The Quantum Magician

By: Derek Kunsken

Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith

Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

The breathtaking debut from acclaimed short story writer Derek Kunsken

Belisarius is a quantum man, an engineered Homo quantus who fled the powerful insight of dangerously addictive quantum senses. He found a precarious balance as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try. In fact, the job is so big that he'll need a crew built from all the new sub-branches of humanity. If he succeeds, he might trigger an interstellar war, but success might also point the way to the next step of Homo quantus evolution.

©2018 Derek Kunsken (P)2018 Recorded Books

Best quantum physics book in a long time

This is a science fiction book for those who like physics. The character development is good. Plot development is not predictable which captures the imagination. A beginners understanding of quantum physics helps understand the story.

Withdrawals from a good book

I selected this book because so many had said in the reviews that the story was good.
It was...
The beginning is kinda rough because of the names and the accents. Making for it to be kinda of hard to follow exactly who is doing what. As soon as the character gets developed and the main story gets underway, it gets very good. At about two hours left I started looking to see if there was any more by the author... there isn’t.
Now I’m going to go look for something in hopes I’ll find a good story somewhere near as good as this one was.

Exceptional!

Everything I love about Sci-Fi is all here. A huge shout-out to the narrator as well. Great range. Still can't believe it's a Solo narrator.

A grand heist

Filled with the greatest of mysteries and suspense. This goes along with the greatest of all heist movies books and other literature. It’s a truly grand tale.

The way modern sci fi should be

Now this is the way modern sci fi should be. The ideas come hard and fast, mind bogglingly far future yet they still seem rooted in the possible. The human subspecies, in particular, are amazing.

This is a grand yarn in the tradition of the most audacious heist stories, contains enough twists and turns to satisfy yet the writing is mostly tight.

In contrast to some of the golden age sci fi though the characters (mostly) are fully developed and their motivations drive the plot points

Can’t wait to read the sequel

Great story, Narrator not so much

Loved the story; narration was okay except for trailing off at end of each sentence.

Stills

Stills "I am that guy". I don't think I've smiled that much on my subway commute in a long while as we are both mongrols.

Even though I only understood about 10% of this...

I still enjoyed it. Looking forward to next book in the series. When will it be out?

A fun Sci-Fi Ocean's 11 romp!

Hard to start but well executed. Great characterization with balance of humor and intensity. Voice talent did an amazing job of transitioning voices. The dynamic between Marie and Stills had me literally laughing out loud.

Good Book! Worth the Credit.

This book is worth the credit, especially if you are fascinated with quantum physics and the human genome. The work is a very imaginative, well-written speculation of how our knowledge of quantum reality and genetic engineering might play out in 400 years. The writing is almost poetic in places. While the plot moves slowly, the work grows and requires focus. This is not a beach read; it’s deep. If you are not familiar with quantum weirdness, then reading a good non-fiction work such as “The Matter Myth” by Paul Davies and John Gribbin will help understand the author’s depictions. Another non-fiction work that’s good for the background of this novel is “Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity” by Jamie Metzl. (See: https://newatlas.com/science/jaime-metzl-genetics-revolution-hacking-darwin/) Niels Bohr, one of the geniuses who worked with Einstein to elucidate quantum reality once remarked, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=647&v=F-s_CrgZp94&feature=emb_logo) J.B.S. Haldane, an early biologist who worked in genetics and evolutionary biology, famously remarked, “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose.” This is what the author of The Quantum Magician is working with to imagine how our social and political world might play out based on our understanding of such unexplainables as Schrodinger’s Cat and Bell’s Theorem. I’m certain that writing this work took hours of hard imagining -- then writing -- to finish. (I can imagine the author in a “quantum fugue” while writing some scenes. Read the book to find out what that means.) It’s interesting stuff if you’re up to it.