I have been trying to put into words how I feel about this novel by Greg Egan. This novel leans very far into the "hard sci-fi" side of the spectrum and it isn't for everyone. Egan is a mathematician and a software engineer and those areas of expertise are relied on heavily to craft the world we inhabit in Diaspora. I have read this twice now, both times enjoying the technical masterpiece of Egan's world. The beginning is tough to read, it is slow and extremely verbose. There's no hand holding in the conceptual world you have been thrown into. If you are having trouble, the Wikipedia page is helpful to lean on and the glossary in the back of the book is a must to reference in the earlier chapters. As you get the hang of the world though, the story just flows forward. I enjoyed the pacing and characters journeys as well as the general theme of the novel. Highly recommended if you enjoy a technical and dense sci-fi novel.
Just finished this myself. Really glad I finally got around to reading it.
Does it seem like a lot of hard sci-fi is really about dealing with existential dread to everyone else? This definitely made it a theme, and I really appreciate the acceptance the characters showed, but it's still a bit of a bummer. It's almost like the more beautiful the mathematical concepts being explored, the darker the undertones. Or maybe the settings just make it all starkly bare.