EFFINGER,GEORGE ALEC

Marid Audran is a freelance operator in a decadent Arabic ghetto who is hired by a mob boss to find a murderer. As the body count climbs, Marid is pressured to make use of brain implants the rest of the population has been using for a long time. Marid has avoided them thus far, seeking his own escape from reality via the pills he constantly pops.

It's a detective type story told in the first person following Marid's journey. Entertaining from start to finish and the guilty party is not disclosed until the final pages.

Good  (8)
 

EGAN,GREG

Our solar system has been quarantined inside a  bubble. A private investigator stumbles onto the reason for its existence.

Some very heavy quantum theory is used to explain the plot and it becomes a little difficult to follow. Apart from this, it was an enjoyable story and provides me with the incentive to read more of Egan's work.

Very Good (8)
 
 

EGAN,GREG

Paul Durham is experimenting with a Copy of himself. A Copy is a scanned, computerised version of oneself 'living' in a digitized reality. Most Copies don't wish to exist once they realize what they are and so they have the option of deleting themselves.

Maria Deluca works in the Autoverse, a computer generated universe with its own unique laws of physics and chemistry. She is attempting to design a bacterial-like organism that is able to evolve when conditions for its existence become unfavourable.

Durham approaches Maria as her work in the Autoverse begins bearing fruit. He has plans for her to generate a planet that could sustain life.

I've read reviews of Egan's work and the thing I remember is that he has a fondness for the BIG idea. This story certainly centres on one of those and while entertaining, the story can get confusing along the way. PERMUTATION CITY will appeal to those who prefer hard sf and while this effort didn't impress like the earlier QUARANTINE, Egan is an author whose work I shall continue to explore.

Good (7)

June 2001
 

EGAN, GREG

I find that I rarely read collections of short stories, preferring to involve myself in the longer form. After this effort by Egan, I will have to reconsider my position. This collection, mostly written in the early 1990’s, is well worth reading. With an average length of 20 pages, each story is full of interesting ideas and situations that a lot of novels would fail to match.

“The Infinite Assassin” is about the turmoil created when people take the drug S, enabling their dreams to cause havoc in parallel universes. “The Hundred Light Year Diary” explores the lives of people who have access to their own future history. “Learning to Be Me” tells of a society where people are able to replace their organic brain with an indestructible copy which renders the individual virtually immortal. “The Moral Virologist” follows a madman bent on teaching the world the error of its ways by creating a virus more deadly than AIDS. These are example of the wide scope of ideas that exist within this collection.

I found these stories to be a great tonic after getting bogged down with an uninspiring novel that went nowhere after 100 pages. Thanks Greg, you’ve rekindled in me a lost passion for the short story.

Very Good  (9)

March 2002
 

EGAN, GREG

What a disappointment this story was for me. After the first few pages I thought that this was going to be more of the great fiction I’ve come to expect from Egan. It begins with an operation where a fresh corpse is reanimated to obtain details of its murder and later we find there is an infectious disease known as ‘Distress’ that is causing worldwide concern. Unfortunately, the story quickly changes direction and we end up at a science conference in the middle of the ocean. Here the story bogged down and although I persisted, the story did not develop enough to warrant my continued patronage. If you’ve read it and the story takes off after the first half, let me know and I’ll try again

Average  (5)

September 2004
 

Author site www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/
 

FARMER, PHILIP JOSE

Very Good  (8)
 

Tribute site www.pjfarmer.com/
 

FARMER, PHILIP JOSE

The sequel to  TO YOUR SCATTERED BODIES GO offers more of the same. We see a little more of the beings behind the whole show, but learn little of their motives. I hope part three is an improvement.

Good  (6)
 

FORWARD, ROBERT L.

An expedition sets out for Saturn where it is hoped that fuel can be successfully mined from the planet's atmosphere. If the operation is a success, permanent factories will be set up in the near future.

On entering Saturn's gaseous atmosphere the explorers come in contact with a number of floating and flying alien lifeforms. These range from the microscopic to the enormous. One encounter leaves the human expedition stranded with little hope of returning to Earth.

This book you might classify as hard sf, but certainly not the type I enjoy. I've never read a book where I had such little regard for the central characters. I'm not sure why I persisted with this one. I thought about moving on to something else, but held out hope for things to improve. Well, they didn't. There were some interesting and exciting aspects to the story, but not enough to encourage me to further explore Forward's work. The Rukhs were an interesting alien species that had to put up with a boring and wooden bunch of humans.

Average  (5)

September 2001
 

FOY, GEORGE

Alex Munn is a writer. He likes to think of himself as an 'artist', but, like many in his field who need to make a living, has had to stoop to writing TV scripts. His claim to fame is his work on the series Copkiller, work he is not terribly proud of.

His latest project has been writing the scripts for the soon to be aired series Real Life. It is the world's first virtual reality program. Once again he is dissatisfied with the quality of the writing, but the producers wanted a standard thriller loaded with sex and violence which plays second fiddle to the VR. To help him overcome his depression with respect to Real Life, he has diverted his energies into his own creation, Munn's World, which is set in 1850's New York. He has written a story that has him as a policeman hunting a murderer known as the Fishman who has a habit of slashing his victims rather brutally.

Things begin to go terribly wrong when Alex is accused of murder. The victim has been slain in the style of the Fishman.

I don't know if I would categorise this as science fiction, more of a murder mystery/thriller with some virtual reality thrown in. The situations Munn found himself in were at times frightening. I found myself on the edge of my seat. The story dragged for a very short time toward the end, perhaps it felt like this because of the high intensity beforehand. The ending had a few nice surprises that cleared the air, resulting in a highly entertaining read.

Very Good  (9)

August 2000
 
  To visit elsewhere at this site use this Navigation Bar