The Quantum War by Derek Künsken
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Homo Quantus return in the Quantum War, providing us fantastically evolving humans five hundred years in the future. This is a mix of space opera, wartime footing action, and deeper characterizations than straight action.

Whereas The Quantum Magician was more of a heist novel and The Quantum Garden was more of a rescue operation, The Quantum War was more of an exploitation/war-readiness moral quandary issue than either of the ones that came before.

The best parts, at least to me, all revolve around the question and use of the Homo Quantus. At certain times they are highly revered, sweet people with Down Syndrome, and at other times, they're cyborged-out savants that think a thousand times faster than normal humans. And they are forced into war. Refugees, the powerful fearful, and the exploited are all forced on a very circuitous path.

As always, I love Künsken's exploration of what it means to be human. Even getting into SEVERAL new branches of humanity: the kind we create or the kind we become and whatever is left behind. Shake all of this up into some wild, often highly high-brow SF possibilities (damn, I love the possibilities of that Iron) and even some timey-wimey stuff that's only possible thanks to this new evolution.

If you are waiting for some great new Hard-SF that doesn't fear to push those boundaries, then definitely read these.

I do recommend reading them in order even if we explore new characters. It's totally possible to read these out of publication order, mind you, but I got a lot more out of this because I was already familiar with so much of the tech, the cool combinations of AI and Human, and the big stuff on the fringes.

Definitely a fun ride.

View all my reviews