What do you do when you can live for thousands of years, travel nearly everywhere you wish in the galaxy, and customise your environment and your body to be exactly the way you like? When there is no risk of starvation, injury, or disease? When your back-up simply takes over when, for some reason, you die? What do you do if the whole universe is your playground and you’re just plain bored?

This is the dilemma faced by Rakesh, a software descendant of the DNA panspermia which spread organic life to a million worlds across the galaxy. When Greg Egan’s new novel opens, a chance encounter offers Rakesh the opportunity to do something exciting enough to satisfy his longing for novelty: to trace the origins of a previously unknown DNA source, never before documented. In order to do this, he must interact with the mysterious civilisation known as the Aloof, who are custodians of the information.