Induction - Greg Egan

Short Story

Number of words : 5300
Percent of complex words : 12.9
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 23.3


READABILITY INDICES

Fog : 14.5
Flesch : 50.2
Flesch-Kincaid : 12.0


PEOPLE

Ikat

An astronaut on the moon.

Pope

Religious leader.

Qing

Ikat's colleague.

Mother

Of Ikat.

Father

Of Ikat.

Vikram Ali

Represents Khamoush Holdings.

Armstrong

First man on the moon.



TECHNOLOGY

Launch gun

Used for shooting payloads a long way into space at near light speeds.

Stage Nine

The ten-kilometre section of the barrel where the pellets would be accelerated from sixteen to eighteen per cent of light speed.

Maglev railway

Hover transport route.

Coil gun

Small space payload launcher.

Harbour Bridge

Sydney transport structure due for decommissioning.

Nanoware

Small manufacturing technology that is programmable.


ORGANISATIONS

Council of Islamic Scholars in Brussels

Religious academic group.

URC

Chinese government.

Magic Beans Inc.

Part of Khamoush Holdings.


PLACES

Potomac

River in Washington, DC, USA.

Procellarum

A moon base.

Bangkok

City in Thailand.

Prosperity B

A star in the target system.

Prosperity A

The larger companion star.

Duty

Prosperity A's fourth planet.

Aksai Chin

Part of China near India in the Tibet area.

Tokelau

Islands ruled by New Zealand.

Kowloon

Part of Hong Kong.

Mumbai

City in India.

Patience

A smaller planet in the prosperity system.


VEHICLES

Orchid Flower

Sent by launch gun and containing tiny pellets to be launched into space. The pellets that comprised the seed were not physically connected, but they would move in synch in a rigid pattern, forming a kind of sparse crystal whose spacing allowed it to interact strongly with the microwave radiation in the gun.

Pioneer 10

Early spacecraft.



CONCEPTS

Acorporeals

People that have left their bodies.


PLOT

Ikat is an astronaut on the moon, working on a project to launch a payload to nearby stars. Along with her friend Qing.

Then, in the future, people have the ability to be scanned and become posthuman, and the company that bought the rights to some of their early work has an offer for them - they can explore locally in person the new system. And from there, do further exploration.


4 out of 5