Greg Egan

Last updated

Greg Egan
BornGregory Mark Egan [1]
(1961-08-20) 20 August 1961 (age 63) [1]
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
OccupationWriter, former programmer [2]
Period1983–present (as a science fiction writer)
Genre Science fiction
Website
www.gregegan.net OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

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.

Contents

Life and work

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 .

Mathematics

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]

Personal life

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]

Awards

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]

Works

Novels

Orthogonal trilogy

Collections

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

  • The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine (2017)
  • Zero For Conduct (2013)
  • Uncanny Valley (2017) [26]
  • Seventh Sight (2014)
  • The Nearest (2018) [27]
  • Shadow Flock (2014)
  • Bit Players (2014) [25]
  • Break My Fall (2014) [28]
  • 3-adica (2018)
  • The Slipway (2019)
  • Instantiation (2019)

Sleep and the Soul (2023), ISBN   978-1-922240-47-7

  • You and Whose Army? (2020) [29]
  • This is Not the Way Home (2019)
  • Zeitgeber (2019) [30]
  • Crisis Actors (2022)
  • Sleep and the Soul (2021)
  • After Zero (2022)
  • Dream Factory (2022)
  • Light Up the Clouds (2021)
  • Night Running (2023)
  • Solidity (2022)

Phoresis and Other Journeys (2023), ISBN   978-1-922240-50-7

Other short fiction

Excerpted

Academic papers

Short movies

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]

Notes

  1. Singleton introduced the concept of the Qusp, which was later used in the novel Schild's Ladder .
  2. Dust was incorporated into the novel Permutation City as the first few chapters in one narrative thread.
  3. Wang refers to the mathematician Hao Wang  – the carpets are living embodiments of Wang tiles. This story, minorly reworked, became a section of the novel Diaspora .

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard Waldrop</span> American author of science fiction (1946–2024)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Jon Williams</span> American fiction writer (born 1953)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Moon</span> American science fiction and fantasy writer (born 1945)

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.

<i>Schilds Ladder</i> 2002 science fiction novel by Australian author Greg Egan

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.

<i>Axiomatic</i> (book) 1995 collection of short science fiction stories by author Greg Egan

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.

<i>Incandescence</i> (novel) 2008 novel by Greg Egan

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.

<i>Zendegi</i> 2010 novel by Greg Egan

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.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Egan, Greg". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction .
  2. 1 2 3 Burnham, Karen (30 April 2014). Greg Egan. University of Illinois Press. ISBN   978-0-252-07993-1 . Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  3. Booker, M. Keith (1 October 2014). Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 98. ISBN   978-0810849389 . Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  4. "UWA Award Verification Service" . Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  5. "Bibliography". Gregegan.net. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Greg Egan Awards" . Science Fiction Awards Database . Mark R. Kelly and the Locus Science Fiction Foundation .
  7. John Baez (1 July 2014). "Grace–Danielsson Inequality" . Retrieved 22 November 2023.
  8. Sergei Drozdov (2023). "Egan conjecture holds". arXiv: 2310.10816 [math.MG].
  9. Egan, Greg. "Superpermutations" . Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  10. Klarreich, Erica (5 November 2018). "Mystery Math Whiz and Novelist Advance Permutation Problem". Quanta Magazine . Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  11. Egan, Greg (19 October 2008). "Iran Trip Diary: Part 2, Esfahan". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  12. Egan, Greg (2009). "Born Again, Briefly". In Blackford, Russell; Schüklenk, Udo (eds.). 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists. Sussex: Wiley–Blackwell.
  13. Farr, Russell (September 1997). "Interviews". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  14. "Photos of Greg Egan, science fiction writer". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  15. Egan, Greg (24 August 2012). "Google, the Stupidity Amplifier". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  16. Egan, Greg (April 1992). "Closer". eidolon.net. Archived from the original on 26 December 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  17. Egan, Greg (31 December 2006). "Riding the Crocodile". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  18. Egan, Greg (October 2007). "Dark Integers". Asimovs.com. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  19. "Harper Voyager Books: FREE HUGO SHORT STORIES: Ken Macleod and Greg Egan". Outofthiseos.typepad.com. 27 March 2008. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  20. Egan, Greg (27 January 2009). "Interzone: Science Fiction & Fantasy – Crystal Nights". TTA Press. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  21. Egan, Greg (15 October 2007). "Steve Fever | MIT Technology Review". Technologyreview.com. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  22. Egan, Greg (8 August 2002). "Singleton". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  23. Egan, Greg (12 November 2000). "Oracle". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  24. Egan, Greg (12 April 1999). "Border Guards". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  25. 1 2 Egan, Greg (2014). "Bit Players". Subterranean Press. Archived from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  26. 1 2 Egan, Greg (9 August 2017). "Uncanny Valley". Tor.com. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  27. Egan, Greg (19 July 2018). "The Nearest". Tor.com. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  28. Alexander, Niall (12 June 2014). "Step into the Stars: Reach for Infinity, ed. Jonathan Strahan". Tor.com . Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  29. Egan, Greg (1 October 2020). "You and Whose Army?". Clarkesworld Magazine, issue 169, October 2020. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  30. Egan, Greg (25 September 2019). "Zeitgeber". Tor.com. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  31. Egan, Greg (21 March 2020). "Tangled Up". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  32. Egan, Greg (29 May 2001). "Mind Vampires". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  33. Egan, Greg (16 May 2001). "Scatter My Ashes". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  34. Egan, Greg (August 1990). "The Extra". eidolon.net. Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  35. Egan, Greg (December 1990). "The Vat". eidolon.net. Archived from the original on 9 May 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  36. Egan, Greg (July 1991). "The Demon's Passage". eidolon.net. Archived from the original on 9 May 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  37. Egan, Greg (1992). "Worthless – a short story". Infinityplus.co.uk. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  38. Egan, Greg (1997). "Yeyuka – a short story". Infinityplus.co.uk. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  39. Egan, Greg (9 August 2000). "Only Connect". Nature. 403 (6770). Gregegan.net: 599. Bibcode:2000Natur.403..599E. doi: 10.1038/35001162 . PMID   10688177 . Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  40. Egan, Greg (23 September 2013). "In the Ruins". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  41. Egan, Greg (10 June 2002). "Orphanogenesis". Gregegan.net. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  42. Christensen, J Daniel; Egan, Greg (24 January 2002). "An efficient algorithm for the Riemannian 10j symbols". Classical and Quantum Gravity. 19 (6): 1185–1194. arXiv: gr-qc/0110045 . Bibcode:2002CQGra..19.1185C. doi:10.1088/0264-9381/19/6/310. S2CID   14908906.
  43. Baez, John C; Christensen, J Daniel; Egan, Greg (4 November 2002). "Asymptotics of 10j symbols". Classical and Quantum Gravity. 19 (24): 6489. arXiv: gr-qc/0208010 . Bibcode:2002CQGra..19.6489B. doi:10.1088/0264-9381/19/24/315. S2CID   10556245.
  44. Egan, Greg (19 October 2015). "Conic-Helical Orbits of Planets around Binary Stars do not Exist". Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy. 130 (130): 5. arXiv: 1510.05345 . Bibcode:2018CeMDA.130....5E. doi:10.1007/s10569-017-9803-7. S2CID   119235670.
  45. Axiomatic at IMDb
  46. "Axiomatic". Film shortage. 27 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2017.