sa mère, décédée dans un accident mystérieux, et dont le but était d’emmener l’humanité dans l’espace grâce à la magie.
Quelle balade que Ra !
S’il est un peu longuet sur les bords (notamment les passages de « rêves », qui sont un peu toujours les mêmes et cheatés), j’ai adoré le principe du livre – c’est cohérent, bien amené, le lore est hyper intéressant, le world building subtil. Dommage que Laura, et sa jnumelle Natalie, soient absolument imbuvables très rapidement, parce que l’idée du bouquin et l’aventure proposés sont très prenants. Un léger bémol donc, mais qui donne envie de découvrir la biblio de l’auteur !
Quelle balade que Ra !
S’il est un peu longuet sur les bords (notamment les passages de « rêves », qui sont un peu toujours les mêmes et cheatés), j’ai adoré le principe du livre – c’est cohérent, bien amené, le lore est hyper intéressant, le world building subtil. Dommage que Laura, et sa jnumelle Natalie, soient absolument imbuvables très rapidement, parce que l’idée du bouquin et l’aventure proposés sont très prenants. Un léger bémol donc, mais qui donne envie de découvrir la biblio de l’auteur !
February 9, 2022
Ra starts from an interesting premise: what if magic existed and was treated as a branch of engineering?
This initial idea is exciting, but from the middle to the end, this point is lost to interplanetary wars and creatures with godlike powers. There is no room for proper development of most characters, and many plot points are left unexplained along the way.
The ideas that Ra relies on would benefit from a little more space to breathe, and a little more concentration on key plot points.
This initial idea is exciting, but from the middle to the end, this point is lost to interplanetary wars and creatures with godlike powers. There is no room for proper development of most characters, and many plot points are left unexplained along the way.
The ideas that Ra relies on would benefit from a little more space to breathe, and a little more concentration on key plot points.
April 28, 2015
Coherent and packed with action. Will read again.
September 28, 2017
Fascinating world.
I like the characters.
Let down a little in the end, he may have written himself into a corner, earlier on.
I stick with the 5 stars though.
I like the characters.
Let down a little in the end, he may have written himself into a corner, earlier on.
I stick with the 5 stars though.
February 5, 2018
A bit over-the-top by the end, but I'm a sucker for technomagic.
May 27, 2023
! Pretty big spoilers !
Ra is, first and foremost, a formidable piece of sci-fi world-building. From the onset of the book, it presents a world where matter and energy may by transmuted through deep concentration and the utterance of words in some eldritch tongue. The rules of this world are expanded on slowly and constantly, like an IV drip, in a way that was very exciting to read.
The book is written in a very nonlinear fashion. Each chapter is generally split into multiple demarcated sections, and these sections often jump between the perspectives of different characters or even different time periods entirely. The topics touched on in this book, like shunting consciousnesses around bodies and transporting between simulacra, lend themselves to this style. Though it definitely make me have to jump around at times.
I have seen other reviews saying the book falls apart around the two-thirds mark. Before this point, the plot largely revolved around a coming of age story for Laura Ferno (who never seems to actually change and get less childish, despite changing circumstances) and the reactions of surrounding characters (who Laura has a pattern of screwing over while gaining magical power). At the two-thirds mark, information is revealed about the Ferno family, about the creation of magic, and about the creation of current iteration of the universe. This turns the plot into a sort of grand-strategy power-struggle human-vs-AI thing. I really enjoyed it, even if the stakes got astronomically high (c'mon, ALL the people?). It only served to make the history of the world richer, and I was in it for the cool world-building. And the stakes only got raised in a way that was consistent with the world that was created.
Positives
* Very little hand-waviness. The author's got almost an obsessive drive to explain the mechanical workings of the things that happen in-universe.
* Good pacing. I could not put the book down. It was very much "four chapters of building on what exists, one chapter of flashback, one chapter that turns everything on its head" x5. Super satisfying to see the things hinted at fall into place, though some of the foreshadowing can be a little heavyhanded.
* Falconry dad. Dad does falconry
Negatives
* Was clearly published as serial before it was a book. Many chapters end on (sometimes overlapping) cliffhangers that don't get resolved until a chapter or two in the future. Lots of backtracking is required to read this book.
* Poor character development. Laura is gullible, irresponsible with power, and cycles between being manic and depressive the whole time, even through the conclusion of the book. The most dynamic character was Natalie, Laura's sister, whose dynamic with Laura changes drastically when Natalie becomes the only one able to fix the crud Laura causes. But she herself does not change and remains an emotionally stunted physicist-type the entire time. Additionally, for a book that relies so much on switching perspectives on-the-fly, the characters are not distinctive enough in speech or action to immediately distinguish.
Ra is, first and foremost, a formidable piece of sci-fi world-building. From the onset of the book, it presents a world where matter and energy may by transmuted through deep concentration and the utterance of words in some eldritch tongue. The rules of this world are expanded on slowly and constantly, like an IV drip, in a way that was very exciting to read.
The book is written in a very nonlinear fashion. Each chapter is generally split into multiple demarcated sections, and these sections often jump between the perspectives of different characters or even different time periods entirely. The topics touched on in this book, like shunting consciousnesses around bodies and transporting between simulacra, lend themselves to this style. Though it definitely make me have to jump around at times.
I have seen other reviews saying the book falls apart around the two-thirds mark. Before this point, the plot largely revolved around a coming of age story for Laura Ferno (who never seems to actually change and get less childish, despite changing circumstances) and the reactions of surrounding characters (who Laura has a pattern of screwing over while gaining magical power). At the two-thirds mark, information is revealed about the Ferno family, about the creation of magic, and about the creation of current iteration of the universe. This turns the plot into a sort of grand-strategy power-struggle human-vs-AI thing. I really enjoyed it, even if the stakes got astronomically high (c'mon, ALL the people?). It only served to make the history of the world richer, and I was in it for the cool world-building. And the stakes only got raised in a way that was consistent with the world that was created.
Positives
* Very little hand-waviness. The author's got almost an obsessive drive to explain the mechanical workings of the things that happen in-universe.
* Good pacing. I could not put the book down. It was very much "four chapters of building on what exists, one chapter of flashback, one chapter that turns everything on its head" x5. Super satisfying to see the things hinted at fall into place, though some of the foreshadowing can be a little heavyhanded.
* Falconry dad. Dad does falconry
Negatives
* Was clearly published as serial before it was a book. Many chapters end on (sometimes overlapping) cliffhangers that don't get resolved until a chapter or two in the future. Lots of backtracking is required to read this book.
* Poor character development. Laura is gullible, irresponsible with power, and cycles between being manic and depressive the whole time, even through the conclusion of the book. The most dynamic character was Natalie, Laura's sister, whose dynamic with Laura changes drastically when Natalie becomes the only one able to fix the crud Laura causes. But she herself does not change and remains an emotionally stunted physicist-type the entire time. Additionally, for a book that relies so much on switching perspectives on-the-fly, the characters are not distinctive enough in speech or action to immediately distinguish.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 14, 2022
This super-hard sci-fi novel combines magic realism, mind-body dualism, and in a wild way, and as with qntm's other writing, I'm very much here for it. I flip-flopped on whether to rate this three or four stars because the presentation has a few rough edges. Particularly toward the beginning, chapters feel quite disconnected; even if I didn't know it was written and released episodically, I think I would still have been able to guess as much from the shifts in tone and purpose. While the end of the book got me to stay up past 3 AM to finish it, I equally had no difficulty putting the first half of the book down in between chapters.
That said, the book levels out and becomes much smoother about a third or half of the way through. In particular, the POV shifts become increasingly smooth to the point where I was kind of surprised to remember (thanks to another reader's review) that .
Some of the spatial descriptions are pretty hard to follow. I tend to think my mind's eye is pretty good at taking written orders, and I really struggled to picture some things (like ). I had similar difficulties with There Is No Antimemetics Division, though, so I suspect this might just be an impedance mismatch between the author and me. That's okay, though.
Would recommend. Unlike Fine Structure, which I thought started strongly but kind of toppled under its own weight by the end, the ending of Ra leaves questions, but not the sort that will be answered with more writing. In a good, what-are-the-implications way way. Not in a what-was-qntm-thinking way.
That said, the book levels out and becomes much smoother about a third or half of the way through. In particular, the POV shifts become increasingly smooth to the point where I was kind of surprised to remember (thanks to another reader's review) that .
Some of the spatial descriptions are pretty hard to follow. I tend to think my mind's eye is pretty good at taking written orders, and I really struggled to picture some things (like ). I had similar difficulties with There Is No Antimemetics Division, though, so I suspect this might just be an impedance mismatch between the author and me. That's okay, though.
Would recommend. Unlike Fine Structure, which I thought started strongly but kind of toppled under its own weight by the end, the ending of Ra leaves questions, but not the sort that will be answered with more writing. In a good, what-are-the-implications way way. Not in a what-was-qntm-thinking way.
February 20, 2024
Opinions seem to be divided on this one, as on most qntm books, but I think the naysayers are simply not the correct (super-nerdy) target group for his writing. Whereas I, most definitely, am. I was almost hesitant to go in at first, what with the almost pedestrian way “magic is real in the modern world” was handled and all the small-scale personal drama of it, but once the story went off the rails about half-way through and the genre bait-and-switch exploded into our faces, I was more than fully locked in and thoroughly enjoyed the ride the rest of the way, *particularly* the very ending. I will not discuss the book further as it would be impossible without massive spoilers and all I would just go on praising every bit of it anyway, but I will note that there is a small error in the book description: Laura’s mother most certainly did not die *trying to reach space*.
March 31, 2024
3-4 stars for the early parts, 5 stars for the back half, and 3.5-4 stars for the ending.
This book was a reminder that, yeah, qntm is a madman.
The story is wildly imaginative with some extremely cool ideas and worldbuilding. Feels especially poignant reading this in 2024.
On the other hand, I could see where people might really dislike the book. The storytelling and structure of the chapters is often nonlinear and covers a lot of different POVs at different times (similar to Fine Structure). I also found the story took a while to build up to something really compelling -- it started picking up for me only around the 33% mark. But then past 50% I was entirely unable to put the book down and finished it in 1 day (also similar to my experience with Fine Structure iirc).
Also the ending!! It was quite the bold choice, one that I found understandable but I'm guessing is divisive.
This book was a reminder that, yeah, qntm is a madman.
The story is wildly imaginative with some extremely cool ideas and worldbuilding. Feels especially poignant reading this in 2024.
On the other hand, I could see where people might really dislike the book. The storytelling and structure of the chapters is often nonlinear and covers a lot of different POVs at different times (similar to Fine Structure). I also found the story took a while to build up to something really compelling -- it started picking up for me only around the 33% mark. But then past 50% I was entirely unable to put the book down and finished it in 1 day (also similar to my experience with Fine Structure iirc).
Also the ending!! It was quite the bold choice, one that I found understandable but I'm guessing is divisive.
September 6, 2024
Even though this is a book about magic, it is approached from a scientific perspective. Magic spells are initially discovered as long sequences of words that, when spoken correctly, produce physical effects. These spells can be refactored like code, with underlying equations that explain their mechanics. The events in the story start small but then quickly evolve to a cosmic scale towards the end. The storytelling may feel disjointed at first, with some scenes seeming disconnected, but they eventually merge and come together nicely.
October 23, 2025
The sci-fi ideas and worldbuilding in Ra are great, the storytelling, characterisation, and narrative, unfortunately, are not. I enjoyed how the different threads connected throughout this long book and throughout most of it I also enjoyed how situations escalated to gigantic proportions and levels (quite literally) beyond comprehension. However, in the end I was disappointed because, without giving much away, the ending felt lazy, maybe because the author wrote themselves into the corner of perpetually escalating powers into infinity. I give Ra 3/5 stars.
November 17, 2021
it's so fucking good. it has almost all the same problems as this guy's other books but they're somehow contorted into huge strengths in this one. it has a consistency that works despite flitting between so many scenes and time periods and the characters feel extremely well defined and have incredibly satisfying arcs despite their simple cores. a ton of really creative and fun ideas. wonderful ending. cannot believe this.
July 18, 2025
“what if magic was a field of science” answered at qntm’s trademark breakneck technobabbly holy-shit-what-is-going-on pace of plot/world expansion. characters were flat and sometimes quite annoying, which drags the narration but becomes less important as the story rapidly approaches ‘wtf’ scope. not as inventive as the author’s best (imo) but a quick read
June 18, 2024
I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I expected I would.
I suppose I'm not a sophisticated enough sci-fi connoisseur. It was good. It allowed me to escape away into another world, and it wrapped well. What more can I ask?
I suppose I'm not a sophisticated enough sci-fi connoisseur. It was good. It allowed me to escape away into another world, and it wrapped well. What more can I ask?
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