Greg Egan (August 20, 1961, Perth, Western Australia) is an Australian computer programmer and science fiction author. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the University of Western Australia. Egan currently lives in Perth.

Egan specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness. Other themes include genetics, simulated reality, mind transfer, sexuality, artificial intelligence, and the superiority of rational materialism over religion. He is a Hugo Award winner (and has been shortlisted for the Hugos three other times), and has also won the John W Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel. Some of his earlier short 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.

He has recently been active on the issue of refugees' mandatory detention in Australia.

Works

Novels

• An Unusual Angle (1983), ISBN 0909106118 (not science fiction)
• Quarantine (1992), ISBN 0712698701
• Permutation City (1994), ISBN 185798174X
• Distress (1995), ISBN 185798286X
• Diaspora (1997), ISBN 1857984382
• Teranesia (1999), ISBN 057506854X
• Schild's Ladder (2002), ISBN 0575070684

Collections

• Axiomatic (1995), ISBN 1857982819
• Our Lady of Chernobyl (1995), ISBN 0646232304
• Luminous (1998), ISBN 1857985516
• Oceanic and Other Stories (2000), ISBN 4150113378
• Reasons to Be Cheerful and Other Stories (2003), ISBN 415011451X

Short stories

Stories collected in Axiomatic

• "The Infinite Assassin"
• "The Hundred Light-Year Diary"
• "Eugene"
• "The Caress"
• "Blood Sisters"
• "Axiomatic"
• "The Safe-Deposit Box"
• "Seeing"
• "A Kidnapping"
• "Learning to Be Me"
• "The Moat"
• "The Walk"
• "The Cutie"
• "Into Darkness"
• "Appropriate Love"
• "The Moral Virologist"
• "Closer"
• "Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies"'

Stories collected in Luminous

• "Chaff"
• "Mitochondrial Eve"
• "Luminous"
• "Mister Volition"
• "Cocoon"
• "Transition Dreams"
• "Silver Fire"
• "Reasons to Be Cheerful"
• "Our Lady of Chernobyl"
• "The Planck Dive"

Other stories

• "Oracle"
• "Only Connect"
• "Border Guards"
• "Oceanic"
• "Yeyuka"
• "TAP"
• "Worthless"
• "Mind Vampires"
• "Neighbourhood Watch"
• "Orphanogenesis" "Orphanogenesis" became the opening chapter of the novel Diaspora.
• "Wang's Carpets" Wang refers to the mathematician Wang Hao – the carpets are living embodiments of Wang tiles. This story, minorly reworked, became a section of the novel Diaspora.
• "Reification Highway"
• "Dust" "Dust" became the opening chapter of the novel Permutation City
• "Before"
• "Fidelity"
• "The Demon's Passage"
• "In Numbers"
• "The Vat"
• "The Extra"
• "Beyond the Whistle Test"
• "Scatter My Ashes"
• "Tangled Up"
• "The Way She Smiles, The Things She Says"
• "Artifact"
• "Singleton" Singleton introduced the concept of the Qusp, which was later used in the novel Schild's Ladder.
• "Riding the Crocodile"
• "Lost Continent"

Awards

• Permutation City: John W. Campbell Memorial Award (1995)
• "Oceanic": Hugo Award, Locus Award, Asimov's Readers Award (1998)

Egan was nominated for award of the 2000 Ditmar Award for best novel with Teranesia. He declined the award, which resulted in any of his future works being ineligible for the award.

Footnotes