Incandescence by Greg Egan

3/5. Hard scifi about a couple of functionally immortal galactic citizens travelling to the core to find an unknown civilization sprung from the DNA panspermia; meanwhile members of that civilization work out the newtonian and relativistic principles that describe their extremely weird and risky existence.

Very much of its time (nearly twenty years ago) and just okay. A big idea book where I thought the big idea was only vaguely interesting, but there isn’t really much else to go on here, unless you like over a hundred pages of people talking about physics math. Which is not snide, considering I enjoyed that strand of the book more than the strand about the functionally immortal people, who do things like load up new modules to become experts in various fields in a few seconds, which really enhances their presentation as cardboard cutout post humans. Post humans who have left the constraints of embodiment behind, by the way, and who are nonetheless still deeply invested in the gender binary. Sure, okay.

Read Tchaikovsky’s Children books instead. Some superficial similarities, much more alive.