Is Bad Infinite Worth Reading For Sci-Fi Fans?

I hated it for the first fifty pages. The prose is dense and the pacing is glacial. Stuck with it because a friend swore by it, and I'm glad I did—not because it's 'great,' but because it's interesting in a flawed, almost experimental way. It reminds me of early Greg Egan shorts before he smoothed out the rough edges. The way it handles identity fragmentation across digital clones is a total mess plot-wise, but conceptually, it's gnawing at my brain days later. Not a recommendation for everyone, but if you're into dissecting ambitious failures, it's a worthwhile case study.

Not worth it if you want a tight, conventional story. It's a sprawling, disjointed thing. If you're a completist for certain niche subgenres or just curious about the hype, skim it. There's a decent fan wiki that explains the confusing bits, which tells you everything you need to know about the text itself.

It depends on what kind of sci-fi you're into. Hard sci-fi enthusiasts who love their physics and logic bulletproof might bounce right off. The rules feel arbitrary sometimes. But if your tastes run towards the more philosophical, surreal, or cyberpunk-adjacent, 'Bad Infinite' has a raw, frenetic energy that can be compelling in short bursts. It's not a satisfying whole, but individual scenes and ideas are sharp enough to make you think.

Okay, so 'Bad Infinite' is one of those things that's buzzed about in certain circles, and as a sci-fi junkie who's read way too much of the genre, I came into it with decent expectations. I'll say this upfront: it feels less like a polished sci-fi novel and more like a fever dream from someone who binge-read 'Blindsight' and watched too much trippy anime. The core premise about exploiting glitches in reality is solid, classic high-concept stuff, but the execution is... messy. It jumps between characters so fast you get whiplash, and the technobabble often reads like the author just made up a cool-sounding word and expected you to fill in the blanks.

For a sci-fi fan who really needs a coherent and rigorous exploration of a concept, this might be a frustrating read. The plot gets tangled in its own ambition, and some of the ‘infinite’ mechanics contradict themselves. If you can turn your brain off and just ride the weird, chaotic wave of imagery, though, there are moments of genuine brilliance buried in there. A character's descent into a recursive simulation where they argue with echoes of their past selves actually stuck with me. It just needed more focus and a lot more editing.