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The Quantum Garden

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The Quantum Garden by Derek Künsken is a witted, fast-paced, and intriguing sci-fi page-turner that will leave you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Künsken has created a vividly imaginative world filled with mind-bending concepts and cleverly crafted characters.

The story picks up where its predecessor, The Quantum Magician, left off and continues to impress with its inventive plot and witty dialogue. The characters are engaging, quirky, and funny, making for an entertaining and engaging read. Künsken masterfully weaves complex scientific theories into the narrative, without ever losing the reader's attention or sacrificing the story's pace.

Overall, The Quantum Garden is a thrilling and amazing read that will keep you hooked until the very last page. Künsken's writing is smart and his imagination boundless, making for a truly unique and compelling sci-fi adventure. If you're a fan of the genre or just looking for a fun and captivating read, The Quantum Garden is definitely worth picking up. A masterpiece.

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The Quantum Garden starts a day after the end of The Quantum Magician: Belisarius and his band of misfits pulled off the perfect heist and managed to transport a bunch of armed starships through a wormhole.

Belisarius is now in possession of the Time Gates, he’s immensely rich and finally reunited for good with his childhood sweetheart. His life couldn’t be any more perfect, at least, up until he realizes his home planet is going to be nuked for what he did. His only way to save his people is to go back in time and work with the people who want him dead.



I read The Quantum Magician back in 2018 and it was one of my favorite books of the year. It was the perfect read for me: clever with great characters, a cool worldbuilding and a whole lot of fun! The Quantum Garden has the exact same elements, it starts off with a bang (metaphorically and literally!), it’s fast-paced and it manages to be both clever and entertaining. It was a pleasure to revisit the world and the characters. The time-travel element of the story was done very well and it gave an extra edge to the story. Indeed, to avoid a grandfather paradox, Belisarius and his crew have to make several difficult decisions and it made the book even more exciting.

The Quantum Magician was fascinating because it introduced the world, the different human species and the cast of characters. Because of that, I was a bit apprehensive about the second book, it’s not always easy to keep the attention of readers when they don’t have the “newness” factor of the first book. However, I didn’t find The Quantum Garden any less exciting than the first book. On the contrary, since I didn’t have to focus as much on the worldbuilding, I had more fun following the characters.

I especially liked two characters that had minor roles in the first book: Sergeant Iekanjika and the Scarecrow. I found Iekanjika super badass in this book, she takes no shit from anyone and she was always there to put Belisarius back on the right track when he was too preoccupated by his quantum experiments to focus on the heist. She had to make a lot of difficult choices in this book and, each time, I understood exactly where she was coming from. As for the Scarecrow, while he’s supposed to be one of the bad guys, I was fascinated by his backstory and I wanted more scenes from his perspective. And while I’m praising the characters, I have to make a special mention for Stills. All of his scenes were amazing, he’s so angry all the time but he sure has a lot of punchlines and insults to throw at the right moment! 😀

I don’t know how long this series is going to be but, I hope for many more books! It’s imaginative, full of cool quantum stuff and a lot of fun. If you have not read the first book already, you definitely should!

Four and half stars.



I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Solaris. All opinions are my own.

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A good second instalment to this series, expanding this time not completely on the immediate aftermath of the con performed in the first volume, but also on what happened in the past.

Although I had a bit of trouble with some parts, in general, I enjoyed once again diving into this world. The story begins on a strong note—let’s just say the Scarecrow doesn’t play nice, and neither should he (it? they?)—which ups the ante for Belisarius and Cassandra when it comes to their species as a whole, now that more and more people become aware of what the homo quantus’s abilities could be turned into, once out of their contemplative little corner of space. Faced with the responsibility to save their people, our two protagonists have to turn to unlikely allies.

While I did regret the absence of a new con here (I really like cons), of course I’m aware it couldn’t have just been a copy of Bel’s shenanigans in the first volume. Moreover, this time it’s not just about Bel and the gang he assembled, and not only because some of said gang’s members aren’t present here. We still get to enjoy Stills and his foul mouth, but Cassandra, even though she’s not as present as Bel, also reveals herself as surprisingly resourceful—or able to develop a resourcefulness she wouldn’t have been able to discover and exploit on the Garret, maybe. More interestingly, the story also places a sharper focus on Ayen and on the dilemmas she has to face when confronted with some inconvenient truths about people she had blindly trusted up until now. There’s some really twisted stuff going on here, and in the end it all makes sense, but also casts a bleak light on whether she’s really free to act or not.

The “quantum garden” that appears mid-novel (hence the title) was also oddly fascinating. I don’t entirely agrees with the author’s take on the observer’s role (I’m more a many-worlds than a Copenhagen person when it comes to physics), but it was cleverly used nonetheless.

The parts I mentioned having had trouble with were more a matter of pacing than of characters or plots I didn’t like: moments when the story slowed down, and where a character, for instance, kept running the same things over and over in their mind. It did make sense in that they had a lot to mull over; it just didn’t flow that well in a novel.

Conclusion: 3.5/4 stars

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A SciFi novel that, using the existence of wormholes to travel vast distances, and natural (maybe) time gates to hop across temporal fields explores some really big questions. All profound, some, like identity determination, our responsibility to protect threatened species, determining what life really is and the development of artificial life are particularly relevant to today. Most though are the eternal questions love, genocide, abuse of power, slavery and exploitation of less developed populations.
All this introspection wrapped in the guise of a very serviceable space adventure. Brilliant! I loved it. I will be hunting down the prequel now.

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I loved the first book of the series; even if I found difficult to read the few passages about quantum people, they were necessary for the plot, and I didn't mind them. The rest made for it, easily.

Alas my feelings while reading the beginning of this second book (I've read a quarter of it before deciding to give up) were bad. I had the impression that I was reading a fan-fiction wrote by someone who has been, contrary to me, fascinated by the quantum parts in the first book. For about 20 % of the book, all the writing is about quantum brains, homo quantus, quantum fugue, fugue fever, over, over and over. There is a development, a huge one even, but the story was so boring for me! The characters, the quantum ones, are all the same person, with one and unique personality, even if they don't make the same decision facing a tragedy, they didn't seem different people. No nuance, just endless dwelling about homo quantus particularities.
Then I had a short part with plenty of names, which drown me a little more. Then I had a part with the Tribe of the Mongrel, and I thought 'hurrah, one of my favorites!' - but no, still unconvincing...

To conclude, if you loved the first book of the series you should absolutely check this one as every body seem to love it as much. But be ready to swallow a huge quantum bite before anything else!
For myself I'll try it again in a while, maybe skimming a bit at the beginning (I even had bought the paper book :/) but for now, a disappointment...

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I need to open by saying I’ve read the first book in the series so I have no idea how well this book stands up on its own. There is a lot of elaborate worldbuilding from the opening never mind the many interesting concepts that start out the gate. Still, as a sequel, it works.

I enjoyed the pure heisty-ness of the first book and this one doesn’t disappoint either offering a fun political plot with many spy thriller twists and turns. The characters are complex, the humans, the aliens, the AI – the plants!

It’s fun hard sci fi with a unique twist and very memorable characters. Looking forward to the next book!

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This was a great Sci-Fi story. An amazing storyline with unimaginable human development. It was a fast paced story with likeable and believable characters. A really good conclusion

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This eARC was provided by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading the second instalment in this series.

As it was in the last book, the world-building is vivid and immersive. While I do wish certain scenes had contained fewer infodumps I never felt irritated by them enough to be put off of reading entirely and it helped that they were few and far between.

Plot-wise this was excellent. Complicated and paced just right, I feel even more excitement for the next book in the series.

Overall rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
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Litsy review

This eARC was provided by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading the second instalment in this series.

The world-building is vivid and immersive. Certain scenes could have contained fewer infodumps.

The plot was complicated and paced just right, I feel even more excited for the next book in the series.

Overall rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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The Quantum Magician fue una más que grata sorpresa en su momento y después de conocer en persona a Derek Kunsken, no podía pasar mucho tiempo hasta que The Quantum Garden cayera en mi poder.

Esta novela sigue la historia de la primera entrega, así que no hace falta ni presentar a los personajes ni establecer una situación de partida, porque ya los conocemos. En este caso la crisis puede desequilibrar los grandes poderes del universo conocido, porque entra en juego un elemento que hasta entonces no se podía concebir. La posibilidad de viajar en el tiempo puede ser real y hay que actuar en consecuencia.
La aproximación que realiza Kunsken a los viajes en el tiempo es quizá la más conocida, tipo Regreso al Futuro, pero sin la fotografía de familia que va desapareciendo que le servía a McFly para saber si iba por buen camino. En este libro, los protagonistas van a ciegas, ya que apenas tienen información del momento en el pasado al que viajan y pronto verán cosas que pueden quebrantar la causalidad, algo que tendría consecuencias desconocidas.
El autor utiliza estos problemas de causa y efecto de forma bastante clásica, pero aún así consigue ir elevando la tensión con gran acierto conforme van avanzando las páginas. Aunque la resolución final no resulte excesivamente sorprendente, es más que correcta. Es cierto que algunas de las líneas de diáologo y descripción que utiliza tienen algo más de tecnojerga que de especulación cuántica, pero son un vehículo necesario para el desarrollo de los acontecimientos.
Sin embargo, lo que más me ha gustado del libro con diferencia es la aparición del Horto Quantus y la belleza con que se describe su existencia. Creados quiza a través de un accidente espacio temporal y con su existencia pendiente de un hilo por su situación en un planeta que puede sufrir radiaciones asesinas, sirven como contrapunto al resto del libro, a la trama en sí con sus intrigas y sus conspiranoicas acusaciones y en general a la complejidad del ser humano en las múltiples variantes que el autor canadiense ha creado para nosotros. Quizá solo por eso, la lectura merecería la pena, pero estamos hablando de un libro más completo que solo esta característica.
Aunque pierde algo de la chispa que tenía en la primera entrega, The Quantum Garden es una gran secuela que gustará a los aficionados a los viajes en el tiempo, que parecen que vuelven a estar de moda si es que alguna vez dejaron de estarlo.

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Not as elaborate

In my review of "The Quantum Thief", Mr. Künsken's opening book in this series, I complained that it was too complex to read straight through. This book does not suffer from that fault. It is no trouble to get straight through it. My problem is that I don't know anything more than the usual about quantum physics and so I don't actually believe the book's suppositions and story line. In addition, I missed entirely why it is that they team needs core samples from the past to move through the time gates. Huh?

Nevertheless, the book is a good mid-series book with lots of plot movement and maneuvering to set up the next stage in the story.

I have another physics question though: How much energy is released in a matter / anti-matter explosion? That's an important question that I can't explain. At the very least, I think that Bel's ship should be more damaged than it is from Scarecrow's AM attack.

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The Quantum Garden begins where The Quantum Magician ends. Belisarius and Cassandra have the Time Gates and a ship they named The Calculated Risk. Iekanjika is back with her people and very angry at being betrayed by Bel. The Congregate has decided to either enslave or exterminate the Homo Quantus.

Bel and Cassie must team up with Iekanjika, Saint Matthew the AI and Stills and travel through time to carry out a mission to save Bel's people without causing a paradox.

What they don't know is that the Congregate has sent a Scarecrow after them.

I really enjoyed the relationships between the characters; What triumphs and traumas have brought them to this point in their lives. We get a good look at what makes them tick.

The world building continues to fascinate me. The Hortus Quantus amazed me and the Scarecrow was terrifying. This was the perfect continuation of the Quantum Universe and I hope there will be another book in this series soon!

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Time travel stories are tricky. The best ones give me a headache but not too much of a headache. I guess it’s the literary equivalent of the adrenaline rush one gets from momentarily being upside down on a roller coaster (which is definitely not for me): I want my brain to hurt as I contemplate 4-, 11-, or 22-dimensional spacetime … but I don’t want to get so confused that I feel the author could basically just do anything. (This is why Doctor Who is often such a crapshoot depending on who is writing for it.) Fortunately, with The Quantum Garden, Derek Künsken returns with all of the magic from The Quantum Magician —and honestly, I think he outdoes himself this time!

No spoilers for this book but spoilers for the first one. I received a copy of this for free from NetGalley and Solaris.

Belisarius Arjona has succeeded in pulling off his biggest con yet. The results, however, are a little more dramatic than he might have wanted. He has precipitated a war between two large powers. He stole a pair of time gates. And as the book opens, he watches a warship from one of those powers exact retribution on him by destroying the home of his subspecies, Homo quantus. Now, if I were in his position, I would probably not deal with that loss very well. Belisarius has a … different idea. He has some wormholes that let him travel in time, so naturally … he just travels back in time two weeks and develops a gambit to save his people. It’s not quite that simple, of course, because it will also end up involving travelling forty years into the past, accidentally wiping out an entire species, shattering someone’s entire perception of themselves and their wife … need I go on?

I’d forgotten how much humour these books have. I dove back into this universe and immediately started enjoying it, although to be honest, it wasn’t until Stills showed up that I truly started laughing out loud:

“Yup. And I need a pilot.”

“Good, I thought this was gonna be tempting or something. I’m already altruisted out, saving the Union. They got the best flying. Sorry.”

“I need a pilot to fly me through time,” Arjona said.

Malparido hìjeoputa. “Are you shitting me?”

“I never have,” Arjona said.

“For the love of…. Goddamn! Can’t you ever just rob a bank or something?”



I’d forgotten how Stills’ unapologetic vulgarity is an excellent chaser to the quantum mechanical technobabble from some of the other characters. The diversity of Künsken’s characterization remains top notch. Moreover, this particular exchange tickled me because it perfectly lampshades the absurd scope of some of Bel’s adventures without being too cutesy about it. It’s like how the main characters of Stargate SG-1 eventually start joking, around seasons 7 and 8, about how many times they’ve saved the planet: they’ve earned the ability to do that, both in the show and the show itself. The Quantum Garden is much the same. Some books will make a comment like this, and it will annoy me, because the book has done nothing to earn such grandiose comments. Künsken definitely has, with both the first book and now its sequel.

Interestingly, as some of you may know, heists are my kryptonite as far as stories go … yet I actually preferred this book, which is less of a heist than the first one. It’s more straight-up espionage. But I think Künsken took everything that I liked about the first book and amplified it here, while having a tighter cast of characters and a less convoluted plot (and that is saying something, considering that we’re involving some knotty time travel here!).

The time travel logic, while definitely timey-wimey, makes sense if you unpack it. I can see the thoughtfulness on display, the way Künsken was careful to set everything up to avoid paradoxes while still maintaining a sense of suspense. That’s not easy to do.

Related to the time travel would be the Hortus quantus Bel encounters in the past, and their very unique mode of existence/propagation. Künsken demonstrates even more creativity than we encountered in the first book (which is saying something)—I love when authors push the boundaries of what we can conceive, when it comes to alien beings, and this species is quite something! It’s so easy for people to dismiss quantum mechanics as “weird,” simply because it is unintuitive owing to our three-dimensional bias. Yet if you push past that initial weirdness, you can explore and play with so many cool concepts and ideas. This is why I love reading posthuman SF like The Quantum Garden.

Most of the main characters experience some good growth. In particular, I like how Cassandra has more opportunities to shine and come into her own. She has more responsibilities, and it galvanizes her into being a more decisive actor. She holds her own with Stills as they battle the Scarecrow, and it’s a sight to see! As far as the Scarecrow goes, this is a small area in which The Quantum Garden disappoints. We learn a lot more about his origins, which is fine, but as an antagonist goes he’s fairly unimpressive in this book. I’m hoping that changes in the next one.

The story is exciting and entertaining all the way through: I literally only put this down to go to work after I started reading it on Tuesday morning, and I stayed up way too late trying to finish it that evening. It’s not for e everyone, but if this subgenre is what you enjoy, you are in for a treat. Künsken builds on what came before while setting up the tantalizing possibility of more stories, more adventures, more bright ideas. This is one of my top reads of 2019 for sure.

Creative Commons BY-NC License

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The Quantum Garden is the second in Derek Künsken’s “Quantum Evolution” series. It explores the idea of transhumanism, as well as delving into moral quandary, both blended with some seriously snappy sci-fi action.

And yes, before you ask, it does it well. There’s so much to love here. The plot is pure high-concept sci-fi It involves, without spoilers, time travel, revolution, the salvation of a people, and some well observed, sharp-edged banter. It’s a story exploring big questions. It wants to talk about what it means to be human – or post human. Several of the characters are labouring under a legacy of hyper-focus, able to step outside themselves, and provide dispassionate estimations at the price of their own self dissolution. Others are trying to shape a nation in the face of fiercely antagonistic currents. Their efforts to make something worth approving of are at once visibly fragile, and fiercely energetic. Though there’s a tight focus on the central characters and their drivers, this is in service to the larger plot, and to the issues that the story delves into. The Quantum Garden isn’t a hesit, but it is wracked with tension and character-driven passion.

In some ways, this is also an optimistic story, It looks at the shape of societies driven by people who aren’t entirely, well, human. In most cases, those societies have managed to shape themselves decently, and are struggling to shape their destiny (rather than to shape anything). The idea that post-human people, despite their benefits and flaws, are still people, is a valuable one. Indeed, the text embraces those flaws in a lot of ways, exploring them in depth, and making no excuses. That said, it’s also unflinching in indicating the pervasive, invasive nature it espouses to corporate governance – the “shoot first, monetise later” mode. For all that, it will leave you with a warm feeling, a sense that the hypothetical kids are alright The pages of The Quantum Garden are filled with people in conflict, struggling to define themselves and to do the right thing. But that conflict is fiery, impassioned, compelling, and if some of the pdopkld making an argument seem better able than others, that may well be my own bias. Kunsken has given us a gloriously intelligent book, one unafraid to back away from the engagement it at once encourages and requires in its readers.

The universe of The Quantum Garden expands that of the previous book. Though we see less of the diversity I terms of humanity as in the previous book, still it’s possible to be enthralled by the strange and mysterious on display here. There are quiet moments between pages, when the fierce sense of the new strikes, when what you’re reading feels alone and thoroughly, oddly alien And that’s just the main characters.

This is also a character driven piece, delving into the psychology, the drives and motivations of a couple of central characters. In some ways, their viewpoints can be odd, unknowable. In other ways, disconcertingly immediate and human. The Quantum Garden gives us viewpoints which it’s easy to empathise and sympathise with, even as those views are in conflict with each other. That all presented views can be correct, that the ideological debates and practical consequences are valid and that they are felt, helps to give the story texture, a raw realism that keeps the pages turning.

I won’t get into the story, but it does have a lot going on. I had to think about this one as it went along – parsing moral choices, deciding which way I felt as characters struggled with ethical quandries But it also transported me from the immediate into the transcendental, with a universe familiar but unlike our own, where blaster fire ad quick wits can change the world.

In the end, this is a great story. It wants you to think, and to feel, to ask questions and hold the answers in your gut as well as in your head. It’s telling a story that grabs hold and won’t let go, and which asks interesting questions, and offers interesting answers. It’s all good stuff, really Give it a try.

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The Quantum Garden, the second instalment in The Quantum Evolution series by the superb Derek Künsken, is even more thrilling and intense than its predecessor and putting it down was a real problem and one I rarely get when reading science/speculative fiction. The combination of different elements make this series a real rare and original gem; a compulsive and intelligent heist adventure set in a world where time travel is possible and plays a substantial role in the plot. This is just as imaginative and creative as the first instalment, and although it opens in rather a pedestrian manner the pace soon picks up to a decent canter. The diverse cast is a joy to behold, the science behind the universe fascinating and the worldbuilding intricate as well as some of the most extensive I've come across in any science-fiction epic in years.

It's a powerful, unpredictable story set against a complex backdrop and with a suspenseful atmosphere and non-stop action. Throughout the journey, we encounter many different species and entities including AIs, alien beings and genetically engineered post-humans, to name a few. The fact that there was a lot of focus paid to how large a role responsibility plays in a persons life and the idea that all actions lead to consequences be they positive or negative we all have to live with the knowledge that our choice started a chain reaction; I found this highly thought-provoking and interesting to consider the whole way through the plot. Are you better to make the right decision for the wrong reasons or the wrong decision for the right reasons? This is a space opera of the highest quality. Many thanks to Solaris for an ARC.

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Derek Künsken follows up his mindbending debut The Quantum Magician with something remarkably different in The Quantum Garden. The book opens just after the events of his debut. Con man Belasarius is on the run when he learns that one of his enemies has decided to exact revenge on his whole community, the homo quantus, who live a peaceful life on an asteroid. Belasarius uses the time gates he stole in the previous book to go back in time and mount a rescue mission but this is only the start of his problems.
The Quantum Magician was a challenging debut. Künsken’s universe is complex and it was hard to get a handle on it while also working through the heist plot of that book. With the scene setting out of the way, the sequel is much more focussed and successful. The bulk of the book sees Belasarius and an old enemy going back in time to complete a mission that will allow him to save his people. Being a time travel story it is full of potential paradoxes and moral conundrums for both Belasarius and his companions.
The name of the book comes from a sapient vegetable species (Hortus quantus) that Belasarius discovers in the past that uses the time gates to support their intelligence. Unfortunately this tends to show up Künsken’s tendency to fall back on technobabble:
The Hortus quantus existed like a giant superposition of uncollapsed quantum states. And the nature of their consciousness was quantum. They existed in a kind of natural quantum fugue, without collapsing quantum fields.
Yet, despite this, Künsken manages to develop some emotional depth around Belasarius and his relationship with this new species.
Reducing the cast list also helps immeasurably. Besides Belasarius the focus is really only on a handful of other players and they are all fascinating. From the foulmouthed pilot Stills,to Belasiarius’s companion Cassie, to Colonel Ayen Iekanjika who has to grapple with her people’s chequered past, to the congregate hunter known as the Scarecrow. All, particularly Ayen, get satisfying arcs.
The Quantum Garden takes a massive piece of world building and runs with it. Leaving most of the details in the background, Künsken has crafted a satisfying, sometimes mind bending, time travel thriller with a philosophical edge. The end leaves no doubt that another book is coming in this series, which given the strength of this entry, can only be welcomed.

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I found this a more understandable story than than The Quantum Magician, whichmade me feel as though I needed to draw diagrams to work out who was when dnad doing what to whom. But with all the world building out of the way there is more time in this book to go a little deeper into the characters of Belisarius and Iekanjika, tow members of the species Homo Quantus, who can experience quantum states without collasing them To be sure, this makes it a little hard to identify with them as we cannot imagine what that would be like but their emotional reactions to the events which comprise the story are apprpriate and understandable. But for me the outstanding character was Stills, a member of a sub species of humanity adapted to life under water.

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This is book two of the Quantum Evolution trilogy. This is space opera of the highest quality, it combines vivid imagination with non stop action. The essence of science fiction is originality and Derek Kunsten has an exception ability to image and create novel concepts. The leading character, Belisarius and his companion Cassie are a variation of humanity with exceptional abilities to perceive mathematical patterns and other sensitivities. Despite being given these abilities they could not be more different to comic book characters but are members of a subtly complex and believable new form of human life. In the quasi plant like "Hortus Quantus" and the "scarecrow" the author has created another two new brilliant concepts; the first a quantum form of life together with its vulnerability to observation, and secondly in the scarecrow an exceptionally complex and believable form of cyborg.
Much of the action takes place or makes use of dimensions of space and time only recently conceived of by quantum physicists which gives the book a sense of the prediction of future reality.
The third part of the trilogy, the Amber quantum is expected to be published soon and i can hardly wait!

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As the summary suggests, we're once more in the thick of it with Belisarius after the events of book one. Does this mean you need to have recently read The Quantum Magician to appreciate this sequel? I'd say it's not a need but it might be worth taking a moment to at least refresh your memory as to who the various characters are. I chose not to and it's possible I would have connected more with the side characters if I had. That being said, you can basically grasp 'people who have just finished a heist' and get on with it and you won't have a bad time. 

This book is shorter than The Quantum Magician, the first book in the series was around 180 pages longer than this sequel - so anyone who found book one too beefy might have a better time with this one? Personally, I feel there were aspects of this book that could have benefitted from a bit more development. I'd have liked to have connected more with characters other than Belisarius - but perhaps that's because Saint Matthew is my favourite character and his quirks weren't really explored as much in this story. That's not to say I don't like Belisarius - quite the opposite - and I did like the way his story went - I just wanted MORE!

As before, I can't comment on the accuracy of the physics in this book and I'm not sure I want to do the research to fact check, but I will say it made sense to my layman's mind (laywoman?). I may be wrong, but it felt like this book delved more into deeper quantum physics concepts, for instance, time travel is much more of a thing in this book than it was in book one and some of the ways it is used (or experienced) were very cool but I have no idea if they are based on current science. 

Basically, I thought the science was good, but I have no idea if a scientist would think that. 

I won't spoil it for you, because it's something to be experienced, but the parts of this book with the eponymous Quantum Garden are absolutely the highlights. I had a lot of feelings about these segments and I'd suggest people read this book if only for those moments. 

Overall, I'd say this is a solid sequel. Though I wasn't totally sure the first book needed one. This book doesn't necessarily build on the characters from book one (besides Belisarius), but I don't really mind because I like the world that Kunsken has created and I like to see people playing in it. 

I checked, there is no book three on Goodreads but Derek, if you're reading this, give me more Saint Matthew. 

My rating: 4/5 stars

I received a free digital advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own. 

The Quantum Garden publishes October 15th!

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5-Stars, a sci-fi masterpiece, a gnurd's joy to read.

<b>Completely, utterly awesome. Künsken shows total command of prose, plot, action and character. Read this book NOW.</b>

I love the delicious quantum science, and the outrageously interesting characters and races. Quantum Garden is a triumph, highest praise!

<i> As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.</i>

<img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71u3M-pc9VL.jpg">

The Quantum Garden starts essentially the day after the previous book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2369639359">The Quantum Garden</a>, my review.

Many of the main characters from book one are here: Belisarius, Cassandra, Iekanjika, St Matthew AI, and Victor Stills. All of them wonderfully realised, all dialogue succinct and true. There's not a wasted word in any of the author's prose. Wonderful.

At the end of book one, Belisarius and Cassandra have the Time Gates, and a number of other delicious hard-science tech toys, but with every major nation baying for their blood. There's only one solution to this, and Belisarius has a confidence game in mind, of course.

The pacing is terrific, the science hard and delicious, the characters each complimenting the increasingly complex plot. At no time does the author waver from total control of all the elements that make up this terrific book.

Read this book NOW!



So many wonderful quotes... Sorry for so many spoilers....

<spoiler>And now Iekanjika knew that from the time she was a captain, Rudo had carried memories of a young colonel visiting her in the past, telling her that she was to be one of her spouses. Regardless of Iekanjika’s competence or other qualities, this information alone would force any careful commander to take Iekanjika as a wife, even if it created one of those odd bits of cyclic causality, where cause triggered effect and effect triggered cause.</spoiler>
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Arjona talking with Saint Matthew AI:
<i>Belisarius took a deep breath, chilling his lungs. “Are you suggesting I accept irrationality and rationality?"
“Those labels aren’t helpful where we are now, when we are now.”
“I can’t live like that,” Belisarius said.
“We live with lots of things we can’t live with.”</i>
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Ieknjika contemplates honour versus expediency:
<i>The officers and crew of the Sixth Expeditionary Force did their duty in the future, with honor. And she was here. It had been easy for her to quantify this and throw it in Arjona’s face. One man. One man didn’t outweigh the lives and freedoms of two nations. She’d sent people to their deaths on purpose for tactical gain. This was the same-trading death for strategic gain. But that comfort was hollow. [soldier] was Rudo’s price, not the price of the advantage itself. And the cost in quantity was not the whole cost. Committing a murder would make Iekanjika a criminal. An extra-judicial killing was a dishonor that could be neither erased nor redeemed. And more deeply, to know that Rudo’s ordering of the killing was the suitable response for this time, that this was the way things were done at the birth of Union nationhood, only further tilted the ground beneath her feet. What did she stand on when her new nation was born of this swamp, bereft of honor and duty? Victory? Freedom? For whom? For the politicians posturing on Bachwezi? Or for the people positioning here for control of the Expeditionary Force? Did they deserve the victory Iekanjika might deliver if she could not stand on honor or duty? But maybe she held her honor too highly. She could sacrifice herself for her people, so why price her honor above that?</i>
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Arjona contemplates the alien life:
<i>His brain ran a series of parallel models, weighing and discarding, mixing and matching possible growth algorithms and energy budgets until he found something that might explain the shapes of the ice. The black, tarry plants could absorb infrared from the brown dwarf, using the energy to melt minute quantities of water. In the moments before the water refroze, the plants moved the liquid upward, shaping the stem-like substrate upon which they could grow. The possibility that the plants of Nyanga could use dwarf heat to sculpt the surface of their world was beautiful. They rode their own ice sculptures to compete for light. The idea was hopeful, haunting and quiet.</i>
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Cassandra considers subjectivity versus objectivity:
<i>Although Bel’s paranoia about his quantum objectivity had led him to say a lot of things she didn’t believe, she trusted one of them to be true. Bel said that ultimately, a subjective consciousness could discern the algorithms making up even the most advanced objective system.</i>
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<i>“Dreams don’t all come true, Arjona,” Iekanjika said. “What you eventually make might not be what you dreamed, but if you care, it might be better than nothing.”</i>
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Rudo contemplates honour:
<i>“We have a common dream, you and I, and I have no more secrets. You know everything about me, ugly and good. No one knows me better than you do and I’ve had four decades to think about who I was when I met you, and who you were. You were the first honorable person I’d ever met, the first who showed me a dream I should carry. I’d been like everyone else, looking out for myself, trying to pick sides and hedge my bets, and you made me ashamed of that. You showed me a larger dream and you showed me the kind of people who would reach it. I didn’t want to be left behind. When I became a major, I knew I didn’t want to be like [soldier]; I wanted to be like you. If I haven’t ruined everything between us, I still want you leading my staff.”</i>
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<spoiler>Rudo was only sixty-two years old, but her age was concentrated in the sadness in her eyes. She was still paying those costs she’d incurred early in her life. And as if Ayen really could peer straight into her heart, Ayen knew that Rudo wouldn’t kill her. It was the opposite. She really would have let Ayen kill her. Rudo was aching for a redemption she couldn’t reach. Her only hope for inner peace was the gift of absolution only Ayen could give.</spoiler>


Notes:
5.0% "Already terrific! A continuation of the first book, with quantum hard science imagination cool stuff 😉"

10.0% "Derek's prose is amazing, in that it presents very complex ideas clearly and with wonderful pacing and rhythm."

30.0% "Brilliant complexity and plotting. Very complex and totally delicious!"

32% Utterly outrageous plotting! Sorry for so many spoilers....
<spoiler><I> Iekanjika breathed, looking straight ahead, still deflating. “We’re not going back in time because Arjona wants to, or even because we want to,” she said numbly. “We’re going back because we have to.”
“To avoid a grandfather paradox,” Belisarius said. </i> </spoiler>

40.0% "More complexity! The unwinding of all these plots and subplots is going to be extraordinary. I'm in awe!"

46.0% "A terrific soliloquy here by Iekanjika."

50.0% "Spectacularly good action here, complexities still rising. Wow."

82.0% "Utterly brilliant plotting and action. Wow."

With many thanks, this ARC courtesy of Derek, NetGalley and Solaris books.

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A more straightforward and accessible story than The Quantum Magician, this is a more personal one too. With much of the groundwork already laid, Künsken digs deeper into the characters, including the consistently scene-stealing, foul-mouthed but strangely endearing Stills, while the conflicting viewpoints of Belisarius and Iekanjika offer a satisfying exploration of both political and ethical questions alongside the science and the general adventure. There’s a tremendous sense of imagination and entertainment in the pacy, exciting plot and, while the Scarecrow is a little under-used (setting things up for the next book, it seems like), the stakes nevertheless feel very real. Anyone who enjoyed the first book should find plenty to savour here, and after two books all the signs are that this is a series which is going to keep getting better and better.

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