Review of "Fearsum Endjum"

Written partly in a voice speaking misspelt english which takes a bit of decoding, but pretty good picture of the consequences of virtuality

Set on earth long after most of humanity has left on interstellar exploration. The world is facing a cosmic disaster as a cloud of space dust starts to blot out the sun. Buried somewhere in the cloud that stores all human knowledge and is decaying is the key to how to escape this fate.

Emotionally Gripping

Quite simply stunning work. The narrative style is visceral in its emotional pull.

Enjoyable but flawed

It was a good read, and I liked the way a couple of characters from her previous book, The Glass Hotel which I read recently, were woven in. 

But...there is a problem with writing fiction dealing with the next 300 years in that the tech fanatasy of space travel, moon colonies and beyond, seem now so unlikely on that horizon as to be unbeliveable. If you want that stuff for your plot it has to be set millenia in the future when the survivors of our current situation, or a replacement species, have had time to rebuild a civilization which can suport that stuff.

There also seems to me a problem with the whole simulation hypothesis as a hook for a plot. It's an entertaining idea to play with but at the end of the day its actually not very convincing - and if it were then so what. We experience life as being valid which is all that matters at the end of the day. And if you do pursue the simulation idea then the interesting question is not whether or not it is valid, but why, and to what end, are the future time lords running this simulation, or these simulations. what are they trying to achieve here.

So ultimately an unsatisfying book although very enjoyable in itself.