Greg Egan | |
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Born | Gregory Mark Egan [1] 20 August 1961 [1] Perth, Western Australia, Australia |
Occupation | Writer, former programmer [2] |
Period | 1983–present (as a science fiction writer) |
Genre | Science fiction |
Website | |
www |
Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) [1] is an Australian science fiction writer and mathematician, best known for his works of hard science fiction. Egan has won multiple awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award.
Egan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the University of Western Australia. [2] [3] [4]
He published his first work in 1983. [5] He specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness. Other themes include genetics, simulated reality, posthumanism, mind uploading, sexuality, artificial intelligence, and the superiority of rational naturalism to religion. He often deals with complex technical material, like new physics and epistemology. He is a Hugo Award winner (with eight other works shortlisted for the Hugos) and has also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. [6] His early stories feature strong elements of supernatural horror.
Egan's short stories have been published in a variety of genre magazines, including regular appearances in Interzone and Asimov's Science Fiction .
In 2002, Egan co-authored two papers about Riemannian 10j symbols, spin networks appearing in Riemannian quantum gravity, together with John Baez and Dan Christensen. Spin networks also play a central role in his novel Schild's Ladder released the same year.
In 2014, Egan conjectured a generalization of the Grace–Danielsson inequality about the relation of the radii of two spheres and the distance of their respective centres to fit a simplex between them to also hold in higher dimensions, which later became known as the Egan conjecture. A proof of the inequality being sufficient was published by him in 2014 under a blog post of John Baez. They were lost due to a rearrangement of the website, but the central parts were copied into the original blog post. Further comments by Greg Egan on 16 April 2018 concern the search for a generalized conjecture involving ellipsoids. [7] A proof of the inequality also being necessary was published by Sergei Drozdov on 16 October 2023 on ArXiv. [8]
In 2018, Egan described a construction of superpermutations, thus giving an upper bound to their minimum length. On 27 February 2019, using ideas developed by Robin Houston and others, Egan produced a superpermutation of seven symbols of length 5906, breaking previous records. [9] [10]
As of 2015, Egan lives in Perth. He is a vegetarian [2] [11] and an atheist. [12]
Egan does not attend science fiction conventions, [13] does not sign books, and has stated that he appears in no photographs on the web, [14] though both SF fan sites and Google Search have at times mistakenly identified him as the subject of photos of other people with the same name. [15]
Egan's work has won the Japanese Seiun Award for best translated fiction eight times. [6]
Teranesia was named the winner of the 2000 Ditmar Award for best novel, but Egan declined the award. [6]
Axiomatic (1995), ISBN 1-85798-281-9
Our Lady of Chernobyl (1995), ISBN 0-646-23230-4
Luminous (1998), ISBN 1-85798-551-6
Dark Integers and Other Stories (2008), ISBN 978-1-59606-155-2
Crystal Nights and Other Stories (2009), ISBN 978-1-59606-240-5
Oceanic (2009), ISBN 978-0-575-08652-4
The Best of Greg Egan (2019), ISBN 978-1-59606-942-8
Instantiation (2020), ISBN 978-1-922240-39-2
Sleep and the Soul (2023), ISBN 978-1-922240-47-7
Phoresis and Other Journeys (2023), ISBN 978-1-922240-50-7
The production of a short film inspired by the story "Axiomatic" commenced in 2015, [45] and the film was released online in October 2017. [46]
Howard Waldrop was an American science fiction author who worked primarily in short fiction. He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2021.
Walter Jon Williams is an American writer, primarily of science fiction. Previously he wrote nautical adventure fiction under the name Jon Williams, in particular, Privateers and Gentlemen (1981–1984), a series of historical novels set during the Age of Sail.
Elizabeth Moon is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her other writing includes newspaper columns and opinion pieces. Her novel The Speed of Dark won the 2003 Nebula Award. Prior to her writing career, she served in the United States Marine Corps.
Schild's Ladder is a 2002 science fiction novel by Australian author Greg Egan. The book derives its name from Schild's ladder, a construction in differential geometry, devised by the mathematician and physicist Alfred Schild.
Axiomatic (ISBN 0-7528-1650-0) is a 1995 collection of short science fiction stories by Greg Egan. The stories all delve into different aspects of self and identity.
Lewis Shiner is an American writer.
Incandescence is a 2008 science fiction novel by Australian author Greg Egan. The book is based on the idea that the theory of general relativity could be discovered by a pre-industrial civilisation.
The bibliography of American science fiction author Bruce Sterling comprises novels, short stories and non-fiction.
Zendegi is a science fiction novel by Australian author Greg Egan, first published in the United Kingdom by Gollancz in June 2010. It is set in Iran in the near future and deals with mapping the human brain, virtual reality and the democratization of Iran. The title of the book means "life" in Persian; the name of the virtual reality system featured in the story is Zendegi-ye Behtar, Persian for "better life".
Steven Paulsen is an Australian writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction whose work has been published in books, magazines, journals and newspapers around the world. He is the author of the best selling children's book, The Stray Cat, which has seen publication in several foreign language editions. His short story collection, Shadows on the Wall: Weird Tales of Science Fiction, Fantasy and the Supernatural), won the 2018 Australian Shadows Award for Best Collected Work, and his short stories have appeared in anthologies such as Dreaming Down-Under, Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror, Strange Fruit, Fantastic Worlds, The Cthulhu Cycle: Thirteen Tentacles of Terror, and Cthulhu Deep Down Under: Volume 3.
"The Moral Virologist" is a science fiction short story by Greg Egan. It was first published in September 1990 in Pulphouse Magazine, and subsequently republished in 1991's The Best of Pulphouse, in the Summer 1993 issue of Eidolon magazine, and in Egan's 1995 collection Axiomatic. An Italian-language version, "Il Virologo Morale", was published in 2003.
"Axiomatic" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Interzone 41 in November 1990. The short story was included in the collection The Best of Greg Egan in 2020.
"The Cutie" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Interzone #29 in May/June 1989. It was his first to be published in Interzone. The short story was included in the collection Axiomatic in 1995. It also appeared in the anthology Interzone: The 4th Anthology edited by John Clute, David Pringle and Simon Ounsley in 1989.
"Appropriate Love" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Interzone #50 in August 1991. The short story was included in the collection Axiomatic in 1995 and The Best of Greg Egan in 2019.
"Learning to Be Me" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Interzone 37 in July of 1990. The short story was included in the collections Axiomatic in 1995 and The Best of Greg Egan in 2019.
"Into Darkness" is a science-fiction novelette by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Asimov's Science Fiction in January 1992. The novelette was included in the collections Axiomatic in 1995 and The Best of Greg Egan in 2019.
"Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Interzone #61 in July 1992. The short story was included in the collections Axiomatic in 1995 and The Best of Greg Egan in 2019.
"Eugene" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Interzone #36 in June 1990. The short story was included in the collection Axiomatic in 1995.
"The Safe-Deposit Box" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction in September 1990. The short story was included in the collection Axiomatic in 1995.
"The Walk" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Asimov's Science Fiction in December 1992. The short story was included in the anthology The Pattern Maker edited by Lucy Sussex and the collection Axiomatic in 1995.