Diaspora

A dramatic insight into the future of Man in the 30th century and beyond where life is divided into three; fleshers - true homo-sapines; Gleisner robots - human minds within machines; and polises - supercomputers teeming with intellgent software containing copies of human personalities. Since The Introdus In The Twenty-first Century, Humanity Has Reconfigured Itself Drastically. Most Chose Immortality, Joining The Polises To Become Conscious Software. Others Opted For Gleisners: Disposable, Renewable Robotic Bodies That Remain In Contact With The Physical World Of Force And Friction. Many Of These Have Left The Solar System Forever In Fusion-drive Starships. And There Are The Holdouts: The Fleshers Left Behind In The Muck And Jungle Of Earth-some Devolved Into Dream Apes, Others Cavorting In The Seas Or The Air-while The Statics And Bridgers Try To Shape Out A Roughly Human Destiny. But The Complacency Of The Citizens Is Shattered When An Unforeseen Disaster Ravages The Fleshers And Reveals The Possibility That The Polises Themselves Might Be At Risk From Bizarre Astrophysical Processes That Seem To Violate Fundamental Laws Of Nature. The Orphan Yatima, A Digital Being Grown From A Mind Seed, Joins A Group Of Citizens And Flesher Refugees In A Search For The Knowledge That Will Guarantee Their Safety-a Search That Puts Them On The Trail Of The Ancient And Elusive Transmuters, Who Have The Power To Reshape Subatomic Particles, And To Cross Into The Macrocosmos, Where The Universe We Know Is Nothing But A Speck In The Higher-dimensional Vacuum. On The Utopian, Man-made Island, Stateless, Nobel Prize Winner Violet Mosala Is Close To Solving The Greatest Problem Of Her Career - The Quest For The Ultimate Theory Of Everything (toe) Is Almost Over. Burned Out By Recording The Abuses Of Biotech For His Tv News Syndicate, Andrew Worth Grabs The Chance To Follow Violet's Story. In Contrast The World Of Theoretical Physics Seems Like An Anaesthetised Mathematical Heaven, Where Everything Is Cool And Abstract. He Could Not Have Been More Wrong. One By One Mosala's Rival Quantum Physicists Are Disappearing From The Scientific Summit At Stateless. But Why? Is It Something To Do With Violet Herself, Or Is There Some Other, More Esoteric, Force At Work Undermining The Theory Of Everything Conference?