Incandescence
by Greg Egan · first published 2008
55% recommend41% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Very hard sci-fi about a civilisation living near a black hole, packing in a lot of real physics and fresh ideas; suits readers who like to work through the science, with Egan's online appendices as a bonus.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"The Amalgam spans the nearly entire galaxy, and is composed of innumerable beings from a wild variety of races, some human or near it, some entirely other. The one place that they cannot go is the bulge, the bright, hot center of the galaxy. There dwell the Aloof, who for millions of years have deflected any and all attempts to communicate with or visit them. So when Rakesh is offered an opportunity to travel within their sphere, in search of a lost race, he cannot turn it down. Roi is a member of that lost race, which is not only lost to the Amalgam, but lost to itself. In their world, there
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…the view that there's too little Science behind any of this Science Fiction. I'm not sure how much of his literary criticism is in print, "Microworlds" is the volume I read. I like my SF very hard ("Incandescence" by Greg Egan is roughly where I'd say I'm comfortable, a plausible mechanism by which a pre-industrial civilisation might discover general relativity, that novel made me cry at the end) but even when…
on “The Truth, by Stanisław Lem (1964)” ↗Greg Egan's Incandescence and Diaspora fit the bill.
on “Science Fiction vs. Science Fantasy” ↗Incandescence (and Diaspora) by Greg Egan. After you read those all other SF seems ordinary and conservative in terms of ideas. Just for cultural reference it's also good to read Vernor Vinge's “A Fire Upon the Deep”.…
on “Ask HN: Favourite sci-fi books?” ↗BTW most of what I know about black hole physics is from Greg Egan's novel "Incandescence". Which covers quite a lot of science for a work of fiction (and overall extremely inspiring). http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/INCANDESCENCE/Incan...
on “The strange fate of a person falling into a black hole” ↗Not exactly about the electron, but if you want good fiction about singularities and the like, find books by Greg Egan. /Incandescence/ is about a civilisation living near a black hole. When you read it, keep a paper and pencil handy. Egan's web is at http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/.
on “Black Hole Tech?” ↗Incandescence is worth reading if you're an Egan fan. Its initial setting similarity to Diaspora and Schild's Ladder mislead me to believe that the story would progress similarly, but if you can reset your expectations,…
on “Timeline of the far future” ↗…the changed mechanics gave me more insight into physics as a whole (especially with Egan's fantastic online appendices, which might be my favorite aspect of his style). I forgot it above, but I think Incandescence is the "our universe" counterpart to Orthogonal and it is quite good.
on “Ask HN: What are less known hard Sci-Fi books to read?” ↗Reminds me a bit of Greg Egan's Incandescence - in addition to some other great comparisons itt.
on “The saga of the cannibal ants in a Soviet nuclear bunker (2019)” ↗Seveneves is IMO the worst Stephenson story I read so far. No good sign if you stop reading midway. Although the first act was nice. I recently found my love for Greg Egan again. Incandescence is currently way up on my list of hard scifi novels I absolutely loved. I'd love to read more of this kind...
on “"A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4” ↗Egan is great. Another good book is Incandescence. Only problem is that some of his novels contain some kind of loneliness. Can't describe it.
on “Permutation City (1994)” ↗That sounds like a Greg Egan book yet to be written :-) I discovered that it is real fun to think about these things when I read Incandescence. BTW, I am taking recommendations for books similar to that one, it appears I love that subgenre.
on “Hurried Thoughts: You're Wrong About Tidal-Locking” ↗…does... but then is laughable if you know more. That seems if anything worse than what Gibson chose. I like hard SF, but hard SF is really difficult. One of my other favourite novels is Greg Egan's "Incandescence". Egan isn't great at writing women either, but in Incandescence he cuts himself a break, nobody involved is technically human anyway, but he did spend a lot of time figuring out all the tricky physics…
on “Visit Bletchley Park” ↗My current hero is Greg Egan. I wish Incandescence had a sequel. I was sad when the book ended. Probably the best piece of hard sci-fi I've ever read.
on “Interviewing Tim Sweeney and Neal Stephenson” ↗> I would submit Incandescence as the best sci-fi novel ever written. In a world with both Greg Egan and Ted Chiang writing sci-fi, one has to exclude their novels from any best-of comparisons just to give other authors a fighting…
on “Kurt Vonnegut's lost board game published” ↗In general, I can recommend every book by Greg Egan. Especially Incandescence, which really struck me as a great piece of hard sci-fi.
on “Blindsight (Watts Novel)” ↗