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The Billion Worlds #1
The Godel Operation
Science fiction at its sense-of-wonder best. A wild chase through the billion worlds of the Tenth Millennium in search of a mythical weapon that could save civilization—or doom it!
A DROID AND HIS BOY, ON A SEARCH FOR A LEGENDARY WEAPON
Daslakh is an AI with a problem. Its favorite human, a young man named Zee, is in love with a woman who never existed — and he will scour the Solar System to find her. But in the Tenth Millennium a billion worlds circle the Sun—everything from terraformed planets to artificial habitats, home to a quadrillion beings.
Daslakh's nicely settled life gets more complicated when Zee helps a woman named Adya escape a gang of crooks. This gets the pair caught up in the hunt for the Godel Trigger, a legendary weapon left over from an ancient war between humans and machines—which could spell the end of civilization.
In their search, they face a criminal cat and her henchmen, a paranoid supermind with a giant laser, the greatest thief in history, and a woman who might actually be Zee's lost love.
It's up to Daslakh to save civilization, keep Zee's love life on the right track—and make sure that nobody discovers the real secret of the Godel Trigger.
Praise for Arkad's World :
“Far-flung adventure . . . Cambias offers up an entertaining coming-of-age novel filled with action and surprises. His aliens are suitably non-human in mannerisms, attitudes, and objectives, and his worldbuilding suggests a vast universe ready for further exploration. Readers . . . will find this hits the spot.”— Publishers Weekly
“. . . a classic quest story, a well-paced series of encounters with different folk along the way, building momentum toward a final confrontation with Arkad's past . . . [with] a delicious twist to the end.”— ALA Booklist
“Cambias has achieved a feat of an expansive, believable setting with fascinating aliens, compelling mysteries, and a rich sense of history.”— Bookpage
“Drop a teenage boy into a distant planet chock full of colorful aliens—with troubles all their own. Stir, flavor, apply heat. A tour de force in the field, and great, quick fun.”—Gregory Benford
Praise for the work of James L.
“Beautifully written, with a story that captures the imagination the way SF should.”— Booklist, starred review
“An engaging nail-biter that is exciting, fun and a satisfying read.”— T he Qwillery
'“An impressive debut by a gifted writer.”— Publishers Weekly, starred review
“An exceptionally thoughtful, searching and intriguing debut.”— Kirkus, starred review
“James Cambias will be one of the century's major names in hard science fiction.”—Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award–winning author of Red Planet Blues
“Fast-paced, pure quill hard science fiction. . . . Cambias delivers adroit plot pivots that keep the suspense coming.”—Gregory Benford, Nebula Award-winning author of Timescape
A DROID AND HIS BOY, ON A SEARCH FOR A LEGENDARY WEAPON
Daslakh is an AI with a problem. Its favorite human, a young man named Zee, is in love with a woman who never existed — and he will scour the Solar System to find her. But in the Tenth Millennium a billion worlds circle the Sun—everything from terraformed planets to artificial habitats, home to a quadrillion beings.
Daslakh's nicely settled life gets more complicated when Zee helps a woman named Adya escape a gang of crooks. This gets the pair caught up in the hunt for the Godel Trigger, a legendary weapon left over from an ancient war between humans and machines—which could spell the end of civilization.
In their search, they face a criminal cat and her henchmen, a paranoid supermind with a giant laser, the greatest thief in history, and a woman who might actually be Zee's lost love.
It's up to Daslakh to save civilization, keep Zee's love life on the right track—and make sure that nobody discovers the real secret of the Godel Trigger.
Praise for Arkad's World :
“Far-flung adventure . . . Cambias offers up an entertaining coming-of-age novel filled with action and surprises. His aliens are suitably non-human in mannerisms, attitudes, and objectives, and his worldbuilding suggests a vast universe ready for further exploration. Readers . . . will find this hits the spot.”— Publishers Weekly
“. . . a classic quest story, a well-paced series of encounters with different folk along the way, building momentum toward a final confrontation with Arkad's past . . . [with] a delicious twist to the end.”— ALA Booklist
“Cambias has achieved a feat of an expansive, believable setting with fascinating aliens, compelling mysteries, and a rich sense of history.”— Bookpage
“Drop a teenage boy into a distant planet chock full of colorful aliens—with troubles all their own. Stir, flavor, apply heat. A tour de force in the field, and great, quick fun.”—Gregory Benford
Praise for the work of James L.
“Beautifully written, with a story that captures the imagination the way SF should.”— Booklist, starred review
“An engaging nail-biter that is exciting, fun and a satisfying read.”— T he Qwillery
'“An impressive debut by a gifted writer.”— Publishers Weekly, starred review
“An exceptionally thoughtful, searching and intriguing debut.”— Kirkus, starred review
“James Cambias will be one of the century's major names in hard science fiction.”—Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award–winning author of Red Planet Blues
“Fast-paced, pure quill hard science fiction. . . . Cambias delivers adroit plot pivots that keep the suspense coming.”—Gregory Benford, Nebula Award-winning author of Timescape
288 pages, Paperback
Published May 4, 2021
21 people are currently reading
312 people want to read
About the author
James L. Cambias
65 books270 followersI grew up in New Orleans, was educated at Chicago, and currently live in New England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
April 5, 2025
A good SF adventure set some 8,000 years in the future, in a well-populated solar system with some remarkable engineering and scientific advances. Cambias writes with a light touch, but this is a book I *wanted* to like more than I could. But this is a solidly-crafted work, and I wonder if it missed the mark for me from my usual wintertime blues. I might try skimming it again in a few months to see if I like it more on a second reading. For now a solid 3 stars, cautiously recommended.
Paul Di Filippo's review at Locus is the one to read: https://locusmag.com/2021/05/paul-di-...
"I’d like to now propose that we invent or recognize a new sub-genre called “Radical Fun SF,” and that we put James Cambias at the top of the roster. Radical Fun SF would utilize the entire sophisticated toolkit of science fiction from Gernsback to Rajaniemi, as well as deploying solid speculative science, to craft stories whose dominant mode was sense-of-wonder thrills. No tendentious preaching, no unmixed doom and gloom, no overdose of mundanity. ... Fully “adult,” yet not jaded, Radical Fun SF would seek to evoke the same reactions one had at age 13 when encountering for the first time the very notion of science fiction and the explosion of awe-filled cosmic consciousness it can engender—with perhaps a more “mature” awareness of the complexity of life. ..."
Radical Fun SF -- with an explosion of awe-filled cosmic consciousness! I wanted to see more of this. Well. Still an entertaining book, and blessedly short.
The author explains how he came up with the ideas for this book & did some simple calculations, using Freeman Dyson's original 1960 proposal:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/05/0...
He plans more books in this setting, and in fact has a second in the works now:
"... this one will be a gritty thriller about salvage operators trapped in an abandoned space hab with a gang of murderous pirates — and a lurking threat far more deadly. I’ve also got plans for a romantic comedy, a heist story, and a spy story." Well! I'll be reading on.
Paul Di Filippo's review at Locus is the one to read: https://locusmag.com/2021/05/paul-di-...
"I’d like to now propose that we invent or recognize a new sub-genre called “Radical Fun SF,” and that we put James Cambias at the top of the roster. Radical Fun SF would utilize the entire sophisticated toolkit of science fiction from Gernsback to Rajaniemi, as well as deploying solid speculative science, to craft stories whose dominant mode was sense-of-wonder thrills. No tendentious preaching, no unmixed doom and gloom, no overdose of mundanity. ... Fully “adult,” yet not jaded, Radical Fun SF would seek to evoke the same reactions one had at age 13 when encountering for the first time the very notion of science fiction and the explosion of awe-filled cosmic consciousness it can engender—with perhaps a more “mature” awareness of the complexity of life. ..."
Radical Fun SF -- with an explosion of awe-filled cosmic consciousness! I wanted to see more of this. Well. Still an entertaining book, and blessedly short.
The author explains how he came up with the ideas for this book & did some simple calculations, using Freeman Dyson's original 1960 proposal:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/05/0...
He plans more books in this setting, and in fact has a second in the works now:
"... this one will be a gritty thriller about salvage operators trapped in an abandoned space hab with a gang of murderous pirates — and a lurking threat far more deadly. I’ve also got plans for a romantic comedy, a heist story, and a spy story." Well! I'll be reading on.
March 3, 2025
This took me a little bit to get into but once I got a handle on the world a little it ended up being a decent story.
There are some Murderbot vibes here, with a robot who seems to be hiding quite a lot of secrets from his human, Zee. They have quite an interesting relationship, and it's fun to watch how this develops with the addition of some new characters.
Plenty of fun space adventures and chaos to keep the story moving at a decent pace, and the characters hold the interest. Kusti could have been further developed one way or the other, I think - she felt a bit washed out - but otherwise there are some unique characters here.
The setting is the Billion Worlds, so there's lots of space travel and so much of the world untouched that it could spawn plenty of books without getting dull.
It's very high-tech so not for the sci-fi rookies, but those looking for serious sci-fi with fun characters and an interesting adventure to drive them should be pretty impressed by this one.
There are some Murderbot vibes here, with a robot who seems to be hiding quite a lot of secrets from his human, Zee. They have quite an interesting relationship, and it's fun to watch how this develops with the addition of some new characters.
Plenty of fun space adventures and chaos to keep the story moving at a decent pace, and the characters hold the interest. Kusti could have been further developed one way or the other, I think - she felt a bit washed out - but otherwise there are some unique characters here.
The setting is the Billion Worlds, so there's lots of space travel and so much of the world untouched that it could spawn plenty of books without getting dull.
It's very high-tech so not for the sci-fi rookies, but those looking for serious sci-fi with fun characters and an interesting adventure to drive them should be pretty impressed by this one.
July 4, 2021
Another discovery from Scalzi's Whatever, I thoroughly enjoyed this far-future space opera about a droid and his boy, as they gallivant around a solar system turned into a Dyson Swarm and filled with trillions of inhabitants, both meat and machine.
Zee is an inhabitant of a habitat in Uranus orbit who makes friends with Daslakh, a mech fellow inhabitant who is much older than it seems. (Aside: in Hindi, "daas lakh" means ten hundred thousand, aka one million. I wonder if that's deliberate or just a coincidence?) Through a series of improbable events, Zee ends up chasing after, and then finding, an imaginary former lover, and then on the trail of, a legendary ancient weapon that could change the face of the solar system.
I loved the setting here, which Cambias calls The Billion Worlds, with uplifted animals, humans, cyborgs and frighteningly powerful AIs, all coexisting (relatively) peacefully. It's a more or less post-scarcity society, with energy being the system-wide currency. I really liked Daslakh, who is the first person narrator of the story. It makes it clear early on that it's an unreliable narrator but also takes the mickey out of itself by repeatedly claiming to be "old and cunning" and then doing something simple and obvious.
The flashbacks showing us the cat and mouse escapades of two rival AIs who were on opposite sides of a war in ancient System history span thousands of years, as they repeatedly try to out-manoeuvre each other, and you can see them changing over the millennia, as the story slowly ties together with the present. I especially liked the glimpse of the faded magnificence of Kasaleth habitat, and would love a story set there in its glory days. You could tell a really cool Agatha Christie-style murder mystery there.
This was a really fun story, with a setting that's huge with lots of space for more stories. And, indeed, the author has said that he intends to write more in the setting. I look forward to reading them.
Zee is an inhabitant of a habitat in Uranus orbit who makes friends with Daslakh, a mech fellow inhabitant who is much older than it seems. (Aside: in Hindi, "daas lakh" means ten hundred thousand, aka one million. I wonder if that's deliberate or just a coincidence?) Through a series of improbable events, Zee ends up chasing after, and then finding, an imaginary former lover, and then on the trail of, a legendary ancient weapon that could change the face of the solar system.
I loved the setting here, which Cambias calls The Billion Worlds, with uplifted animals, humans, cyborgs and frighteningly powerful AIs, all coexisting (relatively) peacefully. It's a more or less post-scarcity society, with energy being the system-wide currency. I really liked Daslakh, who is the first person narrator of the story. It makes it clear early on that it's an unreliable narrator but also takes the mickey out of itself by repeatedly claiming to be "old and cunning" and then doing something simple and obvious.
The flashbacks showing us the cat and mouse escapades of two rival AIs who were on opposite sides of a war in ancient System history span thousands of years, as they repeatedly try to out-manoeuvre each other, and you can see them changing over the millennia, as the story slowly ties together with the present. I especially liked the glimpse of the faded magnificence of Kasaleth habitat, and would love a story set there in its glory days. You could tell a really cool Agatha Christie-style murder mystery there.
This was a really fun story, with a setting that's huge with lots of space for more stories. And, indeed, the author has said that he intends to write more in the setting. I look forward to reading them.
June 1, 2021
This is another solid, fun book from Mr. Cambias who, with this and Akrad's World, is carving out a niche in SF coming of age adventure stories. Constantly moving forward, constantly exploring SF spaces that are puzzles in themselves, and at the same time watching the young protagonist grow up. Godel Operation watches this from the outside with the narrator being someone watching over our human hero.
The book works across all fronts - the central human is likable, the narrator is likable, the central mystery is fairly presented, the worldbuilding presents an intriguing transhuman space - but the standout is the snappy, funny dialogue that had me laughing out loud/sharing funny lines with family several times in the book.
It's not as deep or texturally layered as his Breakthrough Book _Darkling Sea_ but it's fun, clever, picks you up and bops right along a series of cons and capers and thefts and puzzles in a fun to explore new world. Who needs more at the start of the summer?
The book works across all fronts - the central human is likable, the narrator is likable, the central mystery is fairly presented, the worldbuilding presents an intriguing transhuman space - but the standout is the snappy, funny dialogue that had me laughing out loud/sharing funny lines with family several times in the book.
It's not as deep or texturally layered as his Breakthrough Book _Darkling Sea_ but it's fun, clever, picks you up and bops right along a series of cons and capers and thefts and puzzles in a fun to explore new world. Who needs more at the start of the summer?
August 13, 2021
James L. Cambias tells the tale of Daslakh, and AI born at the end of the human/AI war two thousand years from now. Six thousand years later, shaped as a spider, it is working in an Ice mine with a young man, Zee. Zee is a bit depressed and the local mind puts an imaginary love story in Zee’s mind. Unfortunately Zee gets it in his head to go to Uranus to find Kusti Sendoa, the fantasy girl. They end up rescuing another girl from thugs. Unfortunately that results in Zee and Daslakh blown out into space where they are rescued by Kusti. The first girl, Adya is hunting for the Godel trigger, a program to shut down AI’s. Kusti, Adya, Zee, Daslakh and the two goons who might have been working for Kusti, end up on oneof jupiter’s moons trying to steal a box that contains the location of the trigger. The Godel Operation (trade from Baen) is a fun melodrama with double and triple crosses. The mcguffin is, of course, not as expected. Lots of fun. Review printed by Philadelphia Free Press
June 8, 2021
Really an awesome book. Nice balance for a hard sci-fi
June 27, 2021
Fun space opera jaunt
March 24, 2021
really really enjoyed this story, 4.5 stars
the viewpoint, the twists, the surprises, the future tech
this was good!
the viewpoint, the twists, the surprises, the future tech
this was good!
July 15, 2021
Wonderful
Very interesting plot. A minor critict: sometimes there is too much "world building", what make me skip several paragraphs or even pages. But I liked the book a lot.
Very interesting plot. A minor critict: sometimes there is too much "world building", what make me skip several paragraphs or even pages. But I liked the book a lot.
December 7, 2021
This is among the best things I have read this year. It smells faintly of murderbot and that is good. Robot and his boy or girl in not unique but this a very good spin on it. The pace and attitude are what are similar to the murderbot stuff.
The view of the future out 10,000 years is refreshingly plausible. The characters are fun and the plot is interesting.
The view of the future out 10,000 years is refreshingly plausible. The characters are fun and the plot is interesting.
July 29, 2022
My book group called this an enjoyable summer read, and I concur. It has dense, intricate world-building covering something like 10,000 years, but the narrator's style -- breezy, cynical, jaded, tolerant of the incomprehensible habits of human beings and other "biologicals" -- carries one easily along.
There are frequent interludes set during those 10,000 years (essentially flashbacks), and the separate aspects of the worldbuilding presented in those interludes can be a bit of a challenge.
My more scientifically knowledge group-mates marveled and rejoiced at the book's complete scientific accuracy.
There are frequent interludes set during those 10,000 years (essentially flashbacks), and the separate aspects of the worldbuilding presented in those interludes can be a bit of a challenge.
My more scientifically knowledge group-mates marveled and rejoiced at the book's complete scientific accuracy.
April 7, 2025
The setting is the star of this one, with a solar system 8000 years into the future, populated in the trillions, and by a massive range of sentient creatures and intelligences, biological and mechanical, all living in a post-scarcity society. Yet the space travel in this respects relativistic limits.
We pick up our narrator, the mech AI Daslakh and his human Zee in a habitat in the Uranian trojan asteroids. Events conspire to send them with an increasing cast of characters spiraling in to the inner solar system in a fairly classic planetary romp.
We pick up our narrator, the mech AI Daslakh and his human Zee in a habitat in the Uranian trojan asteroids. Events conspire to send them with an increasing cast of characters spiraling in to the inner solar system in a fairly classic planetary romp.
June 8, 2021
A very fun book. It reminds me a bit of the singularity stuff from the 2000s, but written with more heart than most.
An ancient AI (who may either be a war criminal, a hunter of war criminals, or both) shepherds his well-meaning but dimwitted human buddy through a solar-system-wide treasure hunt. The plot sagged a bit in places, and there were a few places where I wish we'd dug in more (like the climax).
First-rate world-building though. After seven or eight thousand years of civilization, every place, art-form, technology, and social structure has become a revival of a response to an imitation of a splinter-faction of a cult built around a myth based on a rumor about something that still happened centuries after the present day. There is an awesome sense of deep time, which doesn't stop the ephemeral fluttering of human emotions from finding their meaning.
An ancient AI (who may either be a war criminal, a hunter of war criminals, or both) shepherds his well-meaning but dimwitted human buddy through a solar-system-wide treasure hunt. The plot sagged a bit in places, and there were a few places where I wish we'd dug in more (like the climax).
First-rate world-building though. After seven or eight thousand years of civilization, every place, art-form, technology, and social structure has become a revival of a response to an imitation of a splinter-faction of a cult built around a myth based on a rumor about something that still happened centuries after the present day. There is an awesome sense of deep time, which doesn't stop the ephemeral fluttering of human emotions from finding their meaning.
October 17, 2021
Everyone in this surely post-scarcity society is oddly limited by needing to make more money. While supposedly set in a Dyson sphere, it feels like a much smaller civilization. Started off pretty well but then got predictable and was a chore to finish.
October 26, 2022
The Godel Operation is a lighter far future space opera (10th millenium) told by Daslakh, a rich, old powerful AI with many secrets who masquerades itself as a regular human-level intelligence spider drone in some Solar system habitat for a long time until it takes a shine to a young human, Zee, and tries to help him get over his funk asking "God" - ie the habitat AI mind for help; but when "God" intervenes giving Zee convincing memories of a powerful youth love story lost by his stubbornness, Zee doesn't react as the models predict (or maybe who knows "God" lies to our narrator about the models to flush him out) so he sets on a Solar System quest for said lost love.
It kind of doesn't help that Kusti Sendoa, the girl in question didn't really exist as she was actually a character in a long ago holodrama, there are hundreds of thousands of girls with that name, Zee is not that wealthy and space travel still costs, so Daslakh has to go with Zee too...
And surprisingly (or maybe not so) Zee immediately finds Kusti, helps her counter the machinations of an uplifted cat and its two hired goons, and saves Adya, a rich young woman from the aristocracy of Miranda who has rebelled against her family and is on an idealistic mission, helped by Pelagia a spaceship with lots of personality and an orca avatar.
6 millennia ago, a militant faction of the powerful AI's of the Inner Ring (former Mercury) decided that the increasing entropy of the universe required them to get asap all the mass and energy of the Solar System for their long-term plans (for billions of years ahead), so started a genocidal war to exterminate all life in the system and created LANN a very-very high level AI to fight the war; the peace faction kept coming with arguments why preserving all kinds of intelligence is useful and could be important, while pointing out that sharing the Solar System will delay their plans by only a million years or so, so a drop in the bucket, but for some years LANN was in the ascendant. However, the biologicals helped by the powerful Jupiter AI's fought back under the leadership of Deimos (the Mars orbital ring and the richest biological polity) and held their own despite horrendous losses, until in the end a strike at the Inner Ring that produced some small but real damage, brought the peace faction to power, LANN was shut down and since then the Inner Ring shared equally the energy of the Sun to the rest of the System who recovered and within a millennium was already sending solar-sails spaceships to other Stars. Since then wars and other conflicts have been limited in scope and damage.
Or so the official story goes, but there are whispers that LANN escaped and is planning revenge (maybe on the Ring, maybe on the biologicals..), and actually what ended the war was not the peace faction of the Ring, but the threat of an armageddon weapon that can kill any AI, the Godel Trigger, who was invented by geniuses on Deimos during the desperate days of the war and then hidden for future need (as of course said Trigger would kill not only the super AI's of the Ring but any software based minds including the quadrillions such of baseline intelligence that peacefully coexist with humans and the other biologicals and help run their civilization which would get destroyed too, so a true Armageddon weapon for mutual destruction) ...
And now there are rumors that the greatest thief in human history, Varas Lupur, who lives under the protection of Summanus, an old (and wartime participant) Jupiter habitat AI of at least level 5 (LANN was rumored to be level 6 at his most powerful gestalt) has the key to the location of the Godel Trigger as he possesses the artifact where said key is rumored to be hidden, though he probably doesn't know it.
But Kusti does know that and has some powerful tech that Daslakh strongly believes could have come only from the Ring, while Adya knows it too as she is a member of an organization dedicated to the protection of biological life.
And so it goes, with vignettes from the past as Daslakh reviews its memories, clearly showing that it is deeply connected with all of it.
While it takes a while to get used to the strangeness and the richness of the billion worlds universe of the author, the book moves fast and is extremely entertaining from the beginning to the very satisfying end.
Zee honest, handsome, naive to some extent and distracted why despite finding Kusti the lost love of his life, who also claims she remembers him and their passionate affair, is more and more attracted to Adya, is the perfect vehicle for Daslakh to guide and protect, the manipulative Kusti, the idealistic Adya, the mysterious and powerful Summanus, the hotheaded Pelagia and the seemingly charming but ultimately sinister Lupur are excellent characters too, while the cat and its sidekicks do for fun and games.
Highly recommended and a romp end to end that made me eager to read more in the Billion Worlds universe which the author promises will come soon
It kind of doesn't help that Kusti Sendoa, the girl in question didn't really exist as she was actually a character in a long ago holodrama, there are hundreds of thousands of girls with that name, Zee is not that wealthy and space travel still costs, so Daslakh has to go with Zee too...
And surprisingly (or maybe not so) Zee immediately finds Kusti, helps her counter the machinations of an uplifted cat and its two hired goons, and saves Adya, a rich young woman from the aristocracy of Miranda who has rebelled against her family and is on an idealistic mission, helped by Pelagia a spaceship with lots of personality and an orca avatar.
6 millennia ago, a militant faction of the powerful AI's of the Inner Ring (former Mercury) decided that the increasing entropy of the universe required them to get asap all the mass and energy of the Solar System for their long-term plans (for billions of years ahead), so started a genocidal war to exterminate all life in the system and created LANN a very-very high level AI to fight the war; the peace faction kept coming with arguments why preserving all kinds of intelligence is useful and could be important, while pointing out that sharing the Solar System will delay their plans by only a million years or so, so a drop in the bucket, but for some years LANN was in the ascendant. However, the biologicals helped by the powerful Jupiter AI's fought back under the leadership of Deimos (the Mars orbital ring and the richest biological polity) and held their own despite horrendous losses, until in the end a strike at the Inner Ring that produced some small but real damage, brought the peace faction to power, LANN was shut down and since then the Inner Ring shared equally the energy of the Sun to the rest of the System who recovered and within a millennium was already sending solar-sails spaceships to other Stars. Since then wars and other conflicts have been limited in scope and damage.
Or so the official story goes, but there are whispers that LANN escaped and is planning revenge (maybe on the Ring, maybe on the biologicals..), and actually what ended the war was not the peace faction of the Ring, but the threat of an armageddon weapon that can kill any AI, the Godel Trigger, who was invented by geniuses on Deimos during the desperate days of the war and then hidden for future need (as of course said Trigger would kill not only the super AI's of the Ring but any software based minds including the quadrillions such of baseline intelligence that peacefully coexist with humans and the other biologicals and help run their civilization which would get destroyed too, so a true Armageddon weapon for mutual destruction) ...
And now there are rumors that the greatest thief in human history, Varas Lupur, who lives under the protection of Summanus, an old (and wartime participant) Jupiter habitat AI of at least level 5 (LANN was rumored to be level 6 at his most powerful gestalt) has the key to the location of the Godel Trigger as he possesses the artifact where said key is rumored to be hidden, though he probably doesn't know it.
But Kusti does know that and has some powerful tech that Daslakh strongly believes could have come only from the Ring, while Adya knows it too as she is a member of an organization dedicated to the protection of biological life.
And so it goes, with vignettes from the past as Daslakh reviews its memories, clearly showing that it is deeply connected with all of it.
While it takes a while to get used to the strangeness and the richness of the billion worlds universe of the author, the book moves fast and is extremely entertaining from the beginning to the very satisfying end.
Zee honest, handsome, naive to some extent and distracted why despite finding Kusti the lost love of his life, who also claims she remembers him and their passionate affair, is more and more attracted to Adya, is the perfect vehicle for Daslakh to guide and protect, the manipulative Kusti, the idealistic Adya, the mysterious and powerful Summanus, the hotheaded Pelagia and the seemingly charming but ultimately sinister Lupur are excellent characters too, while the cat and its sidekicks do for fun and games.
Highly recommended and a romp end to end that made me eager to read more in the Billion Worlds universe which the author promises will come soon
May 26, 2025
The Godel Operation continues the tradition of imagining a complex, far future setting where the solar system is densely populated by humans and all kinds of digital minds (AIs of various levels, uploaded humans mixed with AI, and so on) with an immense array of societies. And like some of the sci-fi novels before it, to showcase the amount of world-building that has gone into this, adds a plot that allows his main characters to go on a sightseeing tour to cram as much of this setting as he can into his novel.
At the same time, there is an odd mismatch between the setting and the plot. Grand science fiction in the same tradition (Sterling's Schismatrix, Varley's Eight Worlds novels, Stross' Accelerando, Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers, Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur series, and others) often had an inventive plot to match the setting 1-on-1. Here, the plot feels conventional and utterly forgettable against the crazy backdrop.
Once you take a look at the inspirations for this book, and see Orion's Arm mentioned, this makes a lot more sense. OA is a world-building exercise that was inspired a lot by all those books, but never generated much beyond being just a setting. So, of course, a book inspired by a setting mostly devoid of interesting stories leads to a setting that is both grand and yet incredibly derivative, but lacks any interesting story.
What the Godel Operation has is a by-the-numbers plot that doesn't really raise any interesting questions, doesn't really explore or interrogate the setting in any interesting way, and ends in a particularly conventional and sentimental way that doesn't even come close to what many of those novels that came before attempted. This is mostly an empty setting-building exercise, not helped by being told from the viewpoint of an AI with the most clichéd snobby attitude about human life, that in the end, learns a little bit of the value of following one of those meat bodies around.
It's at least never boring, and getting to the end is somewhat entertaining, but the book never quite manages to shake off the impression that it's just a cheap copy of a cheap copy that doesn't quite understand what made the originals that inspired this book work in the first place.
At the same time, there is an odd mismatch between the setting and the plot. Grand science fiction in the same tradition (Sterling's Schismatrix, Varley's Eight Worlds novels, Stross' Accelerando, Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers, Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur series, and others) often had an inventive plot to match the setting 1-on-1. Here, the plot feels conventional and utterly forgettable against the crazy backdrop.
Once you take a look at the inspirations for this book, and see Orion's Arm mentioned, this makes a lot more sense. OA is a world-building exercise that was inspired a lot by all those books, but never generated much beyond being just a setting. So, of course, a book inspired by a setting mostly devoid of interesting stories leads to a setting that is both grand and yet incredibly derivative, but lacks any interesting story.
What the Godel Operation has is a by-the-numbers plot that doesn't really raise any interesting questions, doesn't really explore or interrogate the setting in any interesting way, and ends in a particularly conventional and sentimental way that doesn't even come close to what many of those novels that came before attempted. This is mostly an empty setting-building exercise, not helped by being told from the viewpoint of an AI with the most clichéd snobby attitude about human life, that in the end, learns a little bit of the value of following one of those meat bodies around.
It's at least never boring, and getting to the end is somewhat entertaining, but the book never quite manages to shake off the impression that it's just a cheap copy of a cheap copy that doesn't quite understand what made the originals that inspired this book work in the first place.
May 20, 2023
This isn't my favorite type of sci-fi, but the book was enjoyable.
This is a harder sci-fi novel where some realities of space travel and space survival are accounted for; all of humanity's colonization efforts have centered around the solar system because going farther than that is difficult, and transit in that space requires months if not years and requires living people to be cryo-shipped. There is also a lot of world building that the reader is dropped into the middle of. The story is set 10,000 years in the future, so no political or social structures from modern life apply, and you also have "uplifted" animals and genetically or technologically modified people seamlessly mixed in with more standard humans.
The story is sort of an archeological adventure mystery like a Tomb Raider style romp, but with all the sci-fi stuff on top; the multi-thousand year old artifact they're looking for is still wildly advanced technology from our perspective.
The narrator and main character Daslakh is entertaining. The style resembles the Murderbot Diaries stories from Martha Wells; the AI is much more intelligent than any of their peers, and they constantly complain about the illogic of human behavior. The other AI in the story have agendas and attitudes too, and Daslakh has a lot of snarky conversations with them and with himself that help to keep things moving. The flashbacks into the past also flesh out the universe and present a lot of cool ideas and sci-fi scenarios to consider. The human(ish) companions fall a bit flat by comparison; many of them are stereotypes and behave exactly as prescribed.
It's an entertaining trip through the solar system but the central plot isn't that engaging. The progress of the story is very direct and the resolution seemed a bit abrupt. To me the book leaned heavily on Daslakh being the narrator and providing the unique point of view; apart from that there isn't very much exciting or intriguing about the main caper. All of the interest is in the interactions between the narrator and the other characters.
This is a harder sci-fi novel where some realities of space travel and space survival are accounted for; all of humanity's colonization efforts have centered around the solar system because going farther than that is difficult, and transit in that space requires months if not years and requires living people to be cryo-shipped. There is also a lot of world building that the reader is dropped into the middle of. The story is set 10,000 years in the future, so no political or social structures from modern life apply, and you also have "uplifted" animals and genetically or technologically modified people seamlessly mixed in with more standard humans.
The story is sort of an archeological adventure mystery like a Tomb Raider style romp, but with all the sci-fi stuff on top; the multi-thousand year old artifact they're looking for is still wildly advanced technology from our perspective.
The narrator and main character Daslakh is entertaining. The style resembles the Murderbot Diaries stories from Martha Wells; the AI is much more intelligent than any of their peers, and they constantly complain about the illogic of human behavior. The other AI in the story have agendas and attitudes too, and Daslakh has a lot of snarky conversations with them and with himself that help to keep things moving. The flashbacks into the past also flesh out the universe and present a lot of cool ideas and sci-fi scenarios to consider. The human(ish) companions fall a bit flat by comparison; many of them are stereotypes and behave exactly as prescribed.
It's an entertaining trip through the solar system but the central plot isn't that engaging. The progress of the story is very direct and the resolution seemed a bit abrupt. To me the book leaned heavily on Daslakh being the narrator and providing the unique point of view; apart from that there isn't very much exciting or intriguing about the main caper. All of the interest is in the interactions between the narrator and the other characters.
May 16, 2025
У Камбиаса раньше читал только "Темное море", умеренно понравилось, неплохая НФ про первый контакт с цивилизацией слепых ракообразных, живущих в вечной глубоководной тьме. Автор был не очень опытный, но потенциально толковый, взял на заметку.
А тут вижу новый роман Камбиаса, да еще про далекое постчеловеческое будущее, год 10 000, внешняя часть Солнечной системы превратилась в гигантский рой из миллионов искусственных поселений, а внутренние планеты вообще разобраны на стройматериал для компьютрониевого Кольца, служащего носителем для миллиардов цифровых сверхразумов. Киборги, аплоады, аплифтнутые животные, орбитальные лифты, тераватные лазеры, полубожественные ИИ, в общем, все как мы любим.
Но, увы, обещающую концепцию подвел жанр. Не знаю, как он правильно называется... не "иронический детектив", иронические детективы - это другое, про саркастичных немолодых дам, с юмором расследующих запутанные преступления. Тут, наверное, "иронический криминальный роман", ближе к Уэстлейку, чем к Хмелевской, ну знаете, когда группа бестолковых, но обаятельных преступников пытается похитить Особо Ценное Сокровище, а заправляет ими Максимально Саркастичный Мошенник, от лица которого обычно и ведется повествование (в данном случае это циничный, но в глубине души добрый дроид, практически списанный с Киллербота). Ну и с ними обязательно конкурирует другая, или даже третья, банда смешных балбесов, и все наперегонки строят хитроумные планы, творят забавную дичь, мешают друг другу, короче, бегут и падают.
Вот "Операция Гедель" - это прям оно. Кому такое легкое чтение нравится, тем должно зайти на ура, а я подобные попытки в комедию не особо люблю и поэтому книгу пролистал без особой вовлеченности. Она не скучная, нет, в ней полно погонь, перестрелок, драк в невесомости, космических путешествий, коварных махинаций, подлых предательств, говорящих котов, и даже немного романтики. Она просто... пустая. Прочитал, забыл. Идеальное пляжное чтиво.
А тут вижу новый роман Камбиаса, да еще про далекое постчеловеческое будущее, год 10 000, внешняя часть Солнечной системы превратилась в гигантский рой из миллионов искусственных поселений, а внутренние планеты вообще разобраны на стройматериал для компьютрониевого Кольца, служащего носителем для миллиардов цифровых сверхразумов. Киборги, аплоады, аплифтнутые животные, орбитальные лифты, тераватные лазеры, полубожественные ИИ, в общем, все как мы любим.
Но, увы, обещающую концепцию подвел жанр. Не знаю, как он правильно называется... не "иронический детектив", иронические детективы - это другое, про саркастичных немолодых дам, с юмором расследующих запутанные преступления. Тут, наверное, "иронический криминальный роман", ближе к Уэстлейку, чем к Хмелевской, ну знаете, когда группа бестолковых, но обаятельных преступников пытается похитить Особо Ценное Сокровище, а заправляет ими Максимально Саркастичный Мошенник, от лица которого обычно и ведется повествование (в данном случае это циничный, но в глубине души добрый дроид, практически списанный с Киллербота). Ну и с ними обязательно конкурирует другая, или даже третья, банда смешных балбесов, и все наперегонки строят хитроумные планы, творят забавную дичь, мешают друг другу, короче, бегут и падают.
Вот "Операция Гедель" - это прям оно. Кому такое легкое чтение нравится, тем должно зайти на ура, а я подобные попытки в комедию не особо люблю и поэтому книгу пролистал без особой вовлеченности. Она не скучная, нет, в ней полно погонь, перестрелок, драк в невесомости, космических путешествий, коварных махинаций, подлых предательств, говорящих котов, и даже немного романтики. Она просто... пустая. Прочитал, забыл. Идеальное пляжное чтиво.
April 14, 2022
This book was a fun read. I think the brightest spot for this was the world building. This is set many thousands of years in the future where "digital intelligences" (mechs) outnumber "biological intelligences" thousands to one. Thousands of years ago there was a war between the mechs and the biologicals, which eventually ended when the mechs decided that the biologicals would all die out in a few million years anyway, so they could be tolerated good-naturedly until then. As the story opens, our narrator and main character, a mech, decides to follow his friend, a human, on what he knows to be a wild goose chase, but can't reveal this to his friend without also revealing his own secret. We follow them as the wild goose chase gets more dangerous and tangled. Bits of the narrator's secret are slowly revealed to us through a series of flashbacks strewn throughout. I felt like these flashbacks were a bit clunky. Whenever the characters traveled a long distance, the biological characters would be put into stasis and the mech would have downtime to review his digital memories and we'd get a flashback. That felt a little hokey to me. Also, the flashback would go back extremely long periods of time, like 8000 years ago and 6000 years ago and yet life seemed pretty similar. It seems like if you were to travel 8000 years in time, the technology would change quite a bit, but not in this story. Another complaint about the story was why would a mech thousands of years old decide to risk everything to travel with a human he'd only met less than a decade ago? This question is answered in the end, but I didn't know it would be, so it bothered me throughout. And finally, the denouement was a bit lackluster because it had all been hinted at so strongly during the flashbacks. Despite these inconsistencies and drawbacks, I was still able to enjoy the book quite a bit.
March 9, 2024
Zee is a young human minor, working in a habitat near Uranus in the Tenth Millennium. Daslakh is an AI living in a small, spider-like body that develops a liking for Zee, and becomes concerned when Zee begins acting depressed. He contacts that habitats main AI, which modifies Zee’s memory, making him believe he had loved a woman years ago and lost her — something to add purpose to his life, showing him that there was something significant he had been involved in. But it seems to backfire when Zee, rather than just thinking about this lost love, decides to track her down.
But things soon become much more complicated, as, after Zee finds the woman who he thinks is his lost love, Zee and Daslakh become involved in the search for an artifact, a legendary weapon that could destroy AIs. Bit by bit the backstory is filled in, one that involves a huge AI civilization in the inner solar system, one that had warred against both bilogogicals (humans and various uplifted others) as well as the AIs in the outer system before giving up the war. And bit by bit there are hints that Daslakh may be more than just a base level intelligence living in a small mechanical body.
This is an enjoyable space opera, set in an interesting future, with a thought-out history backing that future (one that would be nice to see more of). After the first few chapters, which establish our two main characters, the novel takes off, and accelerates as it goes on, as our characters are pursued by criminals and assassins, have to deal with several skeptical AIs as well as various authority figures, and deal with conflict in their own ranks. Overall, a fun read.
But things soon become much more complicated, as, after Zee finds the woman who he thinks is his lost love, Zee and Daslakh become involved in the search for an artifact, a legendary weapon that could destroy AIs. Bit by bit the backstory is filled in, one that involves a huge AI civilization in the inner solar system, one that had warred against both bilogogicals (humans and various uplifted others) as well as the AIs in the outer system before giving up the war. And bit by bit there are hints that Daslakh may be more than just a base level intelligence living in a small mechanical body.
This is an enjoyable space opera, set in an interesting future, with a thought-out history backing that future (one that would be nice to see more of). After the first few chapters, which establish our two main characters, the novel takes off, and accelerates as it goes on, as our characters are pursued by criminals and assassins, have to deal with several skeptical AIs as well as various authority figures, and deal with conflict in their own ranks. Overall, a fun read.
July 29, 2024
The first act of Godel Operation is NOT TO BE MISSED; it scintillates!
I do like the genre description of “Radical Fun SF” from the Locus review. My memory is Alfred Bester did this in one or more of his novels, where narratives red like a Plastic man comic book in text form. I also like his Arkad's World.
If you write yourself, it won't surprise you to hear it's difficult--if not exhausting--to keep up the level of invention and pacing James achieves in his first act. The late middle of the book could probably have been deleted.
Nor will it surprise you to hear the level of precise visualization goes in and out. Some scenes, including fight scenes, are very precisely imagined so the reader can picture each more clearly, not too much detail either. Other scenes with landscape and fantastic panoramas, have too little detail, hard for readers to grasp the grandeur James himself must have felt. In this Larry Niven is a still a teacher to James Cambias.
Nor will it surporise you to hear the middle of Godel is a collection of related short stories. These do pay off handsomely at the end.
Also striking here is James subverts reader expectation about the book's McGruffin. In the third act we learn what eveyone is after is not what everyone, including the reader, thinks it is. this means the final act has to pay of with a different dramatic impact. Not easy to do. James handles this well and I applaud his willingness to upend tired SF tropes.
I do like the genre description of “Radical Fun SF” from the Locus review. My memory is Alfred Bester did this in one or more of his novels, where narratives red like a Plastic man comic book in text form. I also like his Arkad's World.
If you write yourself, it won't surprise you to hear it's difficult--if not exhausting--to keep up the level of invention and pacing James achieves in his first act. The late middle of the book could probably have been deleted.
Nor will it surprise you to hear the level of precise visualization goes in and out. Some scenes, including fight scenes, are very precisely imagined so the reader can picture each more clearly, not too much detail either. Other scenes with landscape and fantastic panoramas, have too little detail, hard for readers to grasp the grandeur James himself must have felt. In this Larry Niven is a still a teacher to James Cambias.
Nor will it surporise you to hear the middle of Godel is a collection of related short stories. These do pay off handsomely at the end.
Also striking here is James subverts reader expectation about the book's McGruffin. In the third act we learn what eveyone is after is not what everyone, including the reader, thinks it is. this means the final act has to pay of with a different dramatic impact. Not easy to do. James handles this well and I applaud his willingness to upend tired SF tropes.
May 18, 2023
Three stars at times, but I give an extra for the way Campias has rolled up his sleeves and said "stand aside, Reynolds/Asher/Banks, I'm building a setting every bit as big as yours."
We have a credible plot that rolls along smoothly, even if it might not stand up to close scrutiny.
The worldbuilding is a bit over the top at times, but I can see that the author wants lots of room to work in later volumes. It's an infinite-resource setting overall - how DID they build all that stuff? - but with individual limitations, OK.
I've always liked smart-snarky AIs and we have one here. I wonder if Bengali readers liked the name Daslakh, roughly 100,000-servant.
Some quibbles:
We have a guy fighting with a stick in a world with smart-dust handcuffs, fingertip lasers, a fully-shape-changing mech, etc.? And when he needs a new stick he prints a carbon-fibre one from a public printer in an unstaffed park? What was I saying about infinite resources?
Speaking of finger lasers: how are they powered? How are they triggered?
Who were the old folks at the end? A setup for later? Will they turn out to be a retired god?
Why does the whole Trigger thing exist? And why has Daslakh decided to be with THIS particular group?
And a major grump with the ending. In which
BUT ... Cambias went up to hit a home run, and he has tripled off the wall. I'll applaud that, look for his earlier work, and await the next one of these.
We have a credible plot that rolls along smoothly, even if it might not stand up to close scrutiny.
The worldbuilding is a bit over the top at times, but I can see that the author wants lots of room to work in later volumes. It's an infinite-resource setting overall - how DID they build all that stuff? - but with individual limitations, OK.
I've always liked smart-snarky AIs and we have one here. I wonder if Bengali readers liked the name Daslakh, roughly 100,000-servant.
Some quibbles:
We have a guy fighting with a stick in a world with smart-dust handcuffs, fingertip lasers, a fully-shape-changing mech, etc.? And when he needs a new stick he prints a carbon-fibre one from a public printer in an unstaffed park? What was I saying about infinite resources?
Speaking of finger lasers: how are they powered? How are they triggered?
Who were the old folks at the end? A setup for later? Will they turn out to be a retired god?
Why does the whole Trigger thing exist? And why has Daslakh decided to be with THIS particular group?
And a major grump with the ending. In which
BUT ... Cambias went up to hit a home run, and he has tripled off the wall. I'll applaud that, look for his earlier work, and await the next one of these.
March 27, 2025
Daslakh is a small spider droid with an ancient mind that has been pared and shoehorned into its current case. Zee, its human mining partner, has no idea what he is hanging out with. When Zee starts showing signs of ennui, Daslakh hires an uplifted penguin to help by implanting false memories of a lost love in Zee’s innocent brain, giving a renewed zest for life. So far, so good, until Zee meets a girl who exactly matches his fictional memory, letting Daslakh know the penguin has its own nefarious agenda. Zee’s imagined lover leads them on a quest for a rumored weapon designed to kill digital minds using a logical loop suggested by the mathematician Kurt Gödel. It is a caper that takes them hopping across the solar system from the rings of Uranus to Jupiter and Mars.
Cambias does two things that add to the fun: he lets the feisty little Daslakh narrate the tale and packs his tenth-millennium world with all sorts of bots, AIs, uplifted animals, and a billion habits, on-planet and off.
Cambias does two things that add to the fun: he lets the feisty little Daslakh narrate the tale and packs his tenth-millennium world with all sorts of bots, AIs, uplifted animals, and a billion habits, on-planet and off.
May 1, 2023
I didn't expect this book to be so fun. It's a standard space opera with well-meaning people, scoundrels, thefts, and intrigue. People in this case include various AIs, including the narrator, whose origins are in the deep past and who is hiding a lot of information. It's hidden even from themself, as their current body doesn't have enough local data storage, but they keep enough clues to have an agenda and make plans. Most of the human characters are also scoundrels, though the young man that the narrator has bonded is naïve and too trusting. There's also a rich young woman who isn't a baddy (probably), and who has a very protective spaceship. The narrator has a snarky sense of humor. When I was reading fast, it seemed like a standard and well-written space heist story; when I slowed down, it was that and hilarious too.
October 1, 2025
Now, that's how you write a space adventure. After being greatly displeased by absurdity and bad attempts at humor and/or social commentary in "The Gods of Sagittarius", this book is a refreshing reminder that heist adventures are not dead. It paints the world of far future without going overboard with silly, though it has enough of strange, but not so much that I can't empathize with it. The humor is restricted to a few quips, mainly by the AI character, and is genuinely chuckle-worthy. The ending is somewhat novel - and quite sweet, in my opinion.
I just discovered this is a part of the series, so I think I'm going to see where it goes.
I just discovered this is a part of the series, so I think I'm going to see where it goes.
December 8, 2025
A feel-good coming-of-age Bildungsroman set 8,0o0 years from now when there are multiple trillions of humans inhabiting a billion worlds in the solar system, most of it run by AIs. It’s also a heist story and a puppy love romance. Keeping all those balls in the air is quite the juggling feat. It’s also a pleasure to see nice kids succeed.
There’s nothing quite like this, which is why I read Science Fiction. There’s a bit of Niven’s worldbuilding, a dash of Scalzi humor, a soupçon of Murderbot by Martha Wells, and a sprinkling of Heinlein’s adventure juveniles. Like I said, lots of juggling. Very impressive.
There’s nothing quite like this, which is why I read Science Fiction. There’s a bit of Niven’s worldbuilding, a dash of Scalzi humor, a soupçon of Murderbot by Martha Wells, and a sprinkling of Heinlein’s adventure juveniles. Like I said, lots of juggling. Very impressive.
February 4, 2022
A surprisingly good read!
It gets off to a slow start, but the momentum still builds.
Very entertaining, with likeable characters and set mostly from the point of view of one main character. It takes you on ride through the solar system millennia in the future, chasing a legend.
First time I've read a book by this author, but I will definitely be checking out his other works
It gets off to a slow start, but the momentum still builds.
Very entertaining, with likeable characters and set mostly from the point of view of one main character. It takes you on ride through the solar system millennia in the future, chasing a legend.
First time I've read a book by this author, but I will definitely be checking out his other works
December 16, 2022
A novel chock-full of ideas, brimming with concepts, and suffused with futuristic terms and lingo. There was a good story buried in there somewhere. The author shows promise. More focused story-telling will do wonders to his future novels.
January 29, 2023
Recent Reads: The Godel Operation. James L Cambias' space opera heist novel explores a far future Solar System on a quest for a mythical anti-machine intelligence weapon. No one is quite what who they seem. Bonus points for being grounded in real physics and orbital mechanics.
October 31, 2021
Excellent scifi
One of the best new worlds I have read in a while. I rate it up there with the murder bot series (though for different reasons) or the Culture series.
One of the best new worlds I have read in a while. I rate it up there with the murder bot series (though for different reasons) or the Culture series.
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