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The Ouroboros Wave
L to R (Western Style). Ninety years from now, a satellite detects a nearby black hole scientists dub Kali for the Hindu goddess of destruction. Humanity embarks on a generations-long project to tap the energy of the black hole, and found colonies on planets across the solar system. Earth and Mars and the moons Europa (Jupiter) and Titan (Uranus) develop radically different societies, with only Kali, that swirling vortex of destruction and creation, and the hated but crucial Artificial Accretion Disk Development association (AADD) in common.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
December 13, 2011
The Ouroboros Wave didn't catch my eye at first. It was not what I would typically read, but I had enough money in my pocket, and the store owner said it was a great book, so I gave it a chance. Not even ten pages into it and I was fascinated by everything going on.
When I first began the book, I had no idea it was a series of related short stories. I was so gripped with the first story, I was rather disappointed when it came to an end, and actually rejected the second story as I read. But, as I continued reading, I felt the sense of connectedness. Even as I went about my day, my mind continued to think about the stories, the characters, and the whole world Jyouji was creating. Each story was a slice of time, each story created another piece of the giant network which was the very book itself.
The world Jyouji created is something I would most definitely like to live in, and his book is something I would love to reread time and time again. I first read this book a year ago, and I can still remember the set of stories as if I had just finished them. Each are vibrant and colorful in their own way as they carry on a set of feelings. I liken it to riding waves.
Overall, I think this book was very enjoyable, and led me to think deeply about many things. It is because of this book I've grown an interest in science fiction novels.
When I first began the book, I had no idea it was a series of related short stories. I was so gripped with the first story, I was rather disappointed when it came to an end, and actually rejected the second story as I read. But, as I continued reading, I felt the sense of connectedness. Even as I went about my day, my mind continued to think about the stories, the characters, and the whole world Jyouji was creating. Each story was a slice of time, each story created another piece of the giant network which was the very book itself.
The world Jyouji created is something I would most definitely like to live in, and his book is something I would love to reread time and time again. I first read this book a year ago, and I can still remember the set of stories as if I had just finished them. Each are vibrant and colorful in their own way as they carry on a set of feelings. I liken it to riding waves.
Overall, I think this book was very enjoyable, and led me to think deeply about many things. It is because of this book I've grown an interest in science fiction novels.
August 11, 2011
First, this edition is actually only 267 pages long, but as I am not a Goodreads Librarian, I couldn't correct it. That said, it does feel a bit like there are 83 pages missing from the end. This is because while it seems like a novel, it's actually a collection of short stories with a connecting arc and some shared characters who evolve over the course the timeline (which spans roughly 100 years). The author himself acknowledges in the afterword that he's working on some longer-form fiction continuing in this setting, but that the basis for these stories has been floating around in his head since the late '80s when he first heard about the idea of using a small black hole's accretion disk for energy production.
The different short stories had pretty varying levels of quality; the last two in particular were disappointing in terms of length, character development, and the sense that they were unfinished. I would definitely like to see what happens in this world after the end of the book. A couple of the stories had very interesting concepts, especially to me as a sort of AI researcher, but also as political allegory. One of the main organizations in the book, AADD, is fairly close to a futuristic version of what I typically define as Nicktopia, a form of science-oriented meritocracy that I acknowledge would probably never actually work.
As for the hard sci-fi aspect, I don't read a huge amount of it, but I liked that the technologies of this setting were based largely on what we know is possible. For example, they have matter/antimatter drives using antimatter extracted from the plot-motivating MacGuffin black hole, but they just give you a really powerful ion drive, not FTL. They regularly deal with non-instantaneous communication across the solar system, just like present-day robotic probes do. The scientist characters are often involved in active research, including debugging AIs' non-human models of the world, large-scale space construction (enabled simply by the assumption that cheap energy + asteroids = large amounts of carbon nanotube production), gravity wave interferometers, networked computer implants (but no uploading or anything Singularitarian), and the like. This made it harder to tell allegorical stories a la Star Trek, but it also made it seem like a much more realistic and possible future. There were a few diagrams that I felt were unnecessary, but at the same time, once the author used them, there were other places where it would have been helpful to have a descriptive map or similar.
As I mentioned previously in one of my comments while reading the book, the translation is literal in a way that results in some odd English dialog. I confirmed with a Japanese-speaking friend that a lot of the seemingly excess "acknowledgement" words would have been present in the original Japanese text, and seem totally normal in Japanese (indicating various things like deference to authority, agreement, and the like), so it's odd to me that Hubbert decided to include them when they just feel like odd filler in English spoken sentences. I guess the original author wanted them maintained? This was my secondary complaint after the varying quality in the stories (it's possible that the translation can be blamed for some of that), which is why I could only give it 3 stars overall even though some of the individual stories are 4 or 5.
The different short stories had pretty varying levels of quality; the last two in particular were disappointing in terms of length, character development, and the sense that they were unfinished. I would definitely like to see what happens in this world after the end of the book. A couple of the stories had very interesting concepts, especially to me as a sort of AI researcher, but also as political allegory. One of the main organizations in the book, AADD, is fairly close to a futuristic version of what I typically define as Nicktopia, a form of science-oriented meritocracy that I acknowledge would probably never actually work.
As for the hard sci-fi aspect, I don't read a huge amount of it, but I liked that the technologies of this setting were based largely on what we know is possible. For example, they have matter/antimatter drives using antimatter extracted from the plot-motivating MacGuffin black hole, but they just give you a really powerful ion drive, not FTL. They regularly deal with non-instantaneous communication across the solar system, just like present-day robotic probes do. The scientist characters are often involved in active research, including debugging AIs' non-human models of the world, large-scale space construction (enabled simply by the assumption that cheap energy + asteroids = large amounts of carbon nanotube production), gravity wave interferometers, networked computer implants (but no uploading or anything Singularitarian), and the like. This made it harder to tell allegorical stories a la Star Trek, but it also made it seem like a much more realistic and possible future. There were a few diagrams that I felt were unnecessary, but at the same time, once the author used them, there were other places where it would have been helpful to have a descriptive map or similar.
As I mentioned previously in one of my comments while reading the book, the translation is literal in a way that results in some odd English dialog. I confirmed with a Japanese-speaking friend that a lot of the seemingly excess "acknowledgement" words would have been present in the original Japanese text, and seem totally normal in Japanese (indicating various things like deference to authority, agreement, and the like), so it's odd to me that Hubbert decided to include them when they just feel like odd filler in English spoken sentences. I guess the original author wanted them maintained? This was my secondary complaint after the varying quality in the stories (it's possible that the translation can be blamed for some of that), which is why I could only give it 3 stars overall even though some of the individual stories are 4 or 5.
March 9, 2018
The premise sounded promising and ambitious however,the reality fell a little flat in the delivery.How a society bred out of neccesity developed into a wealthy albeit culturally impotent was a huge stretch.While its efficacy at egalitarian function bed a society where the sum were greater than their parts AADD seemed like a lobotomized United Federation of Planets and the Terrans like either zealotous bioethicists or quasi-Luddites.Tying in weaponized black holes as an impetus for interstelar exploration to encounter extraterrestrial civilizations was just plain hubris or emotional exhaustion at the end of the book.
October 6, 2013
É impossível não comparar este livro ao Schismatrix de Bruce Sterling. As temáticas variam, claro, uma vez que a obra de Sterling se centra num trans-humanismo singularitário que alastra pelo sistema solar ao longo de séculos e este Ouroboros Wave focaliza-se num futuro próximo plausível. Mas estruturalmente são similares, com a obra de Hayashi a partilhar com Sterling uma construção narrativa feita a partir histórias autocontidas que partilham um espaço de ideias comum dentro de um mundo ficcional abrangente.
Hayashi dá-nos um cheirinho do que é a Hard SF com sabor japonês. O seu futuro é cronologicamente próximo e detalha o aproveitamento energético de um buraco negro detectado nas imediações do sistema solar. Um consórcio privado de exploradores espaciais decide construir uma esfera de Dyson no limiar do horizonte de acontecimentos para captar a energia emitida pelo buraco denominado, sem ironia, de Kali. Antes de se tornar esfera há que construir um anel e é essa a estação Ouroboros, anel em órbita de Kali que para além de ser uma fonte inesgotável de energia e um passo que permite à humanidade espalhar-se pelo sistema solar também parece funcionar como lente gravitacional e permite perscrutar sinais que poderão apontar para outras formas de vida inteligente na galáxia. Reprogramar os sistemas da estação para que a inteligência artificial observe locais específicos no espaço vai induzir um pequeno erro que trará consequências catastróficas e finalizará no lançamento de uma nave tripulada com destino a outro local na galáxia que poderá albergar uma civilização estelar que também aprendeu a usar buracos negros como recurso energético.
No caminho temos um conjunto de histórias autocontidas que pintam uma larga tela de exploração futura do sistema solar com elevado grau de plausibilidade. Não há tecnologias mágicas que facilitem o atravessar das vastas distâncias intrasolares. A humanidade espalha-se pelo sistema combinando requisitos de pesquisa com incentivos económicos. Num curioso aceno ou similaridade com Schismatrix há uma clivagem cultural entre a Terra original, conservadora mas assertiva do seu poder, e os exploradores que colonizam o sistema, baseados numa organização verdadeiramente meritocrática onde as decisões são colectivas e passados obscuros não são impedimento para novos futuros.
A temática e as ligações difusas entre personagens interligam os contos mas nota-se que cada um funciona por si só, podendo ser montados como elementos de um puzzle maior. O desenvolvimento narrativo acontece ao longo das histórias mas não está elaborado segundo a estrutura clássica do romance. Cada conto é modular e encaixa-se na narrativa geral. Hayashi esforça-se por desenhar cenários plausíveis atingíveis com tecnologia que hoje reconhecemos. Não esquece uma boa dose de saudável especulação, com as clivagens culturais entre os terrestres que se mantém no planeta e aqueles que se fazem ao espaço para explorar, colonizar ou buscar novas vidas, as premissas civilizacionais que apontam para uma potencial similaridade entre civilizações alienigenas que se expandem nos seus recantos do universo ou ideias menos filosóficas como o aproveitamento de energia de buracos negros, exploração comercial de matérias primas nos planetas do sistema ou o emergir de entidades privadas que se sobrepõem às agências institucionais de exploração espacial. Tudo descrito numa prosa concisa que vai guiando o leitor numa descoberta passo a passo desta sólida ficção científica hard.
Hayashi dá-nos um cheirinho do que é a Hard SF com sabor japonês. O seu futuro é cronologicamente próximo e detalha o aproveitamento energético de um buraco negro detectado nas imediações do sistema solar. Um consórcio privado de exploradores espaciais decide construir uma esfera de Dyson no limiar do horizonte de acontecimentos para captar a energia emitida pelo buraco denominado, sem ironia, de Kali. Antes de se tornar esfera há que construir um anel e é essa a estação Ouroboros, anel em órbita de Kali que para além de ser uma fonte inesgotável de energia e um passo que permite à humanidade espalhar-se pelo sistema solar também parece funcionar como lente gravitacional e permite perscrutar sinais que poderão apontar para outras formas de vida inteligente na galáxia. Reprogramar os sistemas da estação para que a inteligência artificial observe locais específicos no espaço vai induzir um pequeno erro que trará consequências catastróficas e finalizará no lançamento de uma nave tripulada com destino a outro local na galáxia que poderá albergar uma civilização estelar que também aprendeu a usar buracos negros como recurso energético.
No caminho temos um conjunto de histórias autocontidas que pintam uma larga tela de exploração futura do sistema solar com elevado grau de plausibilidade. Não há tecnologias mágicas que facilitem o atravessar das vastas distâncias intrasolares. A humanidade espalha-se pelo sistema combinando requisitos de pesquisa com incentivos económicos. Num curioso aceno ou similaridade com Schismatrix há uma clivagem cultural entre a Terra original, conservadora mas assertiva do seu poder, e os exploradores que colonizam o sistema, baseados numa organização verdadeiramente meritocrática onde as decisões são colectivas e passados obscuros não são impedimento para novos futuros.
A temática e as ligações difusas entre personagens interligam os contos mas nota-se que cada um funciona por si só, podendo ser montados como elementos de um puzzle maior. O desenvolvimento narrativo acontece ao longo das histórias mas não está elaborado segundo a estrutura clássica do romance. Cada conto é modular e encaixa-se na narrativa geral. Hayashi esforça-se por desenhar cenários plausíveis atingíveis com tecnologia que hoje reconhecemos. Não esquece uma boa dose de saudável especulação, com as clivagens culturais entre os terrestres que se mantém no planeta e aqueles que se fazem ao espaço para explorar, colonizar ou buscar novas vidas, as premissas civilizacionais que apontam para uma potencial similaridade entre civilizações alienigenas que se expandem nos seus recantos do universo ou ideias menos filosóficas como o aproveitamento de energia de buracos negros, exploração comercial de matérias primas nos planetas do sistema ou o emergir de entidades privadas que se sobrepõem às agências institucionais de exploração espacial. Tudo descrito numa prosa concisa que vai guiando o leitor numa descoberta passo a passo desta sólida ficção científica hard.
November 7, 2017
A collection of loosely related short stories. The premise sounded fascinating and the author is very obviously trying for a more 'hard' sci-fi style of fiction that draws on scientific style explanations and premises. But for me at least, that's where the execution of the stories began to fall flat. Assertions about how and when black holes are formed are just...wrong. The stories revolve around the discovery of a black hole in 2100 somewhere in the outer part of our solar system among the orbits of Saturn and Pluto. Astronomers have literally been discovering objects in our solar system because of their gravitational effect on other things for centuries. The idea that there'd be a black hole within a few AU of a planet (and it not be the gravitational center of the system) is so ridiculous, I found it incredibly hard to suspend my disbelief.
May 12, 2020
Billed as cutting edge hard sci-fi out of Japan, I found this collection-of-stories-that-kind-of-go-together-to-make-a-novel more than a little strange. The premise--that a small black hole is discovered in the solar system, moved (we're not told how) into orbit around Neptune, and then harnessed with a Dyson Sphere to capture infinite energy--seems overly complex and contrived, and while we get a LOT of detail about some of the science, we are given very little on most of the rest. The characters are ... strange, their motivations difficult to understand. This may come from the fact that it's a Japanese work, containing as it does both cultural and stylistic elements of character development, or it may be partly due to the fact that the book is a translation. Overall, I'm glad I read it, though I can't say I enjoyed it.
August 13, 2025
I haven't read a good science fiction book for quite a while, but after stumbling through the first of these six connected stories, I was hooked! Each story was well developed and especially well researched. The science applicability was very impressive, especially considering that the book was written more than two decades ago: an age in technology!
March 28, 2025
Good collection of decently Hard sci fi not usually my preference. Several of the stories seem anti climatic but only because they end with looming horrible implications being solved by some less horrific but still interesting scientific revelation
October 11, 2017
All that name dropping, historical, fictional, contemporary, scientific, divine, was enough to make the head spin with giddiness.
December 21, 2017
Excellent collection of short-stories which all hang together and form a bigger story. Very imaginative, well-written and keeps interest up. Would recommend.
February 18, 2023
Full Review Below:
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March 19, 2011
The plot of Ouroboros Wave starts with exactly the right ingredients to make a classic Sci-Fi story. Not too far into the future a tiny black hole is discovered on the outer edges of our solar system. A collective science and development organization call the Artificial Accrection Disk Development association (AADD) was tasked with building a giant ring, Ring Mega-Structure Ouroboros, around the black hole to tap its energy and distribute it throughout the rest of the solar system.
Overtime the AADD has become an entity that thinks and works independently of its Earth based origins to the point that there is tension and suspicions between the earth governments and the AADD. The AADD becomes a whole population of its own spread throughout the solar system on little space stations and planetary colonies.
As the decade’s long Ouroboros project unfolds it becomes increasingly clear that humans may not be the only life in the solar system and the black hole may be more than just a natural occurrence of the universe.
Stir ingredients, turn to medium heat, and let simmer…unfortunately there just isn’t a lot of flavor in this recipe.
First, let me be clear that this story is intended for Hard Science Fiction fans only. And I do mean only. Jyouji Hayashi is a brilliant man and understands many things about astrophysics and working in outer space. He also likes to cram all that knowledge into a short little novel. This causes Ouroboros to often ready like a procedural manual for a piece of high tech equipment.
The rest of the time Ouroboros reads like list of bullet points. The Ouroboros Wave is essentially six short stories that take place with very different characters over the course of many years in very distant locations from each other. It often took me awhile to fully grasp where the new story was going and who was involved.
What the book really could have used was a little characterization. Most of the characters are nothing more than a name that speaks a few lines of dialogue, all in the same voice, to help advance the story. You are given very little reason to care who they are and what they want. If I had been allowed to know a little bit more of why they were there and what their motivations were I might have had more of a vested interest in where the story was heading. These characters are put into these particular situations of this epic unfolding and we care very little of the magnitude of their situation. It’s almost assumed that the reader should just understand this obvious drama instead of having it crafted for us.
In the end you have a really nice outline for what could be an interesting Hard Science Fiction tale. Unfortunately a lot of the meat of this recipe is missing. If the premise of this book appeals to you then you should get some satisfaction out of The Ouroboros Wave. If you like your literature a little more literary then you may want to skip this one. |Ryan Parker
Overtime the AADD has become an entity that thinks and works independently of its Earth based origins to the point that there is tension and suspicions between the earth governments and the AADD. The AADD becomes a whole population of its own spread throughout the solar system on little space stations and planetary colonies.
As the decade’s long Ouroboros project unfolds it becomes increasingly clear that humans may not be the only life in the solar system and the black hole may be more than just a natural occurrence of the universe.
Stir ingredients, turn to medium heat, and let simmer…unfortunately there just isn’t a lot of flavor in this recipe.
First, let me be clear that this story is intended for Hard Science Fiction fans only. And I do mean only. Jyouji Hayashi is a brilliant man and understands many things about astrophysics and working in outer space. He also likes to cram all that knowledge into a short little novel. This causes Ouroboros to often ready like a procedural manual for a piece of high tech equipment.
The rest of the time Ouroboros reads like list of bullet points. The Ouroboros Wave is essentially six short stories that take place with very different characters over the course of many years in very distant locations from each other. It often took me awhile to fully grasp where the new story was going and who was involved.
What the book really could have used was a little characterization. Most of the characters are nothing more than a name that speaks a few lines of dialogue, all in the same voice, to help advance the story. You are given very little reason to care who they are and what they want. If I had been allowed to know a little bit more of why they were there and what their motivations were I might have had more of a vested interest in where the story was heading. These characters are put into these particular situations of this epic unfolding and we care very little of the magnitude of their situation. It’s almost assumed that the reader should just understand this obvious drama instead of having it crafted for us.
In the end you have a really nice outline for what could be an interesting Hard Science Fiction tale. Unfortunately a lot of the meat of this recipe is missing. If the premise of this book appeals to you then you should get some satisfaction out of The Ouroboros Wave. If you like your literature a little more literary then you may want to skip this one. |Ryan Parker
May 1, 2011
Primero que nada cabe decir que es el primer libro que leo en el kindle, y no me quejo, si bien falta el tacto del libro, lo que es la calidad de la lectura es algo de lo cual no tiene nada de malo, pero bueno, luego hablaré de ello.
The Ouroboros Wave, más que ser una novela es un compendio de varios relatos de Hayashi que giran en torno al descubrimiento de un pequeño agujero negro (pequeño en términos astronómicos) llamado Kali.
La primera historia y de la cual en cierto modo desencadena las demás trata sobre los problemas existentes de la Inteligencia Artificial que rige los distintos sistemas en el disco de acrecimiento artificial que se está construyendo alrededor de Kali para utilizarlo como una fuente de energía.
De ahí para adelante las demas historias están un tanto distanciadas de Kali y son más bien una serie de relatos sobre AADD (The Artificial Accretion Disk Development association) en su cambio de ser un consorcio para realizar el disco hasta convertirse en una especie de gobierno/sociedad conformado por todas las personas que viven fuera de la tierra (principalmente en Marte) y que impulsa la explotación de los distintos planetas y cuerpos celestes que están en el sistema solar.
Puesto que las historias se desarrollan en un espacio muy largo de tiempo causa que al leerlo pensando que es una novela pues se sienta muy desconectado el libro, los personajes cambian y los lugares donde se desarrollan las cosas también (por ejemplo, solo un relato se desarrolla en las bases del disco), pero, si se lee como si fuera una colección pues no tanto.
Mi gran problema en realidad con el libro es que para el final es más bien como el tomo 1 de relatos de AADD puesto que termina inconcluso en el seguimiento de lo que está pasando con AADD.
Por otro lado es un libro pesado, bastantes veces me hizo tener que investigar sobre conceptos, fenómenos y términos astronómicos (y físicos y de termodinámica y etc.) que no conocía.
El libro es distrutable, bastante, tiene un par de relatos muy buenos y otros muy divertidos, pero las 3 estrellas vienen a ser justo por lo que comentaba arriba, el hecho de que termina inconcluso, aun así lo recomiendo para las personas que les guste leer ciencia ficción pura y dura.
The Ouroboros Wave, más que ser una novela es un compendio de varios relatos de Hayashi que giran en torno al descubrimiento de un pequeño agujero negro (pequeño en términos astronómicos) llamado Kali.
La primera historia y de la cual en cierto modo desencadena las demás trata sobre los problemas existentes de la Inteligencia Artificial que rige los distintos sistemas en el disco de acrecimiento artificial que se está construyendo alrededor de Kali para utilizarlo como una fuente de energía.
De ahí para adelante las demas historias están un tanto distanciadas de Kali y son más bien una serie de relatos sobre AADD (The Artificial Accretion Disk Development association) en su cambio de ser un consorcio para realizar el disco hasta convertirse en una especie de gobierno/sociedad conformado por todas las personas que viven fuera de la tierra (principalmente en Marte) y que impulsa la explotación de los distintos planetas y cuerpos celestes que están en el sistema solar.
Puesto que las historias se desarrollan en un espacio muy largo de tiempo causa que al leerlo pensando que es una novela pues se sienta muy desconectado el libro, los personajes cambian y los lugares donde se desarrollan las cosas también (por ejemplo, solo un relato se desarrolla en las bases del disco), pero, si se lee como si fuera una colección pues no tanto.
Mi gran problema en realidad con el libro es que para el final es más bien como el tomo 1 de relatos de AADD puesto que termina inconcluso en el seguimiento de lo que está pasando con AADD.
Por otro lado es un libro pesado, bastantes veces me hizo tener que investigar sobre conceptos, fenómenos y términos astronómicos (y físicos y de termodinámica y etc.) que no conocía.
El libro es distrutable, bastante, tiene un par de relatos muy buenos y otros muy divertidos, pero las 3 estrellas vienen a ser justo por lo que comentaba arriba, el hecho de que termina inconcluso, aun así lo recomiendo para las personas que les guste leer ciencia ficción pura y dura.
November 14, 2012
I saw this sitting on the large book table at my favourite bookshop, Planet Books, and couldn’t resist it initially because it had a great cover. Then I read the blurb and thought that it could be my kind of book. It turns out that it was, although with some reservations.
I know almost nothing about Japanese science fiction and I have to admit although I’ve been reading science fiction on and off since I was about 10 my knowledge of the last 20 years or so is fragmented. No matter, I plunged in and immediately found that the writing style is quite dry, so much so that it almost reads like a textbook. The narrative suffers because of it, in particular the characters, most of which are rendered one-dimensional, at least until the latter half of the book. It’s a shame because the first half of the book would have been far more engaging otherwise.
The basic premise is that with humanity expanding into the solar system a division has emerged between the humans of Earth and the humans living and working in space that come under the banner of AADD (Artificial Accretion Disk Development Association). The opening section, dated 2123, concerns the initial stages of the building of a ring like structure around a newly discovered micro black hole. Humanity, at this stage, has the capacity to actually change the micro black hole’s trajectory from a potential collision with the sun to one in orbit around Uranus. Heady stuff.
The chapters are episodic, involve many different characters and are spread out over 48 years. There are political, psychological, and scientific aspects throughout this novel, all of which takes you to a conclusion that is predictable in its subject matter but fairly original in its ideas and concepts. This novel is hard science fiction to its core, with diagrams of the ring called Ouroboros and its habitat modules. There are also detailed explanations of the physics behind technological innovations and humanity’s successes in space.
Overall, despite the dry style (possibly as a result of being translated from Japanese), The Ouroboros Wave is a worthwhile read. I’ll certainly read Hayashi’s other books if and when they are translated into English.
I know almost nothing about Japanese science fiction and I have to admit although I’ve been reading science fiction on and off since I was about 10 my knowledge of the last 20 years or so is fragmented. No matter, I plunged in and immediately found that the writing style is quite dry, so much so that it almost reads like a textbook. The narrative suffers because of it, in particular the characters, most of which are rendered one-dimensional, at least until the latter half of the book. It’s a shame because the first half of the book would have been far more engaging otherwise.
The basic premise is that with humanity expanding into the solar system a division has emerged between the humans of Earth and the humans living and working in space that come under the banner of AADD (Artificial Accretion Disk Development Association). The opening section, dated 2123, concerns the initial stages of the building of a ring like structure around a newly discovered micro black hole. Humanity, at this stage, has the capacity to actually change the micro black hole’s trajectory from a potential collision with the sun to one in orbit around Uranus. Heady stuff.
The chapters are episodic, involve many different characters and are spread out over 48 years. There are political, psychological, and scientific aspects throughout this novel, all of which takes you to a conclusion that is predictable in its subject matter but fairly original in its ideas and concepts. This novel is hard science fiction to its core, with diagrams of the ring called Ouroboros and its habitat modules. There are also detailed explanations of the physics behind technological innovations and humanity’s successes in space.
Overall, despite the dry style (possibly as a result of being translated from Japanese), The Ouroboros Wave is a worthwhile read. I’ll certainly read Hayashi’s other books if and when they are translated into English.
December 15, 2011
It turns out that this is actually a collection of short stories but they are all connected with an artificial accretion disk created by mankind around a black hole heading towards Sol. So this probably explains why the pacing seems uneven and certain parts seem rushed. The book describes humanity's first step outside the solar system and paints an interesting and plausible picture of human society about 100 to 200 years into the future in a solarwide setting. There is a strong 1st contact theme and many mysteries and technological gadgets reminding me of Alastair Reynolds. Quite heavy on science and would recommend to hard sf fans.
September 18, 2011
One of those sci-fi novels made up of related short stories, and they're individually pretty good, although it doesn't quite cohere into one single story. In fact, it makes a huge jump toward the end, like there were other stories the author had in the outline but never got to write.
Still, like a lot of quality hard sci-fi, Jyouji fills it with a lot of interesting details, including a take on the interplanetary settlers paradigm that stresses collaboration more than rugged individualism that its American equivalents do.
Still, like a lot of quality hard sci-fi, Jyouji fills it with a lot of interesting details, including a take on the interplanetary settlers paradigm that stresses collaboration more than rugged individualism that its American equivalents do.
December 28, 2020
As a series of short stories, I like it for similar reasons as I, Robot -- stories about the gradual expansion of technology, troubleshooting different unexpected edge cases, and recurring characters that appear in multiple stories.
It might lose a bit in translation, as occasionally I found it a bit difficult to follow whether something was supposed to be a mystery or a poignant reference.
It might lose a bit in translation, as occasionally I found it a bit difficult to follow whether something was supposed to be a mystery or a poignant reference.
June 13, 2014
Story wise this'd get a 4 star, but execution wise it's a 3. The links between the short stories took me a while to get, and the balance between story and tech-talk wasn't quite right either, so it was sometimes hard to follow.
February 21, 2017
an energy-harvested black hole serves as the catalyst for planetary exploration, the search of alien life forms, and ideas about artificial intelligence.
some truly novel ideas handled in a very techy and engaging manner.
some truly novel ideas handled in a very techy and engaging manner.
February 23, 2013
Libro dificil, hard SF en su máxima expresión, un estilo diferente, pero bueno. Espero la continuación.
Read
March 1, 2019DNF
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