book rec: Zendegi

[psocoptera]

I almost gave this a pass after finding Greg Egan's previous novel, Incandescence, dull and dry to the point of unreadability. But Zendegi was great! His second-best novel after Permutation City (I love bits of Diaspora, but it doesn't really hang together as a novel). Makes me suspect that Incandescence was actually written by a little jewel in Greg Egan's head that's been learning his science fiction-writing skills but only paying attention to the physics parts and not the plots-and-characters bits. Zendegi actually made me cry (not *such* a huge feat these days, granted, but still); I'll put a warning behind a spoiler-cut at the end. It's very hard to tell in the first half where it's going, but things come together in a powerful way in the second half, exploring some of Egan's ongoing concerns (as also seen in Perm City) but in an even more realistic, human, near-future sort of way. (Seriously, I don't mean to knock explorations of our glorious transhuman future, but the near-future setting and need to write characters *who are actually people* is a great thing for Egan.)

Content warning: plot involves death of parent leaving behind minor-aged children.