Schild鈥檚 Ladder by Greg Egan, Gollancz, 拢10.99 and 拢16.99, ISBN
0575071230 and 0575070684
ONE favourite science fiction nightmare is ice-nine, from Kurt Vonnegut鈥檚
Cat鈥檚 Cradle. This allotrope of ice had a high melting point and spread
virus-like through oceans, locking up all Earth鈥檚 water. Similarly, in
Schild鈥檚 Ladder, a fatal experiment in quantum gravity creates a new,
contagious geometry for the vacuum itself. Some physicists once feared that
high-energy colliders could do just this.
Expanding in all directions at half lightspeed, gobbling inhabited systems as
it grows, the 鈥渘ovo-vacuum鈥� contains a physics with incomprehensibly different
laws. Future starships can outrun it. But can it be destroyed? Should it be?
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That second question arises because the new space is a rich breeding ground
for life, such as quantum plankton 鈥渁 few hundred Planck lengths
wide鈥濃�攁round 10-33 metres, many orders of magnitude tinier than
electrons. The mind boggles.
When heated debate about destroying the novo-vacuum erupts in violence, our
hero takes a fantastic journey into this realm of alternative physics. Despite
the far-out concepts that are Egan鈥檚 trademark, what follows is not only highly
readable but exhilarating, awesome and ultimately moving. Cutting-edge SF.