culture fix

gender identity is the first casualty of the book. there would be no reason for an incorporeal body to need gender, and the author dispenses of it entirely in the book. when egan needs a personal pronoun, he uses 've', 'vis', and 'ver'. although it was difficult at first to read through passages with this convention, it became easier, and necessary, after i realized that any concept of a character's gender came entirely from the reader's conditioning.

i found it interesting that violence was also entirely dispensed of in the cultures described in the novel. not only did the societies not require it, it was a virtual impossibility. the concept was briefly explored early in the book, as a thought experiment of one of the characters, who dismissed violence as a vestige of biological beings who have physical boundaries. conveniently for the author, biological life on earth was destroyed in a super-nova early in the story. social ostracizing was briefly introduced, but not, i believe, sufficiently explored, as i think that may have been more of a reality in such a society.

in all, diaspora is currently in either my top ten or top twenty recommendations, depending on your level of interest in sci-fi. i plan to track down more of his fiction. greg egan's an author to watch out for.