8 ms·

Are his books as overwritten as this review? Honest question, as I found the review pretty leaden, but I'm always looking for interesting sci-fi.

• Estragon 17y ago
  He's actually my favorite author, but yeah, when it comes to the actual wordsmithing, he's no Gene Wolfe. The ideas are always great, though, and stories usually are.
• idlewords 17y ago
  Yeah, unfortunately this is pretty representative.
• ionfish 17y ago
  Egan is one of those SF writers who lend unfortunate credibility to the notion that the genre is about ideas, not people. The depth of his characters leaves much to be desired, as does his ability to tell a compelling story. However, he's to be admired for turning out original work in a field so drenched in clichéd, repetitive bullshit.
• anigbrowl 17y ago
  It varies. He can be a bit plodding sometimes, especially when exploring politics - his characters tend to be introspective rather than bold actors. So I found Teranesia (SE Asian ecopolitics) rather a struggle, but on the other hand I flew through Diaspora, where most of the characters don't even have physical bodies and there were a lot of very abstract concepts. None of his output is light reading, but (IMHO) it's extremely substantive, as opposed to the physically substantial 1,000 page doorstops and franchise vehicles...I doubt I'd enjoy a novelization of Avatar, for example. I'm into that movie for the magic carpet ride rather than the dialog or character development.
• abecedarius 17y ago
  I recommend three of them: Permutation City, Diaspora, and Axiomatic. Here's the opening chapter of Diaspora: http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/DIASPORA/01/Orphanogenesis.html http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/DIASPORA/01/Orphano...
  • cakesy 17y ago
    Permutation city is an mind blowing read, with an incredible amazing concept. So much so, that one of the people I know adopted its premise as his religion.
  • stavrianos 17y ago
    no Quarantine?
    • abecedarius 17y ago
      I liked Quarantine. The only Egan novel I thought a complete waste of time was Teranesia. But I'd recommend one of the three I listed first to see if he's for you.
• drtse4 17y ago
  Permutation city. After-death scenarios, AIs, a world were computing resources are acquired by trading (even better than the futures on amazon spot instance price than someone was suggesting a few days ago :)) ,etc...