By Terry Pratchett
I read this over a couple of days in January, 2025. It’s one of PTerry’s earlier sci-fi works, where he was still figuring out writing and the themes he preferred, and you can sort of tell - similar to Strata, it besieges you with made up words in the name of worldbuilding, until about halfway into the book where you can actually start figuring things out.
It’s set in the distant future, where there are tens of sentient species all living in the same region of the galaxy, which is populated with artefacts from an ancient race called the Jokers. The main character, Dom, is predicted by probability maths to be the one to discover where they are now, described in an old legend as “at the dark side of the sun”. The novel covers his journey to find them, and the efforts of others to stop him.
There were tremendously good concepts here: alternate life forms like planets brought to sentience by the generation of neurons and transistors through the tectonic movements of silicon continental plates (similar to First Person Singular from The Long Earth, species living on the surface of the sun and drifting through space, and of course the Joker concept, which is repeated in Strata. However, it was slightly let down by the ending, where (spoiler alert!) the dark side of the sun is revealed to be a reversion to animal intelligence.
Basically, the Jokers, having become incredibly technologically advanced, realised that their worldviews were forever limited and shaped by their evolutionary form, and decided that their preferred method of being was to revert to sentient but unintelligent creatures. Overtones of the concept of grace from His Dark Materials, and the Zima Blue episode of Love, Death, and Robots, but not executed particularly well.
Overall, decent.