his book follows directly on the narrative heels of Geodesica: Ascent (2005) and completes the duology. In that prior volume, we were introduced to the state of galactic affairs circa 2437. After the True Singularity of 2121, all human colony worlds gradually fell under the sway of the Exarchs, the godlike posthuman intelligences that arose out of the spiking technosphere. A half-dozen Exarchs now control travel between the stars, via the caste of modified human navigators known as Palmers. Although all theoretically equal, the Exarchs bow to the dictates of the Sol Exarch, an individual known as Archon.
The artificial world known as Bedlam is ruled by the Exarch named Isaac Forge Deangelis. One of his citizens is a woman named Melilah Awad, a secret rebel bent on casting off the yoke of the Exarchs. One day, Awad's old lover, Palmer Eogan, shows up at Bedlam after a 150-year absence. He's got an alien artifact in tow: Geodesica. Geodesica eventually proves to be the most important object in creation. It's a portal to an alternate travel network that could supplant the Palmers and undermine the Exarchate. War over control of Geodesica erupts among several factions, Bedlam is destroyed, and Eogan, Awad and a partial version of Deangelis escape into Geodesica.
The second book splits its attention among several points of view and timeframes. First, we follow the hapless trio of Awad, Eogan and Deangelis as they wander the infinite maze inside Geodesica, struggling to survive, comprehend and escape, as they encounter mechanical killers and a strange form of life. Little do they know that their relatively few hours inside Geodesica correspond to many years of time passage in the outer universe. Back in that universe, we follow the plight of three more versions of Deangelis. One has been co-opted by the Archon and is being employed to stamp out dissent. One has taken up the cause of rebellion with a friend named Palmer Horsfall. And the third has been dispatched a million years into the future as a "ghost at the funeral of Humanity."
The final evolution of humanity
Williams and Dix have a flair for combining slam-bang adventures, intriguing characters and cutting-edge scientific and philosophical speculations, resulting in books that elevate your adrenaline and your intellect. This latest series is no exception to their reign.
The love triangle between Deangelis, Eogan and Awad is complex, believable and unpredictable. The trio function both as individuals and as representatives of three distinct "species": Exarch, Palmer and Natural. Likewise, relations between a different Deangelis and Palmer Horsfall exhibit other emotional dynamics connected with the demands of war. Even the unfathomable-by-definition Archon is rendered in empathizable terms.
Like Charles Stross, the authors create a post-Singularity landscape that deftly avoids incomprehensibility while still boasting mystery and awesomeness. While their Big Dumb Object, Geodesica, cannot escape comparisons to Greg Bear's similar creation in Eon (1985) and Eternity (1988), its bizarre topology and functionality stand on their own. And the end-time cosmological speculations of the authors bear comparison to those of Stephen Baxter.
Additionally, there's a nice Cordwainer Smith vibe to certain aspects of the tale, as when myths begin to accrue around Palmer Horsfall: "Rumours spread about Horsfall—that she was indestructible, that she had survived the Catastrophe in Sublime, that not even the Archon could kill her. She didn't encourage them, but the more she denied them the more they stuck. The children of the colony called her Awful Horsfall ..." We get a real sense of the way the vast timescales of human life in this era have changed the culture.
When asked to explain its identity, the entity that lives inside Geodesica says at one point: "I AM THIS PLACE ... ITS MYSTERIES, ITS SPLENDOR AND ITS BEAUTY ...." In the same way, like all art, this organically conceived novel is irreducible to anything other than itself.
