Greg Egan

[Zero Gravitas]

I recently read the 2020 anthology Instantiation which was a real pleasure, he may not be able to write normal humans or 8% convincing dialog but damn if he can't do an amazing world with totally unforeseen twists.

The usual stumbling block with Egan novels is being prepared not to have any idea what the hell is going on, at least until you've re-read the first half multiple times, his usual shtick is weird yet  physically and mathematically self-consistent worlds that are completely foreign to our own, for example the summary for Dichronauts a world with only one spatial dimension:

In the universe containing Seth's world, light cannot travel in all directions: there is a "dark cone" to the north and south. Seth can only face to the east (or the west, if he tips his head backwards). If he starts to turn to the north or south, his body stretches out across the landscape, and to rotate to face north-east is every bit as impossible as accelerating to the speed of light.

And on that quote's page you'll find minutely constructed equations, diagrams and potential plots for what a world, a hurdle? certainly, conducive to subtle human drama? sort of, but possibly the most challenging and mind warping contexts for fiction that I've read.

That's not to say he's limited to that kind of physics-thought-experiment as world, but all are very firming and pleasingly rooted in the classic kind of sci-fi what-if scenarios "Learning to be me" springs to mind as being relatively close to our world except for it's conceit and is so disturbing in concept and the character's anxieties that the twist pleased me greatly.

I do wonder what kind of life he leads, and what lengths he needs to go to to avoid cameras though.


My favourite is probably Schild's Ladder, which is the least jarring in terms of his character deficiencies, and ultimately becomes more of a story of ideological infighting, the world is a universe being destroyed but also hints at a rich back-story for that will never be delved into, one because he's not really the sort to re-tread old ground and two well, the destruction thing.

[13 schoolyards]

I sort of feel like Schild's Ladder was really the peak for Egan as far as combining insane ideas with a certain level of accessibility (though that first chapter is a bit of a challenge). I think he's almost certainly the current master of "science fiction that is actually about science" but lately I've found his short stories to be more my speed simply because I only have to keep one brain-bending idea in my head at a time.

Has anyone read the disaster novel he put out a few years back? It sounded like a bit of a shift back towards the mainstream for him, so of course despite wanting him to write something more accessible for ages I still haven't checked it out

[jamiefairlie]

I liked him as one of the Dads from My Two Dads.

[Zero Gravitas]

I sort of feel like Schild's Ladder was really the peak for Egan as far as combining insane ideas with a certain level of accessibility (though that first chapter is a bit of a challenge). I think he's almost certainly the current master of "science fiction that is actually about science" but lately I've found his short stories to be more my speed simply because I only have to keep one brain-bending idea in my head at a time.

I quite like the opener with the miniaturization and discussion of fictional esoteric mathematical systems, good honest thinly veiled infodump, I was half convinced he'd carry on in the same way but in truth I'm thankful that he didn't!

The Book of All Skies sort of goes the opposite route, an intro that's dusty old bibliophilia and crime caper but then throws you into the complexities of building a scaffolding though the middle of spatial portals with all of the perturbations involved, but frames it naturally through the direct experience of the protagonists, with no Egan voice infodump, so it's even more mind bending to work out the implications of gravity switching direction halfway though a strut actually are.

Has anyone read the disaster novel he put out a few years back? It sounded like a bit of a shift back towards the mainstream for him, so of course despite wanting him to write something more accessible for ages I still haven't checked it out

Perihelion summer? Not that great, still retains his style as it's still black holes and long descriptions of the torching of the world, but it does rely on action scenes which he doesn't really seem to have skill for resolving or pacing.