“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s a heaven for?” Robert Browning



Will you like this book as much as I did? Let’s find out.



You must have your geek on and be ready for one of the most challenging “whitewater rides” you have ever taken through genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, nano-technology, astrophysics, exo-biology, and a plethora of planets and species that stretch the term “human.”



Belisarius Arjona is a self-described con man. He is also part of an augmented

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s a heaven for?” Robert Browning



Will you like this book as much as I did? Let’s find out.



You must have your geek on and be ready for one of the most challenging “whitewater rides” you have ever taken through genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, nano-technology, astrophysics, exo-biology, and a plethora of planets and species that stretch the term “human.”



Belisarius Arjona is a self-described con man. He is also part of an augmented human species dubbed Homo quantus. Others seek him out because they see his skill verging on the magical. He orchestrates “a con” reminiscent of Ocean’s Eleven but jacked up a few orders of magnitude.



"“So all Homo quantus are built this poorly?”

“It’s fair to say I’m the sum of many generations of flaws.”

“You can barely navigate zero grav, you get sick when you try something unusual, and you missed the Mutapa,” she said. “Our own navigation could have come closer.”

“I get it,” he groaned. “You don’t agree with the decision to hire me.”

“Correct.”

“Then don’t hire me if you don’t think I can do the job.”"



The “job” is massive, in every sense of that word. It involves getting a fleet of very special ships through a wormhole that is completely controlled by their enemy. To accomplish this takes a team as varied and as different as you might imagine. No, I’m not sure anyone but Derek Künsken could imagine this group which includes experts in so many fields including mayhem and deception.



This may not be the most beautifully written book, but the reader is being moved through the plot at “warp speed” and the writing is more than adequate. Some of the things that Künsken gets right include:



- A well-conceived “world” with a full measure of complexity

- Characters that have depth and complexity (and stay in character)

- Species that have significant and consequential back-stories

- Technology that could be part of our future

- An in-space battle that is not like anything you have come across

- Individuals with layers of motivations

- Terrifying and shocking behaviors that are not just add-ons

- Surprises all through the novel



Okay, I hope I have given you enough of the story for you to determine if it will work for you. For those who want to risk knowing more, I have now added some material that I feel makes the case for how extraordinary this book is. (without spoilers, I believe) 4.5*



[I was reminded of this introduction to an old radio show because I feel The Quantum Magician actually achieves what was promised: “From the far horizons of the unknown come tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future; adventures in which you'll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds.”] This book is the first of at least two books with Belisarius Arjona.

......................................................................................................................







As I have asserted above, this book, though not massive in size, is massive in what it wants to convey. I am skating on thin ice, but my intention is not to spoil the experience for you, but to induce more of the readers of this review (who love good SF) to give it a try.



There are four major “human” species in play in this novel. The “normal” humans and three that have been created for various reasons: the Puppets, the Mongrels and Homo quantus. There are also several varieties of A.I. including The Scarecrow and St. Matthew.



These are distributed, but not equally, among the empires and hegemonies that are in constant competition. Getting some type of enhancement advantage is a way to shift the balance of power, but it may have unintended consequences. "Anglo-Spanish genetic manipulation had made caged monsters of the Homo eridanus, religious slaves of the Homo pupa and intellectual automata of the Homo quantus. All things considered, humans had done a terrible job of directing their own evolution."





Since Bel is part of Homo quantus there is more description of their home world, the Garret, and what it means to be a quantus. This may be the apex of the author’s imaginative brilliance. See below:





"The Garret wasn’t like that. The Homo quantus sought knowledge. They didn’t threaten anyone. But what would the Homo quantus do if someone threatened them? She honestly didn’t know. Human history was a concatenation of power struggles and people trying to get away with whatever they could, until someone strong enough came along to stop them. That was the world she’d stepped into."



"THE QUANTUM INTELLECT coalesced in the absence of the Belisarius subjectivity. Millions of magnetosomes fed the intellect billions of qubits and qutrits of magnetic and electrical information. The intellect constructed a map of the signals, in all their mutually exclusive, superimposed richness. Quantum perceptions bloomed in an array of overlapping probabilities."



"Most of the processing power of the quantum intellect was consumed in the constant navigational adjustments to the shape of the induced wormhole;"

"Even in his normal state, Belisarius could have mentally pictured five dimensions. In savant, he could picture seven- and eight-dimensional objects and complex state space geometries. The rendering programs had notations made just for the Homo quantus that allowed them to go past even this, to see the eleven-dimensional geometries that approached the complexity of wormholes."



"In the same way he could have played cards with even the most advanced computers and soon found the rules governing their choices, so he could have done with the living computer that Cassandra had become in the fugue. The objective intellect she became was not conscious in even the most rudimentary sense. She was a machine of flesh ridden by a web of algorithms that could in no way even be called a person. Cassandra did not presently exist, having been temporarily snuffed out by an electrical and biochemical lobotomy."



"She tumbled. But she was still in savant. She measured her rotational speed and angular momentum against the stars, solving the differential equations to know how to extend her arms and legs to spin without precessing."



"The Tribe of the Mongrel were promiscuous users of the foulest words from every language, from français 8 back to français 1, to most forms of Anglo-Spanish, Mandarin and Trade Arabic." (Which gives the author license to use invective, profanity, scatological references, curses, etc. and do so with some inventiveness.)



"Saint Matthew’s quantum computing capacities and hard positives on every sentience test made him advanced, even among the Aleph-class."



"She hadn’t experienced any of what her brain had done in the fugue. She couldn’t have. Cassandra the person had not existed for those hours. But she could review the memories of what her brain had seen and sensed and done, and she could try to understand it all. It was like revealed knowledge." "He’d pass out if this kept up. So he was playing smart. Their pings had gradually told him the kind of kit that was hunting him. They sounded like programmed defensive tech in mid-sized torpedo casings. He’d built a profile of their sense-and-search algorithms based on their pings and positioning, slowly improving his diversions and using cover better."



Every member of Bel’s “team” was tempted with some inducement (which of course included a massive amount of money). But that wasn’t always the prime factor:



"“The nature of the job is not as important as the context. Do you ever feel a sense of fate?”

“All the time,” Saint Matthew said.

“In fated times,” Belisarius said, “miracles are not only possible, but logically necessary.”

“Go on,” Saint Matthew said.

“Your coming to me twelve years ago can’t be an accident,” Belisarius said. “What I hadn’t figured out, until now, was where your mission had to start, or what my role was.”"



"“Things seem to be going well here,” Belisarius said.

“Yes. The batches of autonomous robots are at generation six, and are evolving quite nicely.”

“You didn’t want to design them directly? This is going to take longer.”

“I’m a craftsman, Mister Arjona, not a hack. Iterative design by the mutation of replicating units is better. Emerging complexity and self-assembly are too useful not to exploit. And it’s the only way to see if I could evolve robotic species with souls.” “What?”

“I admit, it’s a long shot, but while I’m evolving autonomous robots for one reason, why not test whether I can give them souls too?”"





"“I’m glad you asked. I’m bored of trying to help Bel with his love problem and Matt with his god complex.”

“They’ll shit sunshine when they hear you’re going to stop helping them.”

“I decided to help you.”

“You can start by washing my ass.”

“I’m figuring you out. You’re one of those dish-it-out types but you’re not interested in taking it.”

“Are you a mongrel whisperer now?”

“Let’s say I am. I think the whole Way of the Mongrel code is this big defensive screen, putting yourselves down before someone else does.”"





Another area where this book shines is in imagined technology:





"An inflaton drive. He wondered if she was lying. He usually could tell, but he didn’t think she was. She was tamping down her own pride in the telling. How did they do it? Inflaton particles carried the inflationary force that caused the ongoing expansion of the universe. In some theories, a wave of inflation was self-reinforcing, a runaway effect. Their own drive could destroy them. And the energy cost must be enormous. Then it clicked. “Virtual inflatons,” Belisarius said. Iekanjika started. Virtual particles were pairs of particles and anti-particles that could jump into existence as long as they vanished back into nothingness quickly enough."



"In front of the ship, a pocket of space-time bulged at right angles to the three dimensions of space. Semi-melted space-time distended like a questing pseudopod. The shape and focus of the magnetic field pushed the tube of space-time across dimensions accustomed to being curled. The questing finger reached down, around the intervening space, until a narrow, unstable bridge reached a point far to galactic south. Then the display greened. They had induced a wormhole."



"At twenty-two kilometers below the surface, the view opened on one side. The tower of carbon containing their elevator carried them past slush dotted with moving icebergs, and then into the dark, open water of a protected bay. At this depth, the frame of the elevator creaked as it endured eight hundred atmospheres of pressure. If any of the systems failed, they would be crushed instantly."





"The thinnest of vines wrapped up a narrow, smooth-barked tree trunk. Transparent gossamer leaves sprouted from it at regular intervals…(he was led )… up the leaves. They fluoresced as…(h)is brain ripped apart the engineering in the stairs as he followed…: plant cells engineered to grow carbon nanofilament, probably reinforcing the xylem and phloem to steely hardness. And likely colonized intracellularly by bioluminescent bacteria that glowed under pressure. Lovely."



"….had a computational and robotics lab, equipped with atomic force microscopes and X-ray lithographers for the nano-level engineering of parts he needed. He grew other parts and tools in small bioreactors. Various pieces of equipment ran, their fans humming softly. The bready smell of yeast floated on the air. Little multi-legged robots scuttled on the floor like polished insects."



And then there is the “con:”



"He was... worldly, dishonest, money-chasing. Or he was lying. He said he wanted the data as badly as she did. They were going to try something never before tried. They were going to touch the inside of an Axis Mundi in ways that no Homo quantus ever had. Who was he telling the truth to? Maybe he didn’t tell the truth to anyone."





"You do not make all the choices, and not one this big.” “

Would you ever play poker as part of a committee?” “Do not insult me, Arjona. I do not appreciate whatever comparison you are making.”

“I’m playing against the psychology of the Puppets. You more than anyone else can understand what it is to stare down someone across the table.”

“I bet my stake, on my cards, against my opponent.”

“That’s what I’m doing, Antonio.”



"He had the start of an idea for getting the Expeditionary Force to the other side of the Puppet Axis, but that was just navigation, playing the cards. The larger problem would be playing the Puppets. They wouldn’t be easy marks."



“And if the Puppets do not swallow your bluff?” “They will,” Belisarius said. He felt an icy certainty slipping into his voice."



"You meant to con me, but you were telling the truth.”

“I said it because it was meaningful to you, like my nonexistent soul,” Belisarius said. “Just because neither exists to me doesn’t mean they don’t exist for you. I’m Homo quantus; I live in an observer-dependent world where very important things can exist and not exist at the same time.”"



"“You never really needed me. You didn’t need to be a con man, either. You were always made for more.” Belisarius shook his head. “I was built wrong, Will. If I hadn’t found cons, I would have died a long time ago. You saved me.”"





Description



"Hemoglobins were remarkably sensitive to partial pressures because they flexed from one shape to another as they functioned: fold to grab the oxygen, unfold to let the oxygen go."



"But the space above the Free City was alive with artillery explosions and chaff. Lasers heated up any debris in their firing arcs. Small fighter craft, tough old Anglo-Spanish Mark 21 Daggers and bigger cast-off Congregate Perceuses, flew nasty."



"The poised watchfulness that had ill-fit her in civilian clothes now suited, as if a hard gem had been returned to its setting."



"Nothing in the memories of the Belisarius subjectivity was helpful. The Belisarius subjectivity’s memories of each discussion of his plans were deceptive and contradictory, and even occasionally self-deceiving. The Belisarius subjectivity operated on multiple levels of deception, with overlapping realities and narratives, interacting and interfering so that knowledge was less factual and more probabilistic, similar to superimposed quantum waves. The quantum intellect could not cede this decision to the Belisarius subjectivity."



Humor





"“Happy for help,” Marie said, looking at them, wriggling her fingers. “This’ll be a three- or four-finger job.” Gates-15 frowned at her. “What’s a three-finger job?” “It’s how many fingers get blown off before I get it right. It’s way easier if we spread that around. Many hands make light the work,” she said cheerily. Cassandra resisted a shiver."