Books like Diaspora by Greg Egan

Set in the thirtieth century, the solar system has become a vast interconnected network of probes, satellites, and servers that knit together Earth and its outer planets. Most humans have adapted to this new paradigm: many have chosen to merge their consciousnesses into immortal software, forming the polises, while others inhabit renewable robotic bodies that keep them tethered to the physical world. A small minority still live as fleshers, struggling to survive in Earth's degraded, jungle-like environment. Amid this division, a genderless digital being known as the Orphan—grown from a mind seed—emerges. When an unexpected disaster devastates the fleshers, the polises are confronted with the frightening possibility that their very existence may be endangered by bizarre astrophysical processes that appear to violate fundamental laws of nature. The Orphan, together with a group of refugees, must embark on a quantum adventure to higher dimensions beyond the macrocosmos in search of knowledge that could prevent the extinction of conscious life. Greg Egan explores themes of identity, the nature of the self, computational intelligence, cloning, and the limits of human perception in this hard science‑fiction vision of a future human civilization.

First publish date: 1997