From: kcalder@blueyonder.co.uk   
      
   In message <6d258eab.0405310315.3f5fd040@posting.google.com>, Mitch   
   Leary  writes   
      
   >I've also been getting into Greg Egan novels.   
      
   Egan is da bomb!   
      
   >  What a mind this guy   
   >has.  Axiomatic is his book of short stories, and I can't recommend it   
   >highly enough.  But the gem of Egan's work has to be Permutation City.   
      
   Axiomatic was the first thing I read by Egan, and was the first   
   intelligent book I had read for years!  His second collection of   
   stories, Luminous is also very good, but different, I think because he   
   has written several novels before approaching Luminous, and this often   
   changes the way that authors write shorts.  Novel wise, Diaspora is my   
   favourite (Tho Searle would absolutely hate it, being that's its almost   
   entirely about conscious simulations of people :) and Schild's ladder is   
   also excellent.  Actually, I have enjoyed everything he has written,   
   except that I haven't read the novel he wrote in high school, called "An   
   Unusual Angle".   
      
   > Downloading millions of people onto a chip!   
      
   Permutation city has the best sex scene in a book ever.  That bit, just   
   before the big change in the story, is one of my favourite narrative   
   sequences, even if it is rather grim, or perhaps because it is rather   
   grim and then everything changes!   
      
   Its worth noting for casual readers that a lot of Egan's work is based   
   on fairly complex ideas, some philosophical, some scientific, but he is   
   almost always able to write this stuff in a way that ensures that even   
   if you can't follow the physics, you will usually grasp enough for it   
   not to interfere with the story.  The first time through most of his   
   novels I didn't understand a lot of the technical stuff, but really   
   enjoyed the stories.   But even though I didn't understand some of the   
   "big ideas" at first, they would stay lodged in my brain and I would   
   find myself reading about relativity, black holes, particle physics and   
   graph theory.  Then on subsequent readings I'd enjoy it all just as much   
   again because the science and philosophy behind the stories would fall   
   into place, and I'd be able to appreciate the scope and profundity of it   
   all.   
      
   Sadly, Egan doesn't seem that popular among science fiction fans,   
   presumably because his novels have too much actual science in them, and   
   non science fiction fans don't give him a go because his books are   
   always in the science fiction section of book shops.  In fact, my local   
   big-ass-chain book superstore recently removed all of their greg egan   
   books, and now don't stock him.  In his place they just have MILLIONS of   
   copies harry potter and lord of the rings.  And copies of William Gibson   
   books with different covers every week, so that I can never get all my   
   william gibson paperbacks to line up nicely on the book shelf.   
      
   Dead loss!   
   --   
   Kevin Calder   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)