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Self-Reference ENGINE
Toh EnJoes prize-winning fiction is well-known in Japan for crossing the streamsfrom hardcore science fiction to bizarre surrealismand has found an audience across the genre divide. Self-Reference ENGINE is a puzzle of a book, where vignette and story and philosophy combine to create a novel designed like a concept album.
341 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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1,555 people want to read
About the author
Toh EnJoe
41?books27?followersToh EnJoe (Japanese: ҳ Hepburn: Enj T, pen name) (born September 15, 1972) is a Japanese author. His works are usually literary fiction, speculative fiction or science fiction.
Born in 1972 in Sapporo, he graduated from the physics department of Tohoku University, then went on to the graduate school at University of Tokyo and received Ph.D. for a mathematical physical study on the natural languages. He worked as a post-doc researcher at several research institutes for seven years, then abandoned the academic career in 2007 and found a programmer job at a software firm (resigns in 2008 to become a full-time writer).
In 2006, he submitted Self-Reference ENGINE to a science-fiction novel contest Komatsu Saky Award. Although it did not win the award (none did in this year), it was published from Hayakawa Shob in 2007. At almost same time, his short story Obu za bsbru ("Of The Baseball") won the contest of literary magazine Bungakukai, which became his debut in literary fiction.[3]
His literary fictions are often dense with allusions. Labyrinthine annotations were added to "Uyshitan" when it was published in book form in 2009, where there were none when published initially in literary magazine. Often, his science fiction works take motif from mathematics. The narrator of "Boy's Surface" (2007) is a morphism, and the title is a reference to a geometrical notion. In "Moonshine" (2009), natural numbers are sentient through a savant's mind's eye in a field of the monster group.
Project Itoh's Genocidal Organ was also a finalist of Komatsu Saky Award contest and published from Hayakawa Shob in 2007, along with Enjoe's Self-Reference ENGINE. Since then they often appeared together at science fiction conventions and interviews, and collaborated in a few works, until Itoh's death of cancer in 2009.
At the press conference after the announcement of Enjoe's Akutagawa Prize in January 2012, he revealed the plan to complete Itoh's unfinished novel Shisha no teikoku. It was published in August 2012, and received the Special Award of Nihon SF Taisho.
Born in 1972 in Sapporo, he graduated from the physics department of Tohoku University, then went on to the graduate school at University of Tokyo and received Ph.D. for a mathematical physical study on the natural languages. He worked as a post-doc researcher at several research institutes for seven years, then abandoned the academic career in 2007 and found a programmer job at a software firm (resigns in 2008 to become a full-time writer).
In 2006, he submitted Self-Reference ENGINE to a science-fiction novel contest Komatsu Saky Award. Although it did not win the award (none did in this year), it was published from Hayakawa Shob in 2007. At almost same time, his short story Obu za bsbru ("Of The Baseball") won the contest of literary magazine Bungakukai, which became his debut in literary fiction.[3]
His literary fictions are often dense with allusions. Labyrinthine annotations were added to "Uyshitan" when it was published in book form in 2009, where there were none when published initially in literary magazine. Often, his science fiction works take motif from mathematics. The narrator of "Boy's Surface" (2007) is a morphism, and the title is a reference to a geometrical notion. In "Moonshine" (2009), natural numbers are sentient through a savant's mind's eye in a field of the monster group.
Project Itoh's Genocidal Organ was also a finalist of Komatsu Saky Award contest and published from Hayakawa Shob in 2007, along with Enjoe's Self-Reference ENGINE. Since then they often appeared together at science fiction conventions and interviews, and collaborated in a few works, until Itoh's death of cancer in 2009.
At the press conference after the announcement of Enjoe's Akutagawa Prize in January 2012, he revealed the plan to complete Itoh's unfinished novel Shisha no teikoku. It was published in August 2012, and received the Special Award of Nihon SF Taisho.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
February 5, 2015
This is the sort of the book that will either blow your mind or leave you confused and annoyed. Unfortunately, I fall into the latter category.
Self-Reference ENGINE is "not a novel, not an anthology; it is a SELF-REFERENCE ENGINE." What it is is very weird science fiction surrealism, with a thin thread of - I won't call it a plot, more like a theme or some common ideas - running through disjointed chapters that sometimes refer to one another and sometimes seem dropped in at random from some other book.
At the heart of the book is the "giant corpora of knowledge," collections of artificial intelligences that exist in the future but became extinct in the past, become quite upset to realize they don't actually exist, triggered an Event that split the universe into an infinite number of realities, and are visited by a star-man named Alpha Centauri who tells them very politely that they are unfortunately a bit inconvenient and will need to be pushed out of the way. (I suspect that tones of Hitchhiker's Guide were not coincidental - there are a lot of other in-jokes for serious literary and sci-fi geeks.)
Originally written in Japanese by a theoretical physicist (Toh EnJoe is a pen name) and translated into English, I think much of my problem with this book was the translation. The tone and cadence of language changes dramatically - for example, the constant repetition of the phrase "giant corpora of knowledge" (there are actually in-book explanations why they can't simply be referred to as "computers" or "AIs") - but also the style does not flow in English. I've read other Japanese books in translation and know that sometimes even the best translation can be a little choppy or odd - Japanese literature is just different from Western writing - but I didn't have this problem with Murakami or Abe or Kawabata. Still, I suspect even if I read it in the original Japanese I'd have found this book hard to get through, despite being fairly short.
There are lots of very bizarre and interesting ideas, from quantum physics to alternate realities. Zeno's Paradox and time travel mechanics get passing mentions, but what will probably stick with you are the arguments with a sentient bobby sock, the girl who fires a bullet into the future, that one of the narrators worries will be aimed at one of his testicles, and the giant corpora of knowledge that are recursive and matrioshka-like, and sometimes take the form of old Japanese men in a traditional print shop, and sometimes are more like constructs out of the Matrix.
Reading this was an experience. I just can't call it a fun experience. It's worth looking at, because it's probably unlike anything you've read before, but it seems like one of those books destined to become a cult favorite by the elitist of nerds who will look down their noses at you if you claim you like Japanese science fiction. "Oh yeah?" they'll sneer. "I'll bet you mean weaboo shit like Gundam and Battle Royale." And of course Haruki Murakami is for hipsters. But read some Toh EnJoe, man, that's real Nipponophile cred.
I wish I'd liked this book more. It's of those books that leaves you with the disquieting feeling that maybe you just weren't smart enough to appreciate it.
Self-Reference ENGINE is "not a novel, not an anthology; it is a SELF-REFERENCE ENGINE." What it is is very weird science fiction surrealism, with a thin thread of - I won't call it a plot, more like a theme or some common ideas - running through disjointed chapters that sometimes refer to one another and sometimes seem dropped in at random from some other book.
At the heart of the book is the "giant corpora of knowledge," collections of artificial intelligences that exist in the future but became extinct in the past, become quite upset to realize they don't actually exist, triggered an Event that split the universe into an infinite number of realities, and are visited by a star-man named Alpha Centauri who tells them very politely that they are unfortunately a bit inconvenient and will need to be pushed out of the way. (I suspect that tones of Hitchhiker's Guide were not coincidental - there are a lot of other in-jokes for serious literary and sci-fi geeks.)
Originally written in Japanese by a theoretical physicist (Toh EnJoe is a pen name) and translated into English, I think much of my problem with this book was the translation. The tone and cadence of language changes dramatically - for example, the constant repetition of the phrase "giant corpora of knowledge" (there are actually in-book explanations why they can't simply be referred to as "computers" or "AIs") - but also the style does not flow in English. I've read other Japanese books in translation and know that sometimes even the best translation can be a little choppy or odd - Japanese literature is just different from Western writing - but I didn't have this problem with Murakami or Abe or Kawabata. Still, I suspect even if I read it in the original Japanese I'd have found this book hard to get through, despite being fairly short.
There are lots of very bizarre and interesting ideas, from quantum physics to alternate realities. Zeno's Paradox and time travel mechanics get passing mentions, but what will probably stick with you are the arguments with a sentient bobby sock, the girl who fires a bullet into the future, that one of the narrators worries will be aimed at one of his testicles, and the giant corpora of knowledge that are recursive and matrioshka-like, and sometimes take the form of old Japanese men in a traditional print shop, and sometimes are more like constructs out of the Matrix.
Reading this was an experience. I just can't call it a fun experience. It's worth looking at, because it's probably unlike anything you've read before, but it seems like one of those books destined to become a cult favorite by the elitist of nerds who will look down their noses at you if you claim you like Japanese science fiction. "Oh yeah?" they'll sneer. "I'll bet you mean weaboo shit like Gundam and Battle Royale." And of course Haruki Murakami is for hipsters. But read some Toh EnJoe, man, that's real Nipponophile cred.
I wish I'd liked this book more. It's of those books that leaves you with the disquieting feeling that maybe you just weren't smart enough to appreciate it.
May 3, 2022
What an interesting and strange book! It is a good reminder of the innumerable possibilities and complexities of science and philosophy, even if a principle in itself is quite simple, and in that sense reminds me of the works of . I have a soft spot for this kind of sf.
I really cannot imagine how the author went about writing this novel, if it was a lot of thinking and coordinating work, or if it came about quite intuitively. I would also love to be able to read this in its original language.
I really cannot imagine how the author went about writing this novel, if it was a lot of thinking and coordinating work, or if it came about quite intuitively. I would also love to be able to read this in its original language.
August 20, 2013
Wow, this is a book that demands a lot from the reader. But there are some rewards for sticking with it. It's not a traditional narrative, at all. It's more like a series of short stories that have a narrative connection. It's quite a mindbender, and it's not like anything you've read before.
If you want straight character and plot, this is not the right book. However, if you want strange and new ideas, this is a masterpiece. The author clearly knows his science and infuses each chapter with interesting ideas and twists on our existing scientific knowledge. So even though the story wasn't strong (or was nearly non-existent, depending on how you look at it), the ideas were mesmerizing. I found myself excited for each new chapter, wondering which new concept would be introduced and explored.
To be clear, this book is a slog. There is no way to skim, and I had to reread entire pages three and four times to understand. But it sure was fun to decipher the ideas behind it all.
If you want straight character and plot, this is not the right book. However, if you want strange and new ideas, this is a masterpiece. The author clearly knows his science and infuses each chapter with interesting ideas and twists on our existing scientific knowledge. So even though the story wasn't strong (or was nearly non-existent, depending on how you look at it), the ideas were mesmerizing. I found myself excited for each new chapter, wondering which new concept would be introduced and explored.
To be clear, this book is a slog. There is no way to skim, and I had to reread entire pages three and four times to understand. But it sure was fun to decipher the ideas behind it all.
September 4, 2013
"The genre of ideas."
How often have we heard science fiction, fantasy, &c. described as such? Isn't that the great justification for volunteering ourselves to the genre ghetto, for ignoring the Booker Prize winners and Nobel Laureates to focus on the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winners instead?
But it's frustrating; for all this talk about science fiction being a genre of ideas, there don't seem to be a whole lot of ideas going around.
Enter Toh EnJoe. A physicist. A novelist. And not simply a science-fiction novelist, either. Toh EnJoe has won accolades not only for his theoretically informed and highly imaginative takes on the science-fiction genre, but also for his work in what genre detractors and defenders alike describe as the literary. His debut novel, Self-Reference ENGINE puts on display his knowledge as a physicist, his imagination as a storyteller, and his skill as a writer, all of which exist in abundant quantities.
Unlike many more popularly palatable titles, this book has ideas, and they flow in abundance.
EnJoe has been compared favourably to many of the literary surrealists C Borges and Schultz come up frequently. But there's more to EnJoe than tricks of whimsy and gimmicks of style. The most captivating and inspirational part of Self-Reference ENGINE isn't just that EnJoe treats the reader to mind-bending stories that makes one question the fabric of reality, but that his tales are based solidly on scientific understanding. When EnJoe's characters ruminate on the possibility of whether there is almost surely an infinite number of their duplicates, or when godlike computer systems find themselves struggling against one another to make space-time move the right direction, the firm grounding of mathematical and physics-based theory permeates. Causality, quantum uncertainty, infinity, string theory and the multiverse: popular topics in science fiction, all, but rarely have they been considered with such depth and imagination. EnJoe's displays his comfort with advanced physics, but he does not weigh his work down with it. He melds his knowledge with his imagination to create stories that broaden horizons and work out the brain.
A sense of wonder pervades Self-Reference ENGINE. Perhaps even a sense joyfulness. The strangeness of the characters, the incidences, the events (and the Event) celebrates the wonder of both the universe and the human predicament within it. At times EnJoe does veer towards being perhaps too clever, as not all of the parts of this book match each other in terms of humour, accessibility and creativity, but even at his weakest, EnJoe shows himself more than capable of challenging and engaging the reader.
Self-Reference ENGINE perhaps defies convention too much; many readers approach it expecting science fiction and finding instead both science and fiction, not a hyphenated and rigid boundary set by publishing marketers and niche enthusiasts, but two entities, married in a strange and wondrous way that could be disappointing if one comes with pre-conceived expectations and narrow horizons. Self-Reference ENGINE deserves to be celebrated, however, by those who love the wonder of the natural world and the strangeness of living within it, and for the discerning reader, there are delights and challenges that make this novel worth reading, relishing, and reading again.
How often have we heard science fiction, fantasy, &c. described as such? Isn't that the great justification for volunteering ourselves to the genre ghetto, for ignoring the Booker Prize winners and Nobel Laureates to focus on the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winners instead?
But it's frustrating; for all this talk about science fiction being a genre of ideas, there don't seem to be a whole lot of ideas going around.
Enter Toh EnJoe. A physicist. A novelist. And not simply a science-fiction novelist, either. Toh EnJoe has won accolades not only for his theoretically informed and highly imaginative takes on the science-fiction genre, but also for his work in what genre detractors and defenders alike describe as the literary. His debut novel, Self-Reference ENGINE puts on display his knowledge as a physicist, his imagination as a storyteller, and his skill as a writer, all of which exist in abundant quantities.
Unlike many more popularly palatable titles, this book has ideas, and they flow in abundance.
EnJoe has been compared favourably to many of the literary surrealists C Borges and Schultz come up frequently. But there's more to EnJoe than tricks of whimsy and gimmicks of style. The most captivating and inspirational part of Self-Reference ENGINE isn't just that EnJoe treats the reader to mind-bending stories that makes one question the fabric of reality, but that his tales are based solidly on scientific understanding. When EnJoe's characters ruminate on the possibility of whether there is almost surely an infinite number of their duplicates, or when godlike computer systems find themselves struggling against one another to make space-time move the right direction, the firm grounding of mathematical and physics-based theory permeates. Causality, quantum uncertainty, infinity, string theory and the multiverse: popular topics in science fiction, all, but rarely have they been considered with such depth and imagination. EnJoe's displays his comfort with advanced physics, but he does not weigh his work down with it. He melds his knowledge with his imagination to create stories that broaden horizons and work out the brain.
A sense of wonder pervades Self-Reference ENGINE. Perhaps even a sense joyfulness. The strangeness of the characters, the incidences, the events (and the Event) celebrates the wonder of both the universe and the human predicament within it. At times EnJoe does veer towards being perhaps too clever, as not all of the parts of this book match each other in terms of humour, accessibility and creativity, but even at his weakest, EnJoe shows himself more than capable of challenging and engaging the reader.
Self-Reference ENGINE perhaps defies convention too much; many readers approach it expecting science fiction and finding instead both science and fiction, not a hyphenated and rigid boundary set by publishing marketers and niche enthusiasts, but two entities, married in a strange and wondrous way that could be disappointing if one comes with pre-conceived expectations and narrow horizons. Self-Reference ENGINE deserves to be celebrated, however, by those who love the wonder of the natural world and the strangeness of living within it, and for the discerning reader, there are delights and challenges that make this novel worth reading, relishing, and reading again.
April 11, 2013
Division of fractions; escape by eraser; befuddlement of symbiotic intelligences; this book romps through the broken shards of time/space which have been fractured irrevocably by the 'Event'. A warped imagination underpins this mathematical fairy tale and creates delightful rabbit holes to stumble down into.
An alternative narrative, loosely based on many different characters works admirably because of the unusual setting: a universe that has been shattered into countless other universes of variable time/space dimensions... with the ultimate goal of most of the characters being to try and restore the universe's time/space coordination to its normal working order.
A very good book: clever, mindbending, and irreverent.
An alternative narrative, loosely based on many different characters works admirably because of the unusual setting: a universe that has been shattered into countless other universes of variable time/space dimensions... with the ultimate goal of most of the characters being to try and restore the universe's time/space coordination to its normal working order.
A very good book: clever, mindbending, and irreverent.
August 7, 2013
Maybe not the best, but the most interesting book I've read in 2013, and a milestone for high-concept SF, especially in translation.
Full review at Mixer Publishing:
Full review at Mixer Publishing:
February 20, 2014
The stories in this experimental sci-fi book may include talking socks, disappearing text on a catfish statue, an inexplicable joystick, and no less than 22 inert Freuds (Sigmund how ever did Grandma collect so many of him?).
If that paragraph made you think, oh this is full of non-sequitors like , and I love Hitchhikers, just stop. This book is sometimes poignant, existential, thought-provoking and above all, rigorous. My brain is exhausted.
Read the on .
If that paragraph made you think, oh this is full of non-sequitors like , and I love Hitchhikers, just stop. This book is sometimes poignant, existential, thought-provoking and above all, rigorous. My brain is exhausted.
Read the on .
February 27, 2021
I have few words to describe how good this book is. I have fewer still to describe *what* it is.
What it is, is mind-bending. It's one those books where, when you get deeply involved in the book, you have reorient yourself to the real world when you take your eyes off of it. You would not be at all surprised, when you look up, to find that History, technology, and perhaps even the laws of physics had changed while you weren't looking.
And Terry Gallagher's translation is pitch-perfect. It's hard to believe this wasn't written in English directly.
What it is, is mind-bending. It's one those books where, when you get deeply involved in the book, you have reorient yourself to the real world when you take your eyes off of it. You would not be at all surprised, when you look up, to find that History, technology, and perhaps even the laws of physics had changed while you weren't looking.
And Terry Gallagher's translation is pitch-perfect. It's hard to believe this wasn't written in English directly.
May 26, 2013
There are certain lines of reasoning that, if you've spent much time around logic, abstract mathematics, or theoretical computer science, seem both entirely reasonable and entirely absurd. Toh EnJoe (a pen name, if you're wondering) has written an entire book out of these, a collection of 20 or so linked (and multiply-linked, if we are to believe the story-graph at the beginning of the book) short stories that tell the story of a world in which something very strange has happened to the nature of reality. Some are stories in the conventional sense; some are more like essays or rambling diatribes, all adhering faithfully to the fractured space-time continuum that is the setting. Many are beautiful and emotional, many are whimsical and amusing, and quite a few manage both. Self-Reference ENGINE might be compared to a more modest version of the Hitchhiker's Guide, but where plot was often an encumbrance for Adams, here it only provides a platform for higher flights of fancy, and, when it takes center stage, is actually fairly compelling: this is not a science-fiction humor collection, but rather an earnest exploration of a conceptual space that happens to lend itself to the absurd. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys ruminating on life, the universe, and everything.
August 11, 2016
I really enjoyed this one -- as it "warns" in its cover blurb, it's neither a novel with a straightforward narrative, nor an anthology of self-contained short stories. It's more of a series of interconnected vignettes set at various points following some kind of event that shattered time and space, and often involving powerful AIs. Not easy to describe, but just the kind of experimental weirdness that works well for me, and a lot of really neat concepts dealing with time, artificial intelligence, consciousness, and more. My first four-star rating from this year's P.K. Dick nominees.
May 23, 2017
I read this book in March 2014 and the experienced stopped me in my tracks at ŷ as I wasn't ready to write a review for it yet and I kept postponing. I wanted it to be a thorough review, because it's such a fantastic book. I've recommended it widely to people, especially if they're interested in innovative SF that experiments with form, is something unique. So, I'm going to let go of my great review plans and just say -- it's absolutely fantastic. People should really read this one, if any one. It's a classic.
March 18, 2014
Le dara 3,5 estrellas. Esperaba una prosa mucho ms elaborada, eso me ha desilusionado un poco, pero en lneas genrales me ha gustado. No me atrevera a recomendarlo: no es un libro para todo el mundo, ni siquiera para todos los fans de CF. Recoge veinte historias muy desiguales: hay CF hard, relatos absurdos, surrealismo, y Weird domstico Apto para el que busque un texto que se salga de los cnones, y que explore conceptos filosficos, culturales y cientficos.
September 6, 2014
Not really a novel, not really a short story collection, but something in between. A mosaic novel, maybe? It doesn't really matter, the point is that Self Reference Engine is this heady mix of hard SF and surrealism. It takes the notion of the multiverse and pokes and prods at it until the very concept becomes both unremarkable and nonsensical. Its also very funny.
February 19, 2015
A fascinating read. It's definitely a single narrative despite the common propensity to compare it to a collection of short stories, it's just not a simple, linear narrative. Essentially it takes a bunch of difficult ideas such as altering the past and forgoes the usual arbitrary rules and omissions that writers make so that they can tell a single, clear story.
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August 6, 2014
Peaks of quality
Sunk in inconsistency -
Unique nonetheless.
Sunk in inconsistency -
Unique nonetheless.
February 19, 2020
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April 8, 2022
Interesting read. Can be difficult to follow at times, but I enjoyed it thoroughly through and for all it's quirks.
June 16, 2021
It's difficult to write a review for this book, especially given this is the first book review I've ever written. My taste, before this book, mostly laid in fantasy and YA lit, and any more contemplative hard-sci-fi type things were limited to short stories. To be fair, maybe that made this a good transition.
Self-Reference ENGINE is less a straightforward novel and more a series of loosely connected stories framed (mostly) around an Event which is not clearly established, but seems to involve the straight timeline of the universe splintering into a near-infinite quantity, for reasons that may or may not be related to a massive leap in ability and awareness by computers/AI-tech. The first half of the stories focus on a variety of people dealing with the Event and its aftermath, while the second half focus on the "giant corpus of knowledge", which appear to be highly advanced computers that mostly run the world for human benefit.
There are a number of really fantastic concepts in this book, many of which could carry a traditional novel alone. Without going into too much detail, there's the girl who was shot by a bullet from the future which was interrupted on the way back, the village with multiple parallel villages trying to grow through it, the sentient socks, and the mystery of the basement full of Freuds, to name just a few.
The major complaints are twofold. First, the translation is difficult to parse at times, especially given the heady scientific concepts being translated. There are definitely parts which require rereading multiple times to follow, and it's hard to know if there's things that were just lost in translation. The second is the aforementioned lack of a real throughline, despite many interconnected narratives and recurring themes. It leaves you wondering just how to interpret the book, either as a novel or as a collection of short stories.
Regardless though, these problems are relatively minor, and worth overlooking. Self-Reference ENGINE will grab your attention, tickle your brain, and leave you thinking well after you put it down.
Self-Reference ENGINE is less a straightforward novel and more a series of loosely connected stories framed (mostly) around an Event which is not clearly established, but seems to involve the straight timeline of the universe splintering into a near-infinite quantity, for reasons that may or may not be related to a massive leap in ability and awareness by computers/AI-tech. The first half of the stories focus on a variety of people dealing with the Event and its aftermath, while the second half focus on the "giant corpus of knowledge", which appear to be highly advanced computers that mostly run the world for human benefit.
There are a number of really fantastic concepts in this book, many of which could carry a traditional novel alone. Without going into too much detail, there's the girl who was shot by a bullet from the future which was interrupted on the way back, the village with multiple parallel villages trying to grow through it, the sentient socks, and the mystery of the basement full of Freuds, to name just a few.
The major complaints are twofold. First, the translation is difficult to parse at times, especially given the heady scientific concepts being translated. There are definitely parts which require rereading multiple times to follow, and it's hard to know if there's things that were just lost in translation. The second is the aforementioned lack of a real throughline, despite many interconnected narratives and recurring themes. It leaves you wondering just how to interpret the book, either as a novel or as a collection of short stories.
Regardless though, these problems are relatively minor, and worth overlooking. Self-Reference ENGINE will grab your attention, tickle your brain, and leave you thinking well after you put it down.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2024
What's interesting about this is that it feels lynchian but it's actually not. David Lynch's works have "dream logic", they have characters that become more than the space-time continuum they're trapped in. They're "dreamers that dream and live inside the dream". At first, the disjointed and plain out bizarre structure of this book makes you think this is a lynchian story.
But no. This thing has LOGIC. My knowledge of physics is at a elementary school level, but in the long rants about fictional psychics and the nature of a infinitely-dimensional universe, there is a convoluted logic. A convoluted framework, but logical nonetheless. It somehow feels like it's actually possible. It's the best description of a "multiverse" I've ever read, as confusing and surreal the mere concept it should be.
The story itself is amazing, the world building breaks itself apart to the point where you don't know what's real or what's not. The giant corpora of knowledge (what might be the catholic God, if there was billions copies of him vying for control) write history and rewrite it again, keep working even though one of them knows they died millennia ago. And some more weird shit that you HAVE to read. It's amazing, and it's a book to be re-read lots of more times. Reading all the stories in different orders, countless times, may be the key to actually understand the mystery that is the Self Reference Engine.
It's not needed to do that though. It's still a wonderful book, one that will make you ponder about the nature of the universe and the human condition. An amazing read.
But no. This thing has LOGIC. My knowledge of physics is at a elementary school level, but in the long rants about fictional psychics and the nature of a infinitely-dimensional universe, there is a convoluted logic. A convoluted framework, but logical nonetheless. It somehow feels like it's actually possible. It's the best description of a "multiverse" I've ever read, as confusing and surreal the mere concept it should be.
The story itself is amazing, the world building breaks itself apart to the point where you don't know what's real or what's not. The giant corpora of knowledge (what might be the catholic God, if there was billions copies of him vying for control) write history and rewrite it again, keep working even though one of them knows they died millennia ago. And some more weird shit that you HAVE to read. It's amazing, and it's a book to be re-read lots of more times. Reading all the stories in different orders, countless times, may be the key to actually understand the mystery that is the Self Reference Engine.
It's not needed to do that though. It's still a wonderful book, one that will make you ponder about the nature of the universe and the human condition. An amazing read.
June 5, 2019
DNF.
It seems like this book was designed to be as incomprehensible as possible. The lack of any sort of continuity or common thread killed it for me.
Some of the stories were really compelling, but then they just ended abruptly with no attempt at resolution of any kind. Good concepts dropped like a hot potato as soon as they got near comprehensibility.
I liked the one about the Japanese language, and the one about the self-replicating town, and the 22 dead Freuds. Of course, as soon as those got interesting, we moved on to dry theoretical physics again. Maybe I don't have the science background to enjoy this book fully, but I think even if I was well up on current academics, I would dislike the strange plotting and abrupt tonal shifts.
It seems like this book was designed to be as incomprehensible as possible. The lack of any sort of continuity or common thread killed it for me.
Some of the stories were really compelling, but then they just ended abruptly with no attempt at resolution of any kind. Good concepts dropped like a hot potato as soon as they got near comprehensibility.
I liked the one about the Japanese language, and the one about the self-replicating town, and the 22 dead Freuds. Of course, as soon as those got interesting, we moved on to dry theoretical physics again. Maybe I don't have the science background to enjoy this book fully, but I think even if I was well up on current academics, I would dislike the strange plotting and abrupt tonal shifts.
January 31, 2025
I love playing with my food(books).
This one is my flavour of weird and has a lot of things I love. All knowing AI, muddled timelines, absurdity in the form of talking socks and 22 Freuds and the family ritual of tipping over a box, brain scratching theoretical physics that I mostly don't and sometimes barely understand (and such joy when I do! thank you, dr. Mack!), and I could go on. The second half of the book is a bit more coherent, but perhaps it just feels that way because at that point you've read more, I don't know. Despite that I enjoyed the first half more.
Self-Reference ENGINE may just be/become my favourite book of the year (and it's only January).
(Or I may end up retrospectively hating it.)
This one is my flavour of weird and has a lot of things I love. All knowing AI, muddled timelines, absurdity in the form of talking socks and 22 Freuds and the family ritual of tipping over a box, brain scratching theoretical physics that I mostly don't and sometimes barely understand (and such joy when I do! thank you, dr. Mack!), and I could go on. The second half of the book is a bit more coherent, but perhaps it just feels that way because at that point you've read more, I don't know. Despite that I enjoyed the first half more.
Self-Reference ENGINE may just be/become my favourite book of the year (and it's only January).
(Or I may end up retrospectively hating it.)
July 9, 2022
A series of mind-expanding lectures on the philosophy of mathematics, in the guise of a science fiction book of sorts. While it recalls a great number of things to mind (the films of Christopher Nolan, the stories of Ted Chiang, the Core in Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos, early AI-focused writings of Scott Alexander, Greg Egan's Permutation City, Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science, among several others), it remains unlike anything I have ever read. I strongly suspect I will be thinking about this book for a long time to come.
August 30, 2024
This book is one of the most original I've read in my life.
I do not know how Toh EnJoe stumbled upon this idea, but it is thought-provoking, interesting, welly written, and most importantly, written by a man competent in his field.
However, it is obviously not for everyone. Some people just don't understand it, or it just doesn't rub them the right way. Personally, I did enjoy it greatly, but I can see why one wouldn't as well.
I do not know how Toh EnJoe stumbled upon this idea, but it is thought-provoking, interesting, welly written, and most importantly, written by a man competent in his field.
However, it is obviously not for everyone. Some people just don't understand it, or it just doesn't rub them the right way. Personally, I did enjoy it greatly, but I can see why one wouldn't as well.
July 26, 2024
Reminded me of Alice in Wonderland in that it is a series of loosely-connected vignettes that play with logic and absurdity. Recurring themes of time, infinity, and computational theory. Tries to get you thinking, but doesn't always succeed.
May 1, 2020
Interesting book, although some parts are very difficult to understand.
Shelved as 'dnf'
October 14, 2020DNF @44%
May 16, 2022
While I appreciate the overall concept, the book demands far too much of the reader.
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