The Best of Greg Egan

Egan (Perihelion Summer, 2019), a master of short form science fiction, has collected twenty of what he considers the best of his short works from the past thirty years, By presenting these works in chronological order, the collection highlights the growth of his skill as a writer: readers witness his style become more elegant and subtle, his characters more nuanced and empathetic, his stories more incisive. As satisfying as each story is on its own, the greatest reward of this collection is witnessing Egan's development as a storyteller. --Booklist, Starred Review The author's brand of hard sf is captivating, approachable, and not overly technical: he seems more interested in exploring the nature of identity, relationships, morality, and the occasional pathos of the human condition than the mechanics of the not-too-distant-future. --Library Journal Egan is determined to make sense of everything--to understand the whole world as an intelligible, rational, material (and finally manipulable) realm--even if it means abandoning comfortable and comforting illusions. This is fundamental to the whole project of SF and it's why Egan's Best--and his Rest - is worth any number of looks. --Locus Egan's talent for creating well-drawn characters shines in 'Oracle, ' which imagines a debate between stand-ins for Alan Turing and C.S. Lewis, and 'Zero for Conduct, ' in which a young Afghan woman invents 'the world's first room-temperature superconductor.' Although demanding, this doorstopper will prove rewarding for anyone interested in technology's role in shaping the world. --Publishers Weekly