Loophole by Ian Stewart published today

Loophole by Ian Stewart is out today in eBook.

Don’t poke your nose down a wormhole – you never know what you might find.

Loophole by Ian Stewart; Artwork by David A. Hardy
Artwork: David A. Hardy

Two universes joined by a wormhole pair that forms a ‘loophole’, with an icemoon orbiting through the loophole, shared between two different planetary systems in the two universes.

A civilisation with uploaded minds in virtual reality served by artificial humans.

A ravening Horde of replicating machines that kill stars.

Real humans from a decrepit system of colony worlds.

A race of hyperintelligent but somewhat vague aliens.

Who will close the loophole… who will exploit it?


“When universes collide… A multicosmos at war in a scenario of staggering, but scientifically authentic, invention… As if the Marvel multiverse collided with 2001: A Space Odyssey… I am awed, and I don’t awe easily. The highest of high-concept SF.”

Stephen Baxter, Award-winning author of the Xeelee sequence,
Time Slip and many others

“There’s Hard SF. There’s Wide-Screen Baroque. Now with Ian Stewart’s Loophole we have Wrap-Around Rococo. Daringly inventive, Loophole is a mind-fryingly, Möbius-twistingly intense SF adventure of the first order.”

Henry Gee, Senior Editor at Nature,and author of The Sigil trilogy
and A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth.