Dichronauts

· Greg Egan
2 reviews
Ebook
302
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

Seth is a surveyor, along with his friend Theo, a leech-like creature running through his skull who tells Seth what lies to his left and right. Theo, in turn, relies on Seth for mobility, and for ordinary vision looking forwards and backwards. Like everyone else in their world, they are symbionts, depending on each other to survive.

In the universe containing Seth’s world, light cannot travel in all directions: there is a “dark cone” to the north and south. Seth can only face to the east (or the west, if he tips his head backwards). If he starts to turn to the north or south, his body stretches out across the landscape, and to rotate to face north-east is every bit as impossible as accelerating to the speed of light.

Every living thing in Seth’s world is in a state of perpetual migration as they follow the sun’s shifting orbit and the narrow habitable zone it creates. Cities are being constantly disassembled at one edge and rebuilt at the other, with surveyors mapping safe routes ahead.

But when Seth and Theo join an expedition to the edge of the habitable zone, they discover a terrifying threat: a fissure in the surface of the world, so deep and wide that no one can perceive its limits. As the habitable zone continues to move, the migration will soon be blocked by this unbridgeable void, and the expedition has only one option to save its city from annihilation: descend into the unknown.

Seth is a surveyor, along with his friend Theo, a leech-like creature running through his skull who tells Seth what lies to his left and right. Theo, in turn, relies on Seth for mobility, and for ordinary vision looking forwards and backwards. Like everyone else in their world, they are symbionts...

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Ratings and reviews

2 reviews
Ben
July 16, 2026
Probably the most mind-bending thing I've ever read. Helped me to develop my understanding of relativity in the real universe. An absolute must for those that this book is written for, although that's definitely not everyone: if you're not interested in the concept in and of itself, this is probably not the book for you. Having some familiarity with the maths that inspired the setting is definitely helpful, and even with that, this was definitely one of the more challenging things I've read. Trying to conceptualise a universe with such a fundamental difference to our own could never be anything but deeply challenging. But I say that as someone who likes a challenge, and someone for whom this particular type of challenge really pays off. Alongside the notes on his website, truly an experience like nothing else I've encountered.
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About the author

Greg Egan is the author of 13 science fiction novels and more than 60 short stories, including the Hugo-award-winning novella “Oceanic”.

Greg Egan is the author of 13 science fiction novels and more than 60 short stories, including the Hugo-award-winning novella “Oceanic”.

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