Caught on to Exurb1a on you tube and I connected to his humour immediately, noted he had written some books so have decided to have a look. This book is great, he is a great story teller and I'm already ploughing through the book. I will be going through his catalogue, they are available on audible but I'm old fashioned I love the written word. Am looking forward to ordering the remaining works by the author.
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Ever since reading Asimov’s Foundation series, which I consider to be the prototype to all great sci-fi stories that came later, I’ve been searching for an author crazy enough to match its scope. Cixin Liu gave me a sort of similar excitement with the insightful sociology in the Three Body Problem trilogy, but I think Exurb1a comes even closer with The Fifth Science. The one thing that sets Foundation apart from every other kind of science fiction is the fact that it tells not the story of a single human, or even of a well defined group of humans, but rather the story of all of humanity across a very wide timescale. It requires great insight into human behaviour and History to make it work, but Foundation played right into Asimov’s strengths, so it’s very hard to reproduce. By presenting us with an anthology of short stories sharing the same underlying lore, The Fifth Science does just that, however. Like in Foundation, each segment gives us characters to relate with, and provides us with an unique perspective on historical developments that span the rise and fall of galactic empires. Differently from Foundation, however, human society plays a secondary role here, and the true protagonists are their sucessors - lifeforms of pure conscience, the Fifths. This new direction elevates the book to its own right as a standalone introduction into great sci-fi. Asimov’s masterpiece is not the only marked influence here, though. Great ideas from contemporary fiction made it to the short stories, too - most notably, there are strong undertones of Black Mirror in some of them. The author even acknowledges that in The Caretaker, but in my opinion Water for Lunch is the best example of this - I had strong flashbacks of Nosedive, The Entire History of You and Hang the DJ. This is not unexpected - Black Mirror revolves around the subjects of conscience, artificial intelligence, and the reshaping of human interactions with technology, and those are all topics which The Fifth Science approaches centrally. Beyond that, I can name The Prisoner, All You Zombies (or Predestination) and Childhood’s End as other potential inspirations. Exurb1a’s signature is of course all over it as well, so if you enjoyed his other works, or if you enjoyed any of the things I mentioned, I strongly recommend this book. If you know nothing about any of this... It might be better to start elsewhere (some stuff here is very weird and might scare you away). But this was definitely a great and enjoyable book.
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Both a philosophy and sci-if book. The short stories cater well to my attention span and it provokes deep thoughts. Just as expected from exurbia I thoroughly enjoyed it
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The Fifth Science is an incredibly well-crafted piece of art which deserves a much higher price than what it's currently being sold for. Personally, I feel this is more refined than previous masterpieces: Exurb1a - a true Da Vinci of our time - tackles innumerate deep, philosophical questions seamlessly melded with logic and physics in this collection, many of which are directly linked to our lives today. (Although that could be said of any of his books.) It spans an extremely long period of time, mostly set in the future, taking on various perspectives, sometimes deviating a little from the timeline/overall plot. Don't get me wrong here, I feel that this makes the book better. If you're not a big fan of heavy reading, don't be put off by the introductory chapter. The rest of the book is made up of self-sustaining short stories, which deserve to be novels in their own right. One of these stories, The Lantern, is available on Youtube as an audiobook if you want a deeper taste of what you're buying, but I personally feel that The Lantern is the least extraordinary out of the collection, so if you were floored by that, prepare for something unimaginably beautiful. And if you need another incentive to buy the book, well...remember Polly Hare from Logic Beach, part one? There's an ingeniously subtle hint/tip-off for fan theories as to what happened to her/where she went encrypted in here, but I'm not spoiling anything. All I will say is: her work was REALLY groundbreaking, wasn't it? Anyway, you should stop wasting time reading this inexplicably long review, and BUY THE BOOK. What's a few quid for a unique insight into the depths of human nature and an unflinching stare at the fabric of our existence itself? Let's not forget that this is immaculately woven into some of the best prose I have read in a long, long time. Seriously. Buy and read this. Go on. It'll be worth it. You have my word.
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I’d absolutely vouch for this book anytime. This is a really interesting read. There’s a lot of deep philosophical ideas subtly embedded all throughput. A really good sci-fi read!
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I enjoyed this book. I bought it on a whim and found it unexpectedly good. The science itself didn't matter to me so much as the application and implications toward humanity. I like that someone had the imagination to think this book up. All good fun.
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Came early than expected. Delivered fr US to Singapore. Paid almost $30 including shipping. A bit disappointed because of the peeling-off the cover page, thus 3 stars.
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Ich bin sehr begeistert von dieser Ansammlung an Kurzgeschichten. Ich kenne den Autor wegen seiner Youtube-Videos und bin jetzt sehr überrascht wie gut das Buchformat funktioniert und wie es dem Autor gelingt den Leser immer wieder in eine neue Welt hineinzuziehen.
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A good book to read. I-ve read the prince of milk before this one and it was really really good, not perfect but really good nevertheless. And this one its the same. Keep the good work man
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