This book is, in short, an excellent conceptual piece by an incredibly imaginative author with a well-paced (albeit super weird) plot. I think it might be up there with the strangest books I’ve ever read, but that’s not a bad thing in this case. Author Greg Egan leaned into strangeness of his brand of hard sci-fi with elements of body and biological horror. Its chock full of these disturbing scenes where something wholly bizarre will happen as a consequence of the brilliant conceptual basis. ‘Morphotrophic’ is set in a world where cells can emigrate at will to other organisms, and even change form based on subtle electrical signals. This one rule results in many otherworldly happenings that often feel all too realistic. Scientists diving deep into cell morphotype research unlock the ability to trigger new morphotypes to form from existing cells, swappers exchange their body parts with other human beings to get the best combinations, and mind-bending experiments reveal new biological truths.

I think this book starts off extremely strong with just how weird it is. Its hard not to want to read more when the characters are shedding cells and bathing in ground-up pig to get them back in the very first chapter. The prose can get a little bland as the world building aspects extend their welcome at times, but with such a complex basis, I have to forgive Egan for a lot of the exposition that would normally put me off. The science here is so different that it almost feels like fantasy, although I can’t claim it ever broke its own logic, just that the logic was so far reaching it was hard to keep up.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find any of the characters especially relatable. I think that put a damper on my enjoyment of what would otherwise have been a top-ten book for me. It was just that the plot inflicted itself on so many of them, even the most powerful characters, that I often felt like everyone and everything was at the mercy of something random happening and derailing any plans that anybody had made. I haven’t mentioned many plot specifics because honestly its just too hard to summarize it. There are like five main characters and a long series of flashbacks. The antagonists are mysterious and vague, and among all the other highbrow conceptual stuff its easy to get lost. I also noticed that some of the characters had weirdly calm reactions to very strange things happening, strange even for the characters living in the strange world. This only happened once or twice, its really more of a nitpick, but it pulled me out of things when people started spawning new organisms without much of an internal or external reaction.

Overall, this book has a really strong central pillar that helps it stand out among the crowd, but I had some difficulties along the way too. I’ll have to read some more of Egan’s works to see how I really feel about his style as a whole. I think its beyond a doubt that anything of his I pick up will have some cool sci-fi going on, but I wonder if any of his books feature characters that are more my speed? Here’s hoping!

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley