In the deep future mankind is barely distinguishable from machine intelligences, rarely embodied outside of virtual environments. It is time, using the very building blocks of time and space, to engineer the universe itself. Time to enter a new quantum realm of marvels and terrors.

The new novel from one of the worlds most respected and acclaimed writers marks a dramatic move into a new arena ¿ that of the wide screen SF epic ala Baxter, Banks, Hamilton and Macleod. Novels such as this have proved to be the engine house for both the major sales and the best ideas of modern SF. That the genre¿s primary ideas man and one of its finest prose stylists should direct his energies to this sort of canvas promises much. This will be Greg Egan¿s breakout book.