But in the final analysis, I think, this book is really to a great extent a commentary on SF, and on the love we (the author most certainly included) have for the genre. There are in-jokes sprinkled throughout for the delight of long time fans: a writer in an alternate world named E. Hunter Waldo and nanomachines of a sort called "offogs," to name but two. Moreover the novel is deeply entwined with the Matter of Britain: the Arthurian legends. Aside from this, the book in the end concerns, after all "Players in the Contest of Worlds": alternate worlds that often reflect SFnal dreams, such as a lush wet Venus. One cannot but think that this "Contest of Worlds" is in a way a reference to the many future worlds of SF, and that the "Players" are the writers.

What of the action of this book? August, at the open, is trying to resume a life as a Philosophy student in Australia, as well as trying to enjoy his love for Lune. But almost immediately he finds himself attacked by a dinosaur-like beast: perhaps one of the Deformers' "K-Machines", "K" standing for -- what? "Killer", perhaps? Soon August is again pinballing through the various worlds in pursuit of answers from his varied (and varying) group of brothers and sisters. Also he loses track of Lune, and to his disgust finds others questioning her loyalty.

An alternate thread follows the life of an Australian scientist who, significantly I think, was born the same year as Damien Broderick.¹ This man is followed through a long life, a boyhood loving science fiction, followed by an adult career marked by multiple entanglements with women, and by a spotty but interesting academic record, culminating in involvement with an effort to reach the Singularity, perhaps by creating artificial universes. Which may -- or may not -- explain just what is going on in these two books.

These two books, Godplayers and K-Machine, are a very enjoyable and intelligent diptych, riffing on wild contemporary speculative scientific ideas such as Matrioshka brains as well as SF/Fantasy classics like Roger Zelazny's Amber books. At times I felt the books were victimized just a bit by the bane of certain SF and Fantasy both: the notion that just about any old thing can happen at the characters' (or the author's) convenience. But I did enjoy the ride, and I certainly recommend reading them.