The Quantum Garden

The Quantum Evolution #2

by Derek Künsken

The stunning, critically-acclaimed follow-up to best-selling The Quantum Magician 

THE ULTIMATE CHASE

Days ago, Belisarius pulled off the most audacious con job in history. He’s rich, he’s back with the love of his life, and best of all, he has the Time Gates, arguably the most valuable things in existence. Nothing could spoil this…

…except the utter destruction of his people and the world they lived on. To save them, he has to make a new deal with the boss he just double-crossed, to travel back in time and work his quantum magic once again, tracking down the source of the wormholes.

If he can avoid detection, dodge paradox and stay ahead of the eerie, relentless Scarecrow, he might just get back to his own time alive.

Genres: Science Fiction, Audiobook, Space Opera, Fiction, Time Travel, Science Fiction Fantasy, Hard Science Fiction

396 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2019

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

No spoilers, but there's a lot to love in this follow-up to the Quantum Magician.

For those of us who love it, there's a lot of hi-tech spec-speak with near-autistic mental states and high-computation, but there's also time-travel, a brand new con, and a twisty-turvy plot.

Sounds pretty standard, tho, right? There's a non-usual interesting tidbit that arrives, however. And I can't talk about it. You know. Fight club. But I really, really enjoyed the alien intelligences and everything surrounding them. You might say the hint is in the title of the book.

:)

This one may or may not be as strong as the first book, but there's nothing wrong with it. Slightly slow in the start, a bit heavy (or just right) on the quantum cognition stuff, but I figure that's something half of us either love or hate as a whole. :)

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 3 out of 5]

Derek Kunsken continues the story of Homo Quantus by Belisarius the Archon from a distant singular future, where a variety of genetically modified human types has not changed the deep essence of vices and weaknesses. Anger, greed, envy, possessiveness and aggression still rule the ball.

And Velezarius so needs a quiet haven where he and other representatives of his race could find a quiet peaceful life. A race that has been subjected to genocide and virtually annihilated? Yes, but now Vela's team has a unique artifact - the Time Gate, with which you can change a lot in causes and effects.

Only now, it doesn't work out to do everything slowly, because a Scarecrow jumps out of a snuffbox and it's not a good-natured Scarecrow from Oz at all. This creature can destroy the universe, which is what it is going to do. And again the battle continues, and reading Igor Knyazev serves as a decisive argument to continue the acquaintance when you ask the question: "Do I need it?"

Все мы недостойны милости
Война становится диким зверем сразу же, как появляется на свет. Ты можешь пытаться приручить этого зверя, но хозяина у него никогда не будет.
Дерек Кюнскен продолжает историю Homo Quantus Велизариуса Архонта из далекого сингулярного будущего, где разнообразие генетически-модифицированных человеческих типов не изменило глубинной сути пороков и слабостей. Злоба, алчность, зависть, собственничество и агрессия по-прежнему правят бал.

А Велизариусу так необходимо тихое пристанище, где он и другие представители его расы могли бы обрести спокойную мирную жизнь. Раса, которая была подвергнута геноциду и практически уничтожена? Да, но теперь у команды Вела есть уникальный артефакт - Врата времени, с помощью которых можно многое изменить в причинах и следствиях.

Только вот,сделать все неспешно не получается, потому что чертом из табакерки выпрыгивает Пугало и то совсем не добряк Страшила из страны Оз. Это существо может уничтожить Вселенную, что и собирается сделать. И вновь продолжаются бой, а чтение Игоря Князева служит решающим аргументом продолжать знакомство, когда задаешься вопросом: "Оно мне надо?"

Предупреждая вопрос - задаешься на всем протяжении книги. В отличие от "Квантового волшебника", где для выполнения миссии объединились такие разные представители Человечества 2.0 и сначала было интересно разбираться во внешних различиях с предысторией, приведшей к созданию той или иной расы, в социальном устройстве, в ментальности. А после - наблюдать, как. такие разные они превращаются в команду.

"Квантовый сад", вопреки названию, создает впечатление переноса из блокбастера с дорогими декорациями, костюмами, сложным гримом, высокотехнологичными спецэффектами - в бюджетный телесериал. Действие большую часть времени ограничено кораблем, а введение дополнительной сюжетной ветки, в которой Иеканджика должна вернуться на сорок лет в прошлое и убить того, чье отсутствие в мире сделает ее несчастной, потому что только это может обеспечить успех революции, все изрядно запутывает.

Сортирный юмор "дворняги" Стиллса вызывает стойкий рвотный рефлекс, занудство ИИ св.Матвея - раздражение, сложности семейных отношений и невозможность проникнуться чувствами Иеканджики, которую боготворимая ею Рудо сделала младшей женой лишь за тем, чтобы та стала оружием убийства - все это рождает изрядный когнитивный диссонанс и, скажу откровенно - скуку.

На Гудридс книгу хвалят, надеюсь, вам она понравится больше. чем мне.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

5-Stars, a sci-fi masterpiece, a gnurd's joy to read.

Completely, utterly awesome. Künsken shows total command of prose, plot, action and character. Read this book NOW.

I love the delicious quantum science, and the outrageously interesting characters and races. Quantum Garden is a triumph, highest praise!

As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.



The Quantum Garden starts essentially the day after the previous book, The Quantum Garden, my review.

Many of the main characters from book one are here: Belisarius, Cassandra, Iekanjika, St Matthew AI, and Victor Stills. All of them wonderfully realised, all dialogue succinct and true. There's not a wasted word in any of the author's prose. Wonderful.

At the end of book one, Belisarius and Cassandra have the Time Gates, and a number of other delicious hard-science tech toys, but with every major nation baying for their blood. There's only one solution to this, and Belisarius has a confidence game in mind, of course.

The pacing is terrific, the science hard and delicious, the characters each complimenting the increasingly complex plot. At no time does the author waver from total control of all the elements that make up this terrific book.

Without spoiling too much, Belisarius, Cassandra, St Matthew AI, and Stills must go deep into the past through the time gates, to a fascinating world with a brown dwarf for a sun, and the chaos of the original Union Expeditionary Force. Causality traps abound!

Brown Dwarf Sun



Read this book NOW!



So many wonderful quotes... Sorry for so many spoilers....

And now Iekanjika knew that from the time she was a captain, Rudo had carried memories of a young colonel visiting her in the past, telling her that she was to be one of her spouses. Regardless of Iekanjika’s competence or other qualities, this information alone would force any careful commander to take Iekanjika as a wife, even if it created one of those odd bits of cyclic causality, where cause triggered effect and effect triggered cause.
-
Arjona talking with Saint Matthew AI:
Belisarius took a deep breath, chilling his lungs. “Are you suggesting I accept irrationality and rationality?"
“Those labels aren’t helpful where we are now, when we are now.”
“I can’t live like that,” Belisarius said.
“We live with lots of things we can’t live with.”
-
Ieknjika contemplates honour versus expediency:
The officers and crew of the Sixth Expeditionary Force did their duty in the future, with honor. And she was here. It had been easy for her to quantify this and throw it in Arjona’s face. One man. One man didn’t outweigh the lives and freedoms of two nations. She’d sent people to their deaths on purpose for tactical gain. This was the same-trading death for strategic gain. But that comfort was hollow. [soldier] was Rudo’s price, not the price of the advantage itself. And the cost in quantity was not the whole cost. Committing a murder would make Iekanjika a criminal. An extra-judicial killing was a dishonor that could be neither erased nor redeemed. And more deeply, to know that Rudo’s ordering of the killing was the suitable response for this time, that this was the way things were done at the birth of Union nationhood, only further tilted the ground beneath her feet. What did she stand on when her new nation was born of this swamp, bereft of honor and duty? Victory? Freedom? For whom? For the politicians posturing on Bachwezi? Or for the people positioning here for control of the Expeditionary Force? Did they deserve the victory Iekanjika might deliver if she could not stand on honor or duty? But maybe she held her honor too highly. She could sacrifice herself for her people, so why price her honor above that?
-
Arjona contemplates the alien life:
His brain ran a series of parallel models, weighing and discarding, mixing and matching possible growth algorithms and energy budgets until he found something that might explain the shapes of the ice. The black, tarry plants could absorb infrared from the brown dwarf, using the energy to melt minute quantities of water. In the moments before the water refroze, the plants moved the liquid upward, shaping the stem-like substrate upon which they could grow. The possibility that the plants of Nyanga could use dwarf heat to sculpt the surface of their world was beautiful. They rode their own ice sculptures to compete for light. The idea was hopeful, haunting and quiet.
-
Cassandra considers subjectivity versus objectivity:
Although Bel’s paranoia about his quantum objectivity had led him to say a lot of things she didn’t believe, she trusted one of them to be true. Bel said that ultimately, a subjective consciousness could discern the algorithms making up even the most advanced objective system.
-
“Dreams don’t all come true, Arjona,” Iekanjika said. “What you eventually make might not be what you dreamed, but if you care, it might be better than nothing.”
-
Rudo contemplates honour:
“We have a common dream, you and I, and I have no more secrets. You know everything about me, ugly and good. No one knows me better than you do and I’ve had four decades to think about who I was when I met you, and who you were. You were the first honorable person I’d ever met, the first who showed me a dream I should carry. I’d been like everyone else, looking out for myself, trying to pick sides and hedge my bets, and you made me ashamed of that. You showed me a larger dream and you showed me the kind of people who would reach it. I didn’t want to be left behind. When I became a major, I knew I didn’t want to be like [soldier]; I wanted to be like you. If I haven’t ruined everything between us, I still want you leading my staff.”
-
Rudo was only sixty-two years old, but her age was concentrated in the sadness in her eyes. She was still paying those costs she’d incurred early in her life. And as if Ayen really could peer straight into her heart, Ayen knew that Rudo wouldn’t kill her. It was the opposite. She really would have let Ayen kill her. Rudo was aching for a redemption she couldn’t reach. Her only hope for inner peace was the gift of absolution only Ayen could give.


Notes:
5.0% "Already terrific! A continuation of the first book, with quantum hard science imagination cool stuff 😉"

10.0% "Derek's prose is amazing, in that it presents very complex ideas clearly and with wonderful pacing and rhythm."

30.0% "Brilliant complexity and plotting. Very complex and totally delicious!"

32% Utterly outrageous plotting! Sorry for so many spoilers....
Iekanjika breathed, looking straight ahead, still deflating. “We’re not going back in time because Arjona wants to, or even because we want to,” she said numbly. “We’re going back because we have to.”
“To avoid a grandfather paradox,” Belisarius said.

40.0% "More complexity! The unwinding of all these plots and subplots is going to be extraordinary. I'm in awe!"

46.0% "A terrific soliloquy here by Iekanjika."

50.0% "Spectacularly good action here, complexities still rising. Wow."

82.0% "Utterly brilliant plotting and action. Wow."

With many thanks, this ARC courtesy of Derek, NetGalley and Solaris books.

Derek Künsken

[David Katzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Quantum Garden (Book 2 in The Quantum Evolution series) was quite fun! Although not substantially different from Book 1 in the series (my review of The Quantum Magician is here), I enjoyed it more. After Book 1, the world building has been established, which allows Künsken to focus less on the backstory and more on the plot and characters.

It’s much smarter than pulp sci fi, delves a bit deeper into intriguing characters, and it’s based on real physics extended to imaginative (meaning exaggerated/impossible) places. The plot line in Book 2 is less epic than in Book 1 (conning a space armada and an entire powerful civilization), but it’s more emotional. Book 2 involves time travel, meeting your life partner in the past before they met you, accidentally destroying an entire species and trying to save another.

The story follows primarily two main characters: Bellasarius the Homo quantus con man with a “quantum mind” and Colonel Ayen Iekanjika. I felt that Ayen actually became the lead character here, rather than Bellasarius who was the main character from Book 1. A commander of a starship and lead strategist of her people, she was forced to confront not only her people’s questionable behaviors in the past but also shocking revelations about one of her two spousal partners. Her people apparently often have three-person marriages, especially in leadership positions, to establish political alignment. Both Ayen and Bellasarius are powerfully affected by the events of this story and that becomes the most interesting aspect of the entire book.

For fans of space opera combined loosely with quantum theory, this series is recommended.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Quantum Garden, the second instalment in The Quantum Evolution series by the superb Derek Künsken, is even more thrilling and intense than its predecessor and putting it down was a real problem and one I rarely get when reading science/speculative fiction. The combination of different elements make this series a real rare and original gem; a compulsive and intelligent heist adventure set in a world where time travel is possible and plays a substantial role in the plot. This is just as imaginative and creative as the first instalment, and although it opens in rather a pedestrian manner the pace soon picks up to a decent canter. The diverse cast is a joy to behold, the science behind the universe fascinating and the worldbuilding intricate as well as some of the most extensive I've come across in any science-fiction epic in years.

It's a powerful, unpredictable story set against a complex backdrop and with a suspenseful atmosphere and non-stop action. Throughout the journey, we encounter many different species and entities including AIs, alien beings and genetically engineered post-humans, to name a few. The fact that there was a lot of focus paid to how large a role responsibility plays in a persons life and the idea that all actions lead to consequences be they positive or negative we all have to live with the knowledge that our choice started a chain reaction; I found this highly thought-provoking and interesting to consider the whole way through the plot. Are you better to make the right decision for the wrong reasons or the wrong decision for the right reasons? This is a space opera of the highest quality. Many thanks to Solaris for an ARC.

[Henk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book keeps on twisting and turning and redefining what I thought would be possible in time travel narratives. Almost as clever as Tenet, while raising moral questions
We live with lots of things we can’t live with.

The con continues and at times is so smart it is hard to keep track of. While we discovered the present galaxy in the first instalment of the trilogy, we now start to explore the potential of the time gates more fully and wildly. Very well done and truly thought provoking. I forgive the sagging of the book around halfway in, and look forward to reading the third part!

Full review to follow!

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a step up from his debut novel, “The Quantum Magician” (2018). It’s a tighter book, and the characterizations are (mostly) better done. Some of the Rubber Science is dubious, but hey: we don’t read SF to learn physics! Anyway, Künsken continues his use of Quantum Physics = Science Magic, and this time throws in…. Time Travel! Which, here in the boring old Real World, is (basically) impossible -- or is it? If wormholes actually exist, and can be used for FTL travel, which is equivalent to time travel: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_... (a problematic article). Almost no real physicists believe FTL travel could happen. But so what? Künsken's fictional wormhole stuff was a whole lot of fun, and I enjoyed the ride. Time loops, time spirals, the Grandmother Paradox, the colorful light show as Our Heroes transit the wormhole time-machine…. You can tell he had fun spinning this part of the tale. Hard SF, it's not. But so what? And it is thought-provoking.

The setting: I liked the Afro-futurist background for the two Powers we see up close here. The Congregate are francophone descendants of the old French African empire. The Sub Saharan Union appear to be a transliteration of historic Zimbabwe into a stellar power. The political machinations, betrayals, and twisted motivations of the competing military characters get dizzying. The Mongrels! The Mongrel Code: "Bite every hand. Piss on every leg." Stills is quite the foul-mouthed hot pilot! Definitely a scene-stealer.

Homo quantus, with thousands of implanted magnetosomes to sense the weirdness of Phase Space! Cassandra navigates the racer “Calculated Risk” through space and time…. At one point she manages an inversion that converts the whole ship into antimatter! Which Stills the pilot uses to save the day, by bombarding the attacking Scarecrow by showering his ship with deadly Anti-piss! Now, her next trick is to (very carefully!) undo the transformation back to normal matter before exiting Phase Space…. And I spent a few minutes thinking, huh. I wonder if you could really do this? After all, antimatter and matter are the same except for sign, so maybe this wouldn't violate the conservation of energy laws?? Hmm...

Recommended reading: 4 stars. I’ll be reading the next one.

Best review here is by Kara Babcock: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... She has it spoiler-protected — but unless you are super-sensitive to spoilers, you’d be fine to read it up front, I think.

Another good review (spoiler-free), by Bill Capossere at Fantasy Literature:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if it's the narration or my familiarity with the story allowing me to appreciate certain aspects more but I'm upping my rating to 5 stars after the reread.

I love this universe. The different species and sub-species. The effort put in to detail the different cultures. The delightful amount of introspection that the protagonist is incapable of stopping himself from doing. And Stills. Oh Deity how I love Stills.

“Yup. And I need a pilot.”
“Good. I thought this was gonna be tempting or something. I’m already altruisted out, saving the Union. They got the best flying. Sorry.”
“I need a pilot to [redacted] ,” Arjona said.
Malparido hijoeputa. “Are you shitting me?”
“I never have,” Arjona said.
“For the love of.... Goddamn! Can’t you ever just rob a bank or something?”

Up there with Planetfall as one of my favorite scifi series.

[Hank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow to get going and a bit repetitive at the beginning but great mind bending time travel plot and some morality thrown in. Stills is by far one of the best characters I have read in a while. I think I will read the rest of the series (I would have anyway) just for him. What is it about a character who is completely foul mouthed, has a disregard for just about anything and anyone and is simply awesome at his job? Probably appeals to the 13 year old in me (there is probably far too much of that in me).

Looking forward to the next one. This is fairly heavy on the tech and time causality discussions, those who aren't into heavy sci-fi should probably skip this series.

[Luke Burrage · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm super happy with this book! It's rare that a novel can both melt my mind in terms of new space/tech/time/physics ideas, and also make me cry due to the personal impact of how they play out in the lives of the characters.

Full review on my podcast, SFBRP episode #417:



http://www.sfbrp.com/archives/1663

[Gus Smedstad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike the first book, The Quantum Garden was rather dull and frustrating. While it starts off promising, the after the initial act the plot soon slows to a crawl where very little is happening.

This novel belongs to the class of time travel novels that thoroughly shoots itself in the foot because of the way time travel is treated. The characters spend a great deal of time worrying about whether they'll create paradoxes, and ultimately do stupid, inappropriate things purely because they're trying to avoid those paradoxes. It's extremely unsatisfying because it robs the characters of agency.

It doesn't help that this obsession with paradoxes ignores the elephant in the room: the original timeline obviously didn't include travelers from the future. So at least one iteration of time travel did change the past in ways that weren't consistent with what the future versions of the characters knew. The whole "paradoxes will destroy the universe" idea falls apart rapidly if you think about more than a few minutes.

Something that annoyed me, personally, but may not annoy you as a reader is that the treatment of quantum physics is pretty terrible. A significant plot point rests on popular misconception of the Uncertainty Principle. If you don't care about things like that, you might as well skip the rest of this review.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle often gets paraphrased as "observation affects the experiment." Which sometimes gets extrapolated, badly, to the idea that human intelligence is somehow special and privileged at the quantum level. This is exactly what Künsken does in this book, repeating over and over that human observation collapses quantum probability waves, sometimes to significant effect.

This is truly awful physics, on par with the "humors" theory of disease. The Uncertainty Principle doesn't say anything about people at all; rather, it's based on the fact that it's impossible to measure a particle's vector or position without bouncing another particle off it, and the interaction is going to change the target's velocity and position. Usually we're talking about photons, but it applies to any particle-particle interaction.

The Uncertainty Principle is about the limits of what we can observe, but it says nothing about particle-particle interactions when a human isn't involved. Those still happen constantly without humans, and humans (or other intelligences) aren't required to collapse quantum wave functions.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time travel stories are tricky. The best ones give me a headache but not too much of a headache. I guess it’s the literary equivalent of the adrenaline rush one gets from momentarily being upside down on a roller coaster (which is definitely not for me): I want my brain to hurt as I contemplate 4-, 11-, or 22-dimensional spacetime … but I don’t want to get so confused that I feel the author could basically just do anything. (This is why Doctor Who is often such a crapshoot depending on who is writing for it.) Fortunately, with The Quantum Garden, Derek Künsken returns with all of the magic from The Quantum Magician —and honestly, I think he outdoes himself this time!

I received a copy of this for free from NetGalley and Solaris.

Belisarius Arjona has succeeded in pulling off his biggest con yet. The results, however, are a little more dramatic than he might have wanted. He has precipitated a war between two large powers. He stole a pair of time gates. And as the book opens, he watches a warship from one of those powers exact retribution on him by destroying the home of his subspecies, Homo quantus. Now, if I were in his position, I would probably not deal with that loss very well. Belisarius has a … different idea. He has some wormholes that let him travel in time, so naturally … he just travels back in time two weeks and develops a gambit to save his people. It’s not quite that simple, of course, because it will also end up involving travelling forty years into the past, accidentally wiping out an entire species, shattering someone’s entire perception of themselves and their wife … need I go on?

I’d forgotten how much humour these books have. I dove back into this universe and immediately started enjoying it, although to be honest, it wasn’t until Stills showed up that I truly started laughing out loud:

“Yup. And I need a pilot.”

“Good, I thought this was gonna be tempting or something. I’m already altruisted out, saving the Union. They got the best flying. Sorry.”

“I need a pilot to fly me through time,” Arjona said.

Malparido hìjeoputa. “Are you shitting me?”

“I never have,” Arjona said.

“For the love of…. Goddamn! Can’t you ever just rob a bank or something?”

I’d forgotten how Stills’ unapologetic vulgarity is an excellent chaser to the quantum mechanical technobabble from some of the other characters. The diversity of Künsken’s characterization remains top notch. Moreover, this particular exchange tickled me because it perfectly lampshades the absurd scope of some of Bel’s adventures without being too cutesy about it. It’s like how the main characters of Stargate SG-1 eventually start joking, around seasons 7 and 8, about how many times they’ve saved the planet: they’ve earned the ability to do that, both in the show and the show itself. The Quantum Garden is much the same. Some books will make a comment like this, and it will annoy me, because the book has done nothing to earn such grandiose comments. Künsken definitely has, with both the first book and now its sequel.

Interestingly, as some of you may know, heists are my kryptonite as far as stories go … yet I actually preferred this book, which is less of a heist than the first one. It’s more straight-up espionage. But I think Künsken took everything that I liked about the first book and amplified it here, while having a tighter cast of characters and a less convoluted plot (and that is saying something, considering that we’re involving some knotty time travel here!).

The time travel logic, while definitely timey-wimey, makes sense if you unpack it. I can see the thoughtfulness on display, the way Künsken was careful to set everything up to avoid paradoxes while still maintaining a sense of suspense. That’s not easy to do.

Related to the time travel would be the Hortus quantus Bel encounters in the past, and their very unique mode of existence/propagation. Künsken demonstrates even more creativity than we encountered in the first book (which is saying something)—I love when authors push the boundaries of what we can conceive, when it comes to alien beings, and this species is quite something! It’s so easy for people to dismiss quantum mechanics as “weird,” simply because it is unintuitive owing to our three-dimensional bias. Yet if you push past that initial weirdness, you can explore and play with so many cool concepts and ideas. This is why I love reading posthuman SF like The Quantum Garden.

Most of the main characters experience some good growth. In particular, I like how Cassandra has more opportunities to shine and come into her own. She has more responsibilities, and it galvanizes her into being a more decisive actor. She holds her own with Stills as they battle the Scarecrow, and it’s a sight to see! As far as the Scarecrow goes, this is a small area in which The Quantum Garden disappoints. We learn a lot more about his origins, which is fine, but as an antagonist goes he’s fairly unimpressive in this book. I’m hoping that changes in the next one.

The story is exciting and entertaining all the way through: I literally only put this down to go to work after I started reading it on Tuesday morning, and I stayed up way too late trying to finish it that evening. It’s not for e everyone, but if this subgenre is what you enjoy, you are in for a treat. Künsken builds on what came before while setting up the tantalizing possibility of more stories, more adventures, more bright ideas. This is one of my top reads of 2019 for sure.

My reviews of The Quantum Evolution:
← The Quantum Magician

[Hélène Louise]

I loved the first book of the series; even if I found difficult to read the few passages about quantum people, they were necessary for the plot, and I didn't mind them. The rest made for it, easily.

Alas my feelings while reading the beginning of this second book (I've read a quarter of it before deciding to give up) were bad. I had the impression that I was reading a fan-fiction wrote by someone who has been, contrary to me, fascinated by the quantum parts in the first book. For about 20 % of the book, all the writing is about quantum brains, homo quantus, quantum fugue, fugue fever, over, over and over. There is a development, a huge one even, but the story was so boring for me! The characters, the quantum ones, are all the same person, with one and unique personality, even if they don't make the same decision facing a tragedy, they didn't seem different people. No nuance, just endless dwelling about homo quantus particularities.
Then I had a short part with plenty of names, which drown me a little more. Then I had a part with the Tribe of the Mongrel, and I thought 'hurrah, one of my favorites!' - but no, still unconvincing...

To conclude, if you loved the first book of the series you should absolutely check this one as every body seem to love it as much. But be ready to swallow a huge quantum bite before anything else!
For myself I'll try it again in a while, maybe skimming a bit at the beginning (I even had bought the paper book :/) but for now, a disappointment...

[Viking Jam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 4.8/5

Review: Much like the Quantum Magician, this does not disappoint. Since I loved this novel let’s pick on the points that were a bit weak. The story line was too carefully planned, almost as if every instance is predicated on a definitive outcome. There just weren’t any surprises. Perhaps I have grown used to the writing style in so much that what was once random and surprising is now a bit patterned.

This author does a fantastic job at world building while deftly weaving an intricate story line. There is a sense of optimism coupled with an an underlying unease that creates a pull for the characters to succeed. The alieness of worlds is touched upon with some explanatory infusion and brings great depth to the scenes as they develop.

SciFi is hard to come by these days what with romance writers taking a big smelly shjt in the genre, but GOOD SciFi is really hard to come by and this author nails it….every time.

[Spad53 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mumbo-jumbo is a fun word, and describes a large portion of this book. What makes it more difficult is that there is some real science mixed in with it, so you’re never quite sure what to skip and what to wade through. My technical education and my father taught me to try and understand whats written, but in this case I’m not clever enough, and if the author wanted to add to my inferiority complex he’s certainly succeeded. On the other hand, there is a good story in this book, and the world-building is wonderful, but then characters........... my,my they’re awful! They even kept changing names, when I was on 80% I found myself looking up the main character because the author used Bel instead of Belisarius, and he lost me. Probably because I didn’t care.
So my rating is 2.5 rounded up to 3, because I did manage to finish it, and I might just possibly read the third book in the series.

[Chip · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Absurdly inventive - time travel, mysteries, suspense, Ian Banks level world (universe) building, etc. etc. etc. Just awesome.

[Plamen Nenchev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite a somewhat slow start, this was really good, perhaps even better than the first novel, until about 50% in. Then... well, I guess Künsken no longer knew why he was writing this book. Instead of acting, the main characters did a lot of navel-gazing, sighed wistfully and went in circles until I was practically skimming through entire sections of text, just to find out what happens in the end. Ultimately, this is a sequel that feels redundant and unnecessary.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish it was longer! Really enjoying the series, can't wait for the next one

[Soo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes:

My response to this book was the opposite of the first. In #1, I enjoyed the setup and thought the wrap up was packed with info but not as entertaining as a story. #2 had a slower build up, but there were some amazing sequences towards the end. I'm back to excited to see how #3 will turn out.

There's one scene in particular around 87/90% of the book that I loved. A helter skelter, mumbo-jumbo fictional sci-fi at it's geeky best. It's the kind of scene that I could see in Firefly. ;)

[Paul Coward · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book in the Quantum Evolution series picks up the story a few months after the finale of the previous book.

This one reminded me a lot of Ancillary Justice stylistically so if your a fan of than series no doubt you will enjoy this one.

This instalment has more quantum wizardry, time-travel, politicking, space travel and worm holes aplenty. Oh yes an my favourite character Stills.

I look forward to reading the next book Quantum War soon.

[Marie Labrousse · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'ai préféré ce deuxième tome au premier, le voyage temporel et les déplacements dimensionnels dans le trou de ver sont juste malades 🤩

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

*copy from Netgalley in exchange for a review*

The Quantum Garden is the second in Derek Künsken’s “Quantum Evolution” series. It explores the idea of transhumanism, as well as delving into moral quandary, both blended with some seriously snappy sci-fi action.

And yes, before you ask, it does it well. There’s so much to love here. The plot is pure high-concept sci-fi It involves, without spoilers, time travel, revolution, the salvation of a people, and some well observed, sharp-edged banter. It’s a story exploring big questions. It wants to talk about what it means to be human – or post human. Several of the characters are labouring under a legacy of hyper-focus, able to step outside themselves, and provide dispassionate estimations at the price of their own self dissolution. Others are trying to shape a nation in the face of fiercely antagonistic currents. Their efforts to make something worth approving of are at once visibly fragile, and fiercely energetic. Though there’s a tight focus on the central characters and their drivers, this is in service to the larger plot, and to the issues that the story delves into. The Quantum Garden isn’t a hesit, but it is wracked with tension and character-driven passion.

In some ways, this is also an optimistic story, It looks at the shape of societies driven by people who aren’t entirely, well, human. In most cases, those societies have managed to shape themselves decently, and are struggling to shape their destiny (rather than to shape anything). The idea that post-human people, despite their benefits and flaws, are still people, is a valuable one. Indeed, the text embraces those flaws in a lot of ways, exploring them in depth, and making no excuses. That said, it’s also unflinching in indicating the pervasive, invasive nature it espouses to corporate governance – the “shoot first, monetise later” mode. For all that, it will leave you with a warm feeling, a sense that the hypothetical kids are alright The pages of The Quantum Garden are filled with people in conflict, struggling to define themselves and to do the right thing. But that conflict is fiery, impassioned, compelling, and if some of the pdopkld making an argument seem better able than others, that may well be my own bias. Kunsken has given us a gloriously intelligent book, one unafraid to back away from the engagement it at once encourages and requires in its readers.

The universe of The Quantum Garden expands that of the previous book. Though we see less of the diversity I terms of humanity as in the previous book, still it’s possible to be enthralled by the strange and mysterious on display here. There are quiet moments between pages, when the fierce sense of the new strikes, when what you’re reading feels alone and thoroughly, oddly alien And that’s just the main characters.

This is also a character driven piece, delving into the psychology, the drives and motivations of a couple of central characters. In some ways, their viewpoints can be odd, unknowable. In other ways, disconcertingly immediate and human. The Quantum Garden gives us viewpoints which it’s easy to empathise and sympathise with, even as those views are in conflict with each other. That all presented views can be correct, that the ideological debates and practical consequences are valid and that they are felt, helps to give the story texture, a raw realism that keeps the pages turning.

I won’t get into the story, but it does have a lot going on. I had to think about this one as it went along – parsing moral choices, deciding which way I felt as characters struggled with ethical quandries But it also transported me from the immediate into the transcendental, with a universe familiar but unlike our own, where blaster fire ad quick wits can change the world.

In the end, this is a great story. It wants you to think, and to feel, to ask questions and hold the answers in your gut as well as in your head. It’s telling a story that grabs hold and won’t let go, and which asks interesting questions, and offers interesting answers. It’s all good stuff, really Give it a try.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating World

Fascinating world with very different engineered humans & now vegetal intelligences.

This is less of a caper and more of a "clean up the mess a day after the party while hungover" kind of book. It also doesn't have the classic 2nd book in a trilogy feel, but I guess author/publisher are keeping options open.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give Derek Kunsken major props for being able to craft an interesting story around quantum effects and 11 dimensional space. Very interesting characters, and one hell of a time loop.

[Noémie J. Crowley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nope, désolée, j'ai arrêté à 8%.
Je ne veux plus jamais entendre le mot "quantum" de ma vie.

[Sherron Wahrheit · Rating 5 out of 5]

The plot thickens and now I have to get my hands on book three. I love both the plot, the characters, and the science fiction.

[Elaine Aldred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belisarius Arjona, aided by his Ocean’s Eleven style team, has just pulled off the greatest heist/con job ever. But if you’re going to steal something more valuable than can ever be imagined from very powerful people, then expect retribution. When it comes to Bel it is his people, the Homo quantus, who are the ones to suffer for Bel’s audacity and now he has to set things right. To do this he must broker a deal with those he has just double-crossed and travel back in time to once again be a Quantum Magician, all the while staying ahead of the relentless Scarecrow because there are people who want more than his head on a spit.

In order to be able to read and fully enjoy The Quantum Garden, it is very necessary to have read the previous book The Quantum Magician, because there’s a great deal to conceptually get your head around. You must also enjoy writing which sometimes makes you feel as if your head is trying to explode as it takes great leaps of clever sci-fi extrapolation on board.

The Quantum Garden does need to be approached as a somewhat different beast to its predecessor because this is far more an exploration of political manoeuvring, a spy thriller and the ethics of responsibility through the lens of an imaginative extension of quantum physics, rather than a heist plot. There is a great deal of political intrigue involved and the type of delicate treading one must theoretically do through the past lest it affect the future. Indeed, for one of the characters who has been assigned to this mission by the commander Bel has convinced to aid him, the potential to affect the future becomes a rather heart-rending thread.

So, in many ways this is a book where Derek Künsken has not only unleashed his imaginative worldbuilding skills, but also evolved the plot into what is the right thing to do, knowing what the future will hold and also the sobering reality of potentially affecting the history of an innocent life for the sake of sheer hubris. At the same time Künsken manages to deliver a nail-biting plot where you are hoping beyond hope that everything will turn out all right. But you’re never quite sure.

I have to admit being a fan girl of the foul-mouth Vincent Still Homo eridanus, a variant of the original human whose normal environment is living in deep oceans and therefore brilliantly adapted to the terrific G forces induced by his anarchistic space fighter pilot antics. His ability to take flying right over the edge and into the realms of the impossible made for some tense space fighter action sequences.

The Quantum Garden was courtesy of Solaris via NetGalley.

[Robert Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Derek Künsken follows up his mindbending debut The Quantum Magician with something remarkably different in The Quantum Garden. The book opens just after the events of his debut. Con man Belasarius is on the run when he learns that one of his enemies has decided to exact revenge on his whole community, the homo quantus, who live a peaceful life on an asteroid. Belasarius uses the time gates he stole in the previous book to go back in time and mount a rescue mission but this is only the start of his problems.
The Quantum Magician was a challenging debut. Künsken’s universe is complex and it was hard to get a handle on it while also working through the heist plot of that book. With the scene setting out of the way, the sequel is much more focussed and successful. The bulk of the book sees Belasarius and an old enemy going back in time to complete a mission that will allow him to save his people. Being a time travel story it is full of potential paradoxes and moral conundrums for both Belasarius and his companions.
The name of the book comes from a sapient vegetable species (Hortus quantus) that Belasarius discovers in the past that uses the time gates to support their intelligence. Unfortunately this tends to show up Künsken’s tendency to fall back on technobabble:
The Hortus quantus existed like a giant superposition of uncollapsed quantum states. And the nature of their consciousness was quantum. They existed in a kind of natural quantum fugue, without collapsing quantum fields.
Yet, despite this, Künsken manages to develop some emotional depth around Belasarius and his relationship with this new species.
Reducing the cast list also helps immeasurably. Besides Belasarius the focus is really only on a handful of other players and they are all fascinating. From the foulmouthed pilot Stills,to Belasiarius’s companion Cassie, to Colonel Ayen Iekanjika who has to grapple with her people’s chequered past, to the congregate hunter known as the Scarecrow. All, particularly Ayen, get satisfying arcs.
The Quantum Garden takes a massive piece of world building and runs with it. Leaving most of the details in the background, Künsken has crafted a satisfying, sometimes mind bending, time travel thriller with a philosophical edge. The end leaves no doubt that another book is coming in this series, which given the strength of this entry, can only be welcomed.

[Qukatheg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book for free through NetGalley.

Belarisius and Cassandra are homo quantus, a subspecies of humans enhanced with quantum senses, high intelligence and exceptionally good at science. They're headed to the homo quantus' home, the asteroid Garret, when they see a big explosion with the potential to wipe out their people.
Bel and Cassie have stolen a time travel wormhole, so they travel back in time in order to prevent the genocide taking place. They have to evacuate the asteroid and go on the run to find a new home away from the Union, which wants its wormhole back, and the Congregate, which wants to use the homo quantus' brain power for their war effort.

The Quantum Garden has good story at its core. I love the time-travel intrigue, the stress over potential paradoxes. I love the diversity of the characters, the weird aliens, and the AI who believes he's an apostle. A lot of imagination went into this universe.
The world building is elaborate, with all sorts of politics playing in the background. I felt a bit out of my depth because I didn't read book one in the series, but it didn't stop me from enjoying the story.

One thing really bothered me. The homo quantus were basically portrayed as the autistic, childlike, naive stereotype - and the other characters thought of them alternatingly as easy targets to use, and warranting genocide. I would have hoped humanity would have moved beyond such things as they ventured out into the universe. I get enough autism-hate in my daily life, I prefer not to encounter it in my reading. So that was a downer.

All in all this would have been such a fun read, but it just wasn't for me. I might have given it 5 stars had it hadn't been for the autism issue.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is extremely chewy hard science fiction. The more you know about quantum mechanics, the more you'll enjoy this speculation on what would it be like for a human to think at the quantum mechanical level.

What's the book like? If Greg Egan, the hardest of hard SF writers about physics and consciousness, teamed with Yoon Ha Lee, who writes space opera about Machiavellian, galaxy-spanning cabals, it might be something like this. Lee has a more sardonic sense of humor, but the schemes-within-schemes approach (and two entities co-existing in the same mind) is similar.

I don't want to make you think it's all dry expositions about physics; there's lots of action, including fights, betrayals, and exciting chase scenes (within a wormhole, no less). If you can handle a character who thinks completely differently than we do, but who is frightened of what he's trying to accomplish and unsure of his own capabilities, then this is for you.

There is also an inventive variation of the time travel trope that primarily involves a female officer from the first novel who was betrayed by the main character but has to work with him now. Fascinating! I love how many authors are reworking the idea of time travel in their own way (Gibson, Reynolds, McDonald, Robson, Newitz).

This is a follow-up to the author's first novel, “The Quantum Magician”, which should be read first. Otherwise you're plunging into the deep end of quantum consciousness without a lifeline. I found this to be an entirely satisfying sequel. And the last line indicates that the story probably isn't done...