Science fiction, like any literary nook or cranny, can be faddish. Trends and themes emerge, burn brightly and die in short timeframes — the hot space operas of the turn of the century have given way to themes of the singularity, to dystopias with an eye turned toward William Gibson’s groundwork, and on and on. But some of the best science fiction recently has bucked that trend, incorporating ideas from all sides, and Walter Jon Williams’ IMPLIED SPACES is a fine example.
The book’s main character is Aristide, a researcher with a hugely distinguished past who is decades older than his body appears, thanks to memory-backup/body-switching technology that makes people nigh-immortal, able to restore themselves from a backup, should they die.
Aristide’s universe is actually a multiverse — artificial intelligences have created dozens of pocket universes for specific reasons, from a sword-and-sorcery world for both researchers and cosplay freaks, to a beach resort universe where people wear a mix of water- and air-breathing bodies. Aristide studies the implied spaces of the title, the unintended consequences of these magnificent acts of creation. He gets mixed up in a vast conspiracy (of course, duh), facing foes both familiar and alien as he pieces together the mystery behind the menace.
The story is great, but even better are the characters and settings Williams has created. IMPLIED SPACES is a melting pot of themes and ideas, expanding on ideas presented by other writers and bringing new theories into the mix. In Aristide, there’s a whiff of David Marusek’s elderly curmudgeon from COUNTING HEADS; the vast, sometimes humorous, sometimes spooky universe has hints of Charles Stross’ singularity fiction, as well as John C. Wright’s THE GOLDEN AGE trilogy; the implications of disposable lives and persistent consciousness call to mind ALTERED CARBON and KILN PEOPLE.
But any hack can throw together this stuff in a blender and whip out derivative shit. What Williams does so well here is process all of these themes and create a universe that makes sense and a backstory that seems borne of several previous novels. The world-building is done so well that it’s almost as if the plot is an implied space — an unintended consequence that just sprang up in the face of all the backstory here.
IMPLIED SPACES can be deep if you want it to be, but it’s also got adventure, romance, swords, evil priests, cool artificial intelligences and even a zombie scene. It has a freshness that can cleanse the palates of readers caught up in the science-fiction same-old same-old. —Ryun Patterson
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Sounds like its joining my ever growing wish list