Hot Rock - Greg Egan
Novella
Number of words : 20700
Percent of complex words : 12.9
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 15.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 11.5
Flesch : 59.2
Flesch-Kincaid : 9.0
PEOPLE
Azar
Traveller to Tallulah from the Amalgam.
Shelma
A Bahari who meets Azar at Tallulah.
Shirin
Azar's great-great-granddaughter.
Jake
Spiral Out follower.
Tilly
Spiral Out follower.
Juhi
Spiral Out follower.
Rahul
Spiral Out follower.
Omar
A progressive Circler.
Lisa
A Circler.
Silas
A Circler.
Judah
A Circler spokesman.
Tarek
A Circler.
Santo
A Spiral Out delegate to the Amalgam.
PLACES
Hanuz
Azar's home system.
Tallulah
The planet Azar travels to, a world with no sun over a thousand light years from her home.
Bahar
A nearby solar system to Hanuz. Their people have five limbs and five tails.
Jute
A Tallulah colony.
TECHNOLOGY
Departure Gate
The launching off point for travelling to the new system.
Mologhat 1 and 2
Robot Probes to Tallulah.
Antimatter store
Powers Robot Probes and other such space craft.
Thermocouple
A junction between two different metals that produces a voltage related to a temperature difference.
Rail gun
Device for accelerating a payload rapidly into orbit.
Femtotech
The engineering of matter on the scale of atomic nuclei.
Mass spectrometer
Machine for measuring chemical composition.
Hoops
Made of something extraordinarily strong, spinning at close to the speed of light. A power source on Tallulah.
Deep-bore geothermal turbines
Used for specialized research projects.
Scout mites
Exploration and communication tiny tech.
Photonic jet
Used for moving Tallulah.
Geothermal cannons
Used for moving Tallulah to allow evacuations.
Deep rock graft
Used for seeding other worlds.
ORGANISATIONS
Amalgam
The meta-civilization that now ringed the galaxy.
Circlers
A Tallulah philosophy of those that want to stay on the planet.
Spiral In
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers that want to leave their bodies and become information. They do so and embed their minds in the deep rock of the planet.
Spiral Out
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers want to leave the planet.
CONCEPTS
C3
A carbohydrate polymer replicator.
P2
A polypeptide replicator.
Thermoelectric diffusion
In a particular Tallulah plant the electrons and holes would conduct heat from the ground up into the leaves, and in doing so they'd set up an electric potential, which in turn could be used to drive chemical reactions.
Chemosynthesis
Process of extracting energy from chemicals a la photosynthesis.
N2
DNA, Azar's ancestral replicator.
N3
A hereditary replicator.
Magnetic moment
A quantity that determines the force the magnet can exert on electric currents and the torque that a magnetic field will exert on it.
Next Passengers
The group that will use Tallulah in the future.
PLANTS
Entropy tree
Operates on thermoelectric diffusion, a living thermocouple.
Ribbon weed
A Tallulah common plant, also comes in giant varieties.
RACES
P2 Lizards
The current inhabitants of Tallulah. Two eight-clawed limbs that they used for digging and grasping objects; all their motive force came from their powerful tails. They sensed the world around them with a mixture of IR vision and sonar.
Builders
Creators of Tallulah. The Ground Heaters.
Old Passengers
Lived on Tallulah after the Builders.
ANIMALS
Tallulah wildlife
Shrimp-like animals straining microbes from the water, floating gas bladders with poisonous tentacles, and sinuous, muscular fish of every size among others.
VEHICLES
Mologhat 3
The probe for use in returning to the Amalgam.
PLOT
An Amalgam story.
Azar travels from her homeworld to the Tallulah system to explore this strange world with no sun. She is met there by Shelma, and together they explorer and finally make contact with the locals. A lizard-like people with their own political divisions, conservative, progressive explorers, and inward turning transhumanists.
The planet's technology allows extremely efficient conversion of energy, allowing it to stay warm without a star, and also the storage of those who leave their bodies to exist as information.
The conservative faction sees the arrival of aliens as a threat, and a precursor to a new wave of settling on the planet, and conflict erupts. One of their Spiral Out friends is taken hostage. They have to try and find a compromise to keep him safe, and allow those who want to make contact with the Amalgam to do so.
4 out of 5
Number of words : 20700
Percent of complex words : 12.9
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 15.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 11.5
Flesch : 59.2
Flesch-Kincaid : 9.0
PEOPLE
Azar
Traveller to Tallulah from the Amalgam.
Shelma
A Bahari who meets Azar at Tallulah.
Shirin
Azar's great-great-granddaughter.
Jake
Spiral Out follower.
Tilly
Spiral Out follower.
Juhi
Spiral Out follower.
Rahul
Spiral Out follower.
Omar
A progressive Circler.
Lisa
A Circler.
Silas
A Circler.
Judah
A Circler spokesman.
Tarek
A Circler.
Santo
A Spiral Out delegate to the Amalgam.
PLACES
Hanuz
Azar's home system.
Tallulah
The planet Azar travels to, a world with no sun over a thousand light years from her home.
Bahar
A nearby solar system to Hanuz. Their people have five limbs and five tails.
Jute
A Tallulah colony.
TECHNOLOGY
Departure Gate
The launching off point for travelling to the new system.
Mologhat 1 and 2
Robot Probes to Tallulah.
Antimatter store
Powers Robot Probes and other such space craft.
Thermocouple
A junction between two different metals that produces a voltage related to a temperature difference.
Rail gun
Device for accelerating a payload rapidly into orbit.
Femtotech
The engineering of matter on the scale of atomic nuclei.
Mass spectrometer
Machine for measuring chemical composition.
Hoops
Made of something extraordinarily strong, spinning at close to the speed of light. A power source on Tallulah.
Deep-bore geothermal turbines
Used for specialized research projects.
Scout mites
Exploration and communication tiny tech.
Photonic jet
Used for moving Tallulah.
Geothermal cannons
Used for moving Tallulah to allow evacuations.
Deep rock graft
Used for seeding other worlds.
ORGANISATIONS
Amalgam
The meta-civilization that now ringed the galaxy.
Circlers
A Tallulah philosophy of those that want to stay on the planet.
Spiral In
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers that want to leave their bodies and become information. They do so and embed their minds in the deep rock of the planet.
Spiral Out
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers want to leave the planet.
CONCEPTS
C3
A carbohydrate polymer replicator.
P2
A polypeptide replicator.
Thermoelectric diffusion
In a particular Tallulah plant the electrons and holes would conduct heat from the ground up into the leaves, and in doing so they'd set up an electric potential, which in turn could be used to drive chemical reactions.
Chemosynthesis
Process of extracting energy from chemicals a la photosynthesis.
N2
DNA, Azar's ancestral replicator.
N3
A hereditary replicator.
Magnetic moment
A quantity that determines the force the magnet can exert on electric currents and the torque that a magnetic field will exert on it.
Next Passengers
The group that will use Tallulah in the future.
PLANTS
Entropy tree
Operates on thermoelectric diffusion, a living thermocouple.
Ribbon weed
A Tallulah common plant, also comes in giant varieties.
RACES
P2 Lizards
The current inhabitants of Tallulah. Two eight-clawed limbs that they used for digging and grasping objects; all their motive force came from their powerful tails. They sensed the world around them with a mixture of IR vision and sonar.
Builders
Creators of Tallulah. The Ground Heaters.
Old Passengers
Lived on Tallulah after the Builders.
ANIMALS
Tallulah wildlife
Shrimp-like animals straining microbes from the water, floating gas bladders with poisonous tentacles, and sinuous, muscular fish of every size among others.
VEHICLES
Mologhat 3
The probe for use in returning to the Amalgam.
PLOT
An Amalgam story.
Azar travels from her homeworld to the Tallulah system to explore this strange world with no sun. She is met there by Shelma, and together they explorer and finally make contact with the locals. A lizard-like people with their own political divisions, conservative, progressive explorers, and inward turning transhumanists.
The planet's technology allows extremely efficient conversion of energy, allowing it to stay warm without a star, and also the storage of those who leave their bodies to exist as information.
The conservative faction sees the arrival of aliens as a threat, and a precursor to a new wave of settling on the planet, and conflict erupts. One of their Spiral Out friends is taken hostage. They have to try and find a compromise to keep him safe, and allow those who want to make contact with the Amalgam to do so.
4 out of 5