★★★☆☆ Mixed
(Virtual Reality; 3-Adica Universe) Sentient characters in a massive online multiplayer game exploit a flaw in the operating system to escape to a safe place that’s only rumored to exist. (19,991 words; Time: 1h:06m)
Recommended By: 🏆Readers+0 👍JMcGregor+1 👍RHorton.r+1 (Q&A)
"3-Adica," by Greg Egan [bio] (edited by Sheila Williams), appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction issue 09-10|18, published on August 16, 2018 by Penny Publications.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Review: 2018.462 (A Word for Authors)
Pro: I loved the virtual-reality setting, and much of the fun of the story is gradually figuring out how it works. The notion of intelligent programs using what amounts to a buffer-overflow exploit to switch to different parts of the game was amusing.
Con: The resolution was a bit of a letdown, and the p-adic space seemed like an awful place to be.
Trying to make space for an unlimited number of intelligent programs didn’t seem very practical.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 09-10|18)
Greg Egan Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
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Pro: I loved the virtual-reality setting, and much of the fun of the story is gradually figuring out how it works. The notion of intelligent programs using what amounts to a buffer-overflow exploit to switch to different parts of the game was amusing.
Con: The resolution was a bit of a letdown, and the p-adic space seemed like an awful place to be.
Trying to make space for an unlimited number of intelligent programs didn’t seem very practical.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 09-10|18)
Greg Egan Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
When Egan is good he's very, very good, and when he's not good - well, he's usually still pretty interesting, but yeah, this didn't really work for me, either, although it certainly had its moments. It reminded me a bit of his "Dark Integers" story from quite a while ago, which again had a great concept, but the story he built around it just didn't quite work.
ReplyDeleteOne thing this story did was remind me of the description of a mathematics class in the course catalog my freshman year that was so striking in its oddity that I've remembered it ever since: "Welcome to the brave new world of p-adic numbers, where every triangle is isosceles and every point in a circle is its center. Note: does not presume any knowledge of what a p-adic number is." Despite this enticement, I did not take the course.
Given what happened to the characters in the story, I think you made a wise decision to steer clear of that course. :-)
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