Ra: qntm: 9798735007937: Books - Amazon.ca (original) (raw)
Customer reviews
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Customers say
Customers find this book engaging and well-written, with many describing it as incredible and a good read. The content receives praise for being mindbending and imaginative, with readers appreciating the approach to magic and the ideas presented. The world building stands out as interesting and unique, featuring a compelling premise. Characters are consistently praised as terrific and strong, particularly the female characters. Readers find the magic intriguing and the overall experience always engaging, providing wonderful hours of reading. However, opinions on the plot are mixed, with some finding the story beguiling while others consider the narrative convoluted.
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26 customers mention readability, 20 positive, 6 negative
Customers find the book highly readable and engaging. They describe it as incredible, splendid, and an amazing epic that provides lots of fun to read. Some consider it the best science fiction book and rate it as an ok read overall.
...Worst book I’ve read in a long time, no idea why it is rated so highly. First time I've thrown a book in the recycling.Read more
16 customers mention content, 14 positive, 2 negative
Customers find the book's content engaging and thought-provoking. They describe it as mindbending and deeply thoughtful, with an approach to magic that resonates well. Readers appreciate the transcendental-hard-SF genre and note that it provides moments they'll dwell upon, creating a mind-bending ride through the narrative.
The initial premise is so great! A scientific magic. As the book continues, the plot becomes factually complex and mindbending....Read more
...As the book continues, the plot becomes factually complex and mindbending. Some gruesome body horror, a very visual bookRead more
12 customers mention concept, 11 positive, 1 negative
Customers appreciate the book's concept, finding the ideas presented appealing and very imaginative. They note that it plays with some insane concepts and recognize its potential.
11 customers mention world building, 11 positive, 0 negative
Customers appreciate the book's world building, describing it as interesting with a unique premise and great hard sci fi concepts. The world building continues throughout the story and features very big concepts in unique worlds.
10 customers mention character development, 7 positive, 3 negative
Customers appreciate the character development in this book, noting that the characters are terrific and feature strong female characters.
8 customers mention interesting, 8 positive, 0 negative
Customers find the book intriguing and mysterious. They describe the magic as interesting and note it offers a cool take on the Sci-Fantasy subgenre. Readers mention the book is surprising and call it a total head trip.
6 customers mention engaging, 5 positive, 1 negative
Customers find the book consistently engaging and enjoyable to read. They describe it as fun in parts and mention they cannot stop reading their work. Readers report having wonderful hours with the book and find it exhausting in a good way.
25 customers mention plot, 15 positive, 10 negative
Customers have mixed opinions about the book's plot. Some find the story beguiling and appreciate the interesting premise, while others describe the narrative as convoluted and note that the plot becomes factually complex and riddled with plot threads. The book features wild parallel story lines and timelines.
The initial premise is so great! A scientific magic. As the book continues, the plot becomes factually complex and mindbending....Read more
...several events which are not just twists but really shifts in the perspective of the whole story....Read more
...A scientific magic. As the book continues, the plot becomes factually complex and mindbending. Some gruesome body horror, a very visual bookRead more
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Top reviews from Canada
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Reviewed in Canada on February 4, 2022
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
I picked this up after "There is No Antimemetics Division" and I rudely thought "Oh, I can see how this is a similar kind of story" but it contains several events which are not just twists but really shifts in the perspective of the whole story. I really can't think of anything I didn't like about it. It's emphatically not just the "what if magic were real and it was as boring as engineering" trope.
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Reviewed in Canada on June 4, 2023
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
The initial premise is so great! A scientific magic. As the book continues, the plot becomes factually complex and mindbending. Some gruesome body horror, a very visual book
Reviewed in Canada on January 22, 2025
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This book is a disaster. The reveal 3/4 through the book makes you wonder why you had to wade through the first 3/4 of word gruel, and then it continues with filler text you want to speed read through just to get the book over with. The challenger disaster used as a central event of the story is repeated ad nauseam adds nothing. Worst book I’ve read in a long time, no idea why it is rated so highly. First time I've thrown a book in the recycling.
Top reviews from other countries
5.0 out of 5 stars Exhausting in a good way
Reviewed in Australia on July 21, 2022
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
I prefer There is No Antimemetics Division for its style and lack of magic, but this one is worth reading to get some idea of how Sam Hughes operates. It's a raw, unrefined gush of qntm.
The magical stuff made me hesitate - magic and mages etc etc - they're kitsch - but I'm glad I persisted. It's pure huge sf. Qntm has renewed my love of the genre.
Only thing is: he needs to learn where 'which' and 'that' are correctly used.
5.0 out of 5 stars Brain meltingly good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2023
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Another amazing addition to qntm's vast bibliography of truly amazingly written sci-fi thrillers.
This book combats the concept of quantum thaumics, the matrix, interstellar wars against vast artificial intelligence.
There have been many days where I've read through a hundred pages, and 'woke up' per se not quite knowing where I was in reality.
This. Was. Amazing.
5.0 out of 5 stars Where was this Incredible Novel ?
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2021
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Sam Hughes - you have created something amazing. This novel is one-of-a-kind. What an incredible breadth of technology and imagination wrapped around one helluva tale. I just finished and wanted to thank you for the wonderful hours I spent reading RA.
A story about magic based on Quantum Physics, a set of unidentical twins and a world figuring just what magic can do. Don't let that lull you into thinking that's all there is to this tale. It's just the tip of the iceberg - like describing Dante's Inferno as a poem about Hell; a huge, misleading understatement.
Action, drama, with very interesting and strange characters. There is more imagination packed in the pages of this book than most of the books I have read. With a tally of about 5k books, that's my highest recommendation.
Bravo, Sam Hughes! Bravo!
4.0 out of 5 stars Quite an Unexpected Sequence of Events
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2025
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Don’t be put off by the magic. I was at first, marking the novel as Science Fantasy, but it’s squarely Science Fiction. It’s very well done. I was put off by the ending as I felt it could’ve been so much more, and for that I deducted a star. But the novel itself is great, containing ideas and concepts I’ve encountered nowhere else. Plenty of twists and turns, characters you’ll love and hate, and moments you’ll dwell upon. One of Qntm’s most concept heavy works
4.0 out of 5 stars Science magic
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2020
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Really good, great writing style. A tad hard to follow at times.