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
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Orchid Flower : Induction - Greg Egan
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.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Harbour Bridge : Induction - Greg Egan
Sydney transport structure due for decommissioning.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Stage Nine : Induction - Greg Egan
The ten-kilometre section of the barrel where the pellets would be accelerated from sixteen to eighteen per cent of light speed.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Launch gun : Induction - Greg Egan
Used for shooting payloads a long way into space at near light speeds.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
In Numbers - Greg Egan
Short Story
Number of words : 6900
Percent of complex words : 11.9
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 15.2
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 10.8
Flesch : 60.9
Flesch-Kincaid : 8.5
PEOPLE
Doctor Dreyfus
The medico on the Cyclops.
Andrew Callaghan
An engineer that has gone crazy due to the condition.
Jenny
Another crew member and cyberneticist.
Captain Salih al-Qasbi
Ship's leader.
Thomas Bwalya
Life-support engineer.
Greta Nordstrom
Communications engineer.
Kayathiri Sangaralingam
Drive specialist.
VEHICLES
Cyclops
A spaceship attempting to travel a record distance.
TECHNOLOGY
DDC-XV
A mixture of anti-viral agents.
CONCEPTS
Legionnella Six
A disease.
Cyclops Syndrome
Condition affecting Andrew Callaghan and the crew.
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment
Famous quantum mechanics work.
TECHNOLOGY
NMR spectra
Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy - a technique that exploits the magnetic properties of certain nuclei.
PET scans
Position emission tomography. A technique which produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body.
Nanomachines
Tiny robots that can be weapons or medical repair devices.
ORGANISATIONS
ISUSAT
A spaceflight centre.
MEDIA
The Plague
Work by Camus that inspired David to become a doctor.
PLOT
Dreyfus in the doctor on a ship that is attemping a voyage further out than anyone has gone before. The crew are beginning to come down with what seems like a disease that makes them crazy and dangerous, and in need of restraint.
It looks like it will affect all of them, so he has to make provision for everyone to be safe and to be fed by robot until they return.
However the condition seems to dissipate. He theorises that it may be because they have gone too far away from the rest of humanity, that there is some sort of quantum effect of life. If you go too far from Earth, your body will not be able to take it.
4 out of 5
Number of words : 6900
Percent of complex words : 11.9
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 15.2
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 10.8
Flesch : 60.9
Flesch-Kincaid : 8.5
PEOPLE
Doctor Dreyfus
The medico on the Cyclops.
Andrew Callaghan
An engineer that has gone crazy due to the condition.
Jenny
Another crew member and cyberneticist.
Captain Salih al-Qasbi
Ship's leader.
Thomas Bwalya
Life-support engineer.
Greta Nordstrom
Communications engineer.
Kayathiri Sangaralingam
Drive specialist.
VEHICLES
Cyclops
A spaceship attempting to travel a record distance.
TECHNOLOGY
DDC-XV
A mixture of anti-viral agents.
CONCEPTS
Legionnella Six
A disease.
Cyclops Syndrome
Condition affecting Andrew Callaghan and the crew.
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment
Famous quantum mechanics work.
TECHNOLOGY
NMR spectra
Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy - a technique that exploits the magnetic properties of certain nuclei.
PET scans
Position emission tomography. A technique which produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body.
Nanomachines
Tiny robots that can be weapons or medical repair devices.
ORGANISATIONS
ISUSAT
A spaceflight centre.
MEDIA
The Plague
Work by Camus that inspired David to become a doctor.
PLOT
Dreyfus in the doctor on a ship that is attemping a voyage further out than anyone has gone before. The crew are beginning to come down with what seems like a disease that makes them crazy and dangerous, and in need of restraint.
It looks like it will affect all of them, so he has to make provision for everyone to be safe and to be fed by robot until they return.
However the condition seems to dissipate. He theorises that it may be because they have gone too far away from the rest of humanity, that there is some sort of quantum effect of life. If you go too far from Earth, your body will not be able to take it.
4 out of 5
The Plague : In Numbers - Greg Egan
Work by Camus that inspired David to become a doctor.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Nanomachines : In Numbers - Greg Egan
Tiny robots that can be weapons or medical repair devices.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
PET scans : In Numbers - Greg Egan
Position emission tomography. A technique which produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
NMR spectra : In Numbers - Greg Egan
Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy - a technique that exploits the magnetic properties of certain nuclei.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment : In Numbers - Greg Egan
Famous quantum mechanics work.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Cyclops Syndrome : In Numbers - Greg Egan
Condition affecting Andrew Callaghan and the crew.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Andrew Callaghan : In Numbers - Greg Egan
An engineer that has gone crazy due to the condition.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Prospectiva Interview With - Greg Egan
This is from Google Translate :-
The original url is at the bottom.
http://translate.google.com.au/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.literaturaprospectiva.com%2F%3Fp%3D6337&sl=es&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
"The trilogy, titled Orthogonal, takes place in a universe that has laws of physics different from ours. A minus sign becomes a plus sign in the basic formula that governs the geometry of space-time, resulting in a terrifying series of branching while beautiful, affecting everything that has to do with light, time and energy. For starters, light travels at different speeds depending on their color, so when you look at the sky at night can see "trails of colors" to show how the stars have moved over the centuries.
At first my plan was to write a single book, but when I reached the 120,000 words and had only told the story of the first of several characters who travel in space for several generations, I asked my editor if I could divide it into three volumes. I think it was a good idea, if he had tried to tell the whole story in a book, do not know if could have resisted the temptation to make it shorter. In this way I can do justice to each of the characters who live in different times, and handle all aspects of the universe itself unusual. This site has so much to discover that put everything in a book would have been impossible."
4 out of 5
http://www.literaturaprospectiva.com/?p=6337
The original url is at the bottom.
http://translate.google.com.au/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.literaturaprospectiva.com%2F%3Fp%3D6337&sl=es&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
"The trilogy, titled Orthogonal, takes place in a universe that has laws of physics different from ours. A minus sign becomes a plus sign in the basic formula that governs the geometry of space-time, resulting in a terrifying series of branching while beautiful, affecting everything that has to do with light, time and energy. For starters, light travels at different speeds depending on their color, so when you look at the sky at night can see "trails of colors" to show how the stars have moved over the centuries.
At first my plan was to write a single book, but when I reached the 120,000 words and had only told the story of the first of several characters who travel in space for several generations, I asked my editor if I could divide it into three volumes. I think it was a good idea, if he had tried to tell the whole story in a book, do not know if could have resisted the temptation to make it shorter. In this way I can do justice to each of the characters who live in different times, and handle all aspects of the universe itself unusual. This site has so much to discover that put everything in a book would have been impossible."
4 out of 5
http://www.literaturaprospectiva.com/?p=6337
Hot Rock - Greg Egan
Novella
Number of words : 20700
Percent of complex words : 12.9
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 15.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 11.5
Flesch : 59.2
Flesch-Kincaid : 9.0
PEOPLE
Azar
Traveller to Tallulah from the Amalgam.
Shelma
A Bahari who meets Azar at Tallulah.
Shirin
Azar's great-great-granddaughter.
Jake
Spiral Out follower.
Tilly
Spiral Out follower.
Juhi
Spiral Out follower.
Rahul
Spiral Out follower.
Omar
A progressive Circler.
Lisa
A Circler.
Silas
A Circler.
Judah
A Circler spokesman.
Tarek
A Circler.
Santo
A Spiral Out delegate to the Amalgam.
PLACES
Hanuz
Azar's home system.
Tallulah
The planet Azar travels to, a world with no sun over a thousand light years from her home.
Bahar
A nearby solar system to Hanuz. Their people have five limbs and five tails.
Jute
A Tallulah colony.
TECHNOLOGY
Departure Gate
The launching off point for travelling to the new system.
Mologhat 1 and 2
Robot Probes to Tallulah.
Antimatter store
Powers Robot Probes and other such space craft.
Thermocouple
A junction between two different metals that produces a voltage related to a temperature difference.
Rail gun
Device for accelerating a payload rapidly into orbit.
Femtotech
The engineering of matter on the scale of atomic nuclei.
Mass spectrometer
Machine for measuring chemical composition.
Hoops
Made of something extraordinarily strong, spinning at close to the speed of light. A power source on Tallulah.
Deep-bore geothermal turbines
Used for specialized research projects.
Scout mites
Exploration and communication tiny tech.
Photonic jet
Used for moving Tallulah.
Geothermal cannons
Used for moving Tallulah to allow evacuations.
Deep rock graft
Used for seeding other worlds.
ORGANISATIONS
Amalgam
The meta-civilization that now ringed the galaxy.
Circlers
A Tallulah philosophy of those that want to stay on the planet.
Spiral In
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers that want to leave their bodies and become information. They do so and embed their minds in the deep rock of the planet.
Spiral Out
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers want to leave the planet.
CONCEPTS
C3
A carbohydrate polymer replicator.
P2
A polypeptide replicator.
Thermoelectric diffusion
In a particular Tallulah plant the electrons and holes would conduct heat from the ground up into the leaves, and in doing so they'd set up an electric potential, which in turn could be used to drive chemical reactions.
Chemosynthesis
Process of extracting energy from chemicals a la photosynthesis.
N2
DNA, Azar's ancestral replicator.
N3
A hereditary replicator.
Magnetic moment
A quantity that determines the force the magnet can exert on electric currents and the torque that a magnetic field will exert on it.
Next Passengers
The group that will use Tallulah in the future.
PLANTS
Entropy tree
Operates on thermoelectric diffusion, a living thermocouple.
Ribbon weed
A Tallulah common plant, also comes in giant varieties.
RACES
P2 Lizards
The current inhabitants of Tallulah. Two eight-clawed limbs that they used for digging and grasping objects; all their motive force came from their powerful tails. They sensed the world around them with a mixture of IR vision and sonar.
Builders
Creators of Tallulah. The Ground Heaters.
Old Passengers
Lived on Tallulah after the Builders.
ANIMALS
Tallulah wildlife
Shrimp-like animals straining microbes from the water, floating gas bladders with poisonous tentacles, and sinuous, muscular fish of every size among others.
VEHICLES
Mologhat 3
The probe for use in returning to the Amalgam.
PLOT
An Amalgam story.
Azar travels from her homeworld to the Tallulah system to explore this strange world with no sun. She is met there by Shelma, and together they explorer and finally make contact with the locals. A lizard-like people with their own political divisions, conservative, progressive explorers, and inward turning transhumanists.
The planet's technology allows extremely efficient conversion of energy, allowing it to stay warm without a star, and also the storage of those who leave their bodies to exist as information.
The conservative faction sees the arrival of aliens as a threat, and a precursor to a new wave of settling on the planet, and conflict erupts. One of their Spiral Out friends is taken hostage. They have to try and find a compromise to keep him safe, and allow those who want to make contact with the Amalgam to do so.
4 out of 5
Number of words : 20700
Percent of complex words : 12.9
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 15.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 11.5
Flesch : 59.2
Flesch-Kincaid : 9.0
PEOPLE
Azar
Traveller to Tallulah from the Amalgam.
Shelma
A Bahari who meets Azar at Tallulah.
Shirin
Azar's great-great-granddaughter.
Jake
Spiral Out follower.
Tilly
Spiral Out follower.
Juhi
Spiral Out follower.
Rahul
Spiral Out follower.
Omar
A progressive Circler.
Lisa
A Circler.
Silas
A Circler.
Judah
A Circler spokesman.
Tarek
A Circler.
Santo
A Spiral Out delegate to the Amalgam.
PLACES
Hanuz
Azar's home system.
Tallulah
The planet Azar travels to, a world with no sun over a thousand light years from her home.
Bahar
A nearby solar system to Hanuz. Their people have five limbs and five tails.
Jute
A Tallulah colony.
TECHNOLOGY
Departure Gate
The launching off point for travelling to the new system.
Mologhat 1 and 2
Robot Probes to Tallulah.
Antimatter store
Powers Robot Probes and other such space craft.
Thermocouple
A junction between two different metals that produces a voltage related to a temperature difference.
Rail gun
Device for accelerating a payload rapidly into orbit.
Femtotech
The engineering of matter on the scale of atomic nuclei.
Mass spectrometer
Machine for measuring chemical composition.
Hoops
Made of something extraordinarily strong, spinning at close to the speed of light. A power source on Tallulah.
Deep-bore geothermal turbines
Used for specialized research projects.
Scout mites
Exploration and communication tiny tech.
Photonic jet
Used for moving Tallulah.
Geothermal cannons
Used for moving Tallulah to allow evacuations.
Deep rock graft
Used for seeding other worlds.
ORGANISATIONS
Amalgam
The meta-civilization that now ringed the galaxy.
Circlers
A Tallulah philosophy of those that want to stay on the planet.
Spiral In
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers that want to leave their bodies and become information. They do so and embed their minds in the deep rock of the planet.
Spiral Out
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers want to leave the planet.
CONCEPTS
C3
A carbohydrate polymer replicator.
P2
A polypeptide replicator.
Thermoelectric diffusion
In a particular Tallulah plant the electrons and holes would conduct heat from the ground up into the leaves, and in doing so they'd set up an electric potential, which in turn could be used to drive chemical reactions.
Chemosynthesis
Process of extracting energy from chemicals a la photosynthesis.
N2
DNA, Azar's ancestral replicator.
N3
A hereditary replicator.
Magnetic moment
A quantity that determines the force the magnet can exert on electric currents and the torque that a magnetic field will exert on it.
Next Passengers
The group that will use Tallulah in the future.
PLANTS
Entropy tree
Operates on thermoelectric diffusion, a living thermocouple.
Ribbon weed
A Tallulah common plant, also comes in giant varieties.
RACES
P2 Lizards
The current inhabitants of Tallulah. Two eight-clawed limbs that they used for digging and grasping objects; all their motive force came from their powerful tails. They sensed the world around them with a mixture of IR vision and sonar.
Builders
Creators of Tallulah. The Ground Heaters.
Old Passengers
Lived on Tallulah after the Builders.
ANIMALS
Tallulah wildlife
Shrimp-like animals straining microbes from the water, floating gas bladders with poisonous tentacles, and sinuous, muscular fish of every size among others.
VEHICLES
Mologhat 3
The probe for use in returning to the Amalgam.
PLOT
An Amalgam story.
Azar travels from her homeworld to the Tallulah system to explore this strange world with no sun. She is met there by Shelma, and together they explorer and finally make contact with the locals. A lizard-like people with their own political divisions, conservative, progressive explorers, and inward turning transhumanists.
The planet's technology allows extremely efficient conversion of energy, allowing it to stay warm without a star, and also the storage of those who leave their bodies to exist as information.
The conservative faction sees the arrival of aliens as a threat, and a precursor to a new wave of settling on the planet, and conflict erupts. One of their Spiral Out friends is taken hostage. They have to try and find a compromise to keep him safe, and allow those who want to make contact with the Amalgam to do so.
4 out of 5
Tallulah wildlife : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
Shrimp-like animals straining microbes from the water, floating gas bladders with poisonous tentacles, and sinuous, muscular fish of every size among others.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
P2 Lizards : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
The current inhabitants of Tallulah. Two eight-clawed limbs that they used for digging and grasping objects; all their motive force came from their powerful tails. They sensed the world around them with a mixture of IR vision and sonar.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Ribbon weed : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
A Tallulah common plant, also comes in giant varieties.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Entropy tree : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
Operates on thermoelectric diffusion, a living thermocouple.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Magnetic moment : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
A quantity that determines the force the magnet can exert on electric currents and the torque that a magnetic field will exert on it.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Chemosynthesis : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
Process of extracting energy from chemicals a la photosynthesis.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Thermoelectric diffusion : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
In a particular Tallulah plant the electrons and holes would conduct heat from the ground up into the leaves, and in doing so they'd set up an electric potential, which in turn could be used to drive chemical reactions.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Spiral Out : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers want to leave the planet.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Spiral In : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
A Tallulah philosophy. Followers that want to leave their bodies and become information. They do so and embed their minds in the deep rock of the planet.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Circlers : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
A Tallulah philosophy of those that want to stay on the planet.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Deep-bore geothermal turbines : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
Used for specialized research projects.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Hoops : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
Made of something extraordinarily strong, spinning at close to the speed of light. A power source on Tallulah.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Thermocouple : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
A junction between two different metals that produces a voltage related to a temperature difference.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Departure Gate : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
The launching off point for travelling to the new system.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Bahar : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
A nearby solar system to Hanuz. Their people have five limbs and five tails.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Tallulah : Hot Rock - Greg Egan
The planet Azar travels to, a world with no sun over a thousand light years from her home.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Sunday, November 28, 2010
The Hundred Light-Year Diary : Greg Egan
Short Story
Number of words : 5500
Percent of complex words : 12.3
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 19.6
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 12.7
Flesch : 54.7
Flesch-Kincaid : 10.5
PEOPLE
James
A husband to be.
Alison
His wife to be.
Francis Chen
An astronomer who looked for time-reversed galaxies in space.
Hazzard and Capaldi and Wu
Astronomers who work on the hardware to communicate between future and past.
Pria
James and Alison's best man.
Lisa
A political staffer and mistress of James.
Henry Kissinger
A politician.
Maura
A politician.
PLACES
Kashmir
Disputed region between India and Pakistan where war breaks out in 2079.
ORGANISATIONS
Fulvio's
A restaurant on Martin Place.
St Vincent's
A hospital with a Casualty Department.
God Averts His Gaze
A cult with the political balance of power in 2077.
TECHNOLOGY
Hazzard Machines
Allows transmissions of messages from the future, 128 bytes per person per day.
ROMs
Digital information discs.
CONCEPTS
Shunting
Fictional theory that you can avoid something preordained communicated from the future.
PLOT
Astronomers discover that time reverses with the contraction of the universe. This allows the construction of machines that allow people's past and future selves to communicate - the amount of which is limited by bandwidth, and, of course, government desires on what people should actually know when it comes to wars. People of course cannot be made to communicate with their past selves, and a mistress of James desire to not do so, her pragmatism and political job and some conversations leads him to some terrifying realisations about what is going on.
3.5 out of 5
Number of words : 5500
Percent of complex words : 12.3
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 19.6
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 12.7
Flesch : 54.7
Flesch-Kincaid : 10.5
PEOPLE
James
A husband to be.
Alison
His wife to be.
Francis Chen
An astronomer who looked for time-reversed galaxies in space.
Hazzard and Capaldi and Wu
Astronomers who work on the hardware to communicate between future and past.
Pria
James and Alison's best man.
Lisa
A political staffer and mistress of James.
Henry Kissinger
A politician.
Maura
A politician.
PLACES
Kashmir
Disputed region between India and Pakistan where war breaks out in 2079.
ORGANISATIONS
Fulvio's
A restaurant on Martin Place.
St Vincent's
A hospital with a Casualty Department.
God Averts His Gaze
A cult with the political balance of power in 2077.
TECHNOLOGY
Hazzard Machines
Allows transmissions of messages from the future, 128 bytes per person per day.
ROMs
Digital information discs.
CONCEPTS
Shunting
Fictional theory that you can avoid something preordained communicated from the future.
PLOT
Astronomers discover that time reverses with the contraction of the universe. This allows the construction of machines that allow people's past and future selves to communicate - the amount of which is limited by bandwidth, and, of course, government desires on what people should actually know when it comes to wars. People of course cannot be made to communicate with their past selves, and a mistress of James desire to not do so, her pragmatism and political job and some conversations leads him to some terrifying realisations about what is going on.
3.5 out of 5
Shunting : The Hundred Light-Year Diary : Greg Egan
Fictional theory that you can avoid something preordained communicated from the future.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Hazzard Machines : The Hundred Light-Year Diary : Greg Egan
Allows transmissions of messages from the future, 128 bytes per person per day.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
God Averts His Gaze : The Hundred Light-Year Diary : Greg Egan
A cult with the political balance of power in 2077.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
St Vincent's : The Hundred Light-Year Diary : Greg Egan
A hospital with a Casualty Department.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Kashmir : The Hundred Light-Year Diary : Greg Egan
Disputed region between India and Pakistan where war breaks out in 2079.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Lisa : The Hundred Light-Year Diary : Greg Egan
A political staffer and mistress of James.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Hazzard and Capaldi and Wu : The Hundred Light-Year Diary : Greg Egan
Astronomers who work on the hardware to communicate between future and past.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Francis Chen : The Hundred Light-Year Diary : Greg Egan
An astronomer who looked for time-reversed galaxies in space.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Glory - Greg Egan
Novelette
Number of words : 10300
Percent of complex words : 12.7
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 23.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 14.6
Flesch : 51.4
Flesch-Kincaid : 12.0
PEOPLE
Joan
Amalgam Xenomathematican traveller in matter-antimatter needleship as data.
Anne
Amalgman traveller in matter-antimatter needleship as data.
Pirit
A Ghahari researcher.
Sando
The senior Noudah archaeologist.
Surat
One of the Noudah archaeologists.
Rali
One of the Noudah archaeologists.
Halzoun
A Noudah mathematician supervisor. Also a tedious spook type.
Jaqad
An academic archaeologist who is well connected in Tira.
Daya
A Noudah.
TECHNOLOGY
Antihydrogen
Antimatter equivalent of the hydrogen element.
Antiprotons
Antimatter equivalent of the proton.
Antineutrons
Antimatter equivalent of the neutron.
Gamma ray lasers
Used for making antimatter/matter spaceships.
Fullerene
A particular form or carbon.
Nanomachines
Very small builder robots.
CONCEPTS
Quantum Zeno effect
Keeps the decay in check to allow the antimatter process to work.
Chromatophores
Change the colours of a Noudah's skin.
Hypercube
A cube of greater than three dimensions.
The Big Crunch
A Niah desire for the unification of every field of mathematics that they considered significant.
Glory
The particles of fog were scattering the sunlight back, toward them, turning it one hundred and eighty degrees, causing a visible halo effect. Also: every black hole had its glory, twisting light around it in a tight, close orbit and flinging it back out again.
Quark-gluon plasma
A hot soup of elementary particles.
Baryon decay process
Doesn't exist.
Spreaders
Expansionist races.
Seekers
Races that look knowledge and insight from the world around it rather than expanding after money and power.
Sheath fluid
Bodily substance of a Noudah.
RACES
Noudah
People of the planet Joan and Anne visit.
Niah
An ancient Noudah people.
VEHICLES
Matter-antimatter needleship
Capable of extreme speeds and carrying passengers as information.
Small fusion-powered spacecraft
Vehicles built by the traveller's nanomachines to fit Noudah-level technology.
ORGANISATIONS
Amalgam
The metacivilization that spanned the galactic disk.
PLACES
Baneth
The gas giant's moon in the Noudah home system.
Tira
A dominant Noudah nation.
Ghahar
The other dominant Noudah nation.
The Cataract
A black hole remote partner to the Noudah's sun. Orbiting each other at a distance of about eighty billion kilometers.
MEDIA
Seekers and Spreaders: What We Must Learn from the Niah
An article in a Tiran journal.
PLOT
The Amalgman sends two scientists as information in a tiny ship to the Noudah homeworld. They want to study the ancient Niah mathematics, a race that lasted for three million years, but whose ancient artifact sites are in imminent peril.
After convincing the locals that they are aliens, Joan and Anne are each taken to one of the dominant Noudah nations. This splitting up leads to paranoia as each country worries the other has forced the aliens to spill their tech secrets. Violence erupts and Anne is a victim as she tries to get the information back to the Amalgam via a black hole trick. Joan will not let herself be used, either, and she can instantly turn off her Noudah body if she desires.
4.5 out of 5
http://outofthiseos.typepad.com/blog/files/GregEganGlory.pdf
Number of words : 10300
Percent of complex words : 12.7
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 23.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 14.6
Flesch : 51.4
Flesch-Kincaid : 12.0
PEOPLE
Joan
Amalgam Xenomathematican traveller in matter-antimatter needleship as data.
Anne
Amalgman traveller in matter-antimatter needleship as data.
Pirit
A Ghahari researcher.
Sando
The senior Noudah archaeologist.
Surat
One of the Noudah archaeologists.
Rali
One of the Noudah archaeologists.
Halzoun
A Noudah mathematician supervisor. Also a tedious spook type.
Jaqad
An academic archaeologist who is well connected in Tira.
Daya
A Noudah.
TECHNOLOGY
Antihydrogen
Antimatter equivalent of the hydrogen element.
Antiprotons
Antimatter equivalent of the proton.
Antineutrons
Antimatter equivalent of the neutron.
Gamma ray lasers
Used for making antimatter/matter spaceships.
Fullerene
A particular form or carbon.
Nanomachines
Very small builder robots.
CONCEPTS
Quantum Zeno effect
Keeps the decay in check to allow the antimatter process to work.
Chromatophores
Change the colours of a Noudah's skin.
Hypercube
A cube of greater than three dimensions.
The Big Crunch
A Niah desire for the unification of every field of mathematics that they considered significant.
Glory
The particles of fog were scattering the sunlight back, toward them, turning it one hundred and eighty degrees, causing a visible halo effect. Also: every black hole had its glory, twisting light around it in a tight, close orbit and flinging it back out again.
Quark-gluon plasma
A hot soup of elementary particles.
Baryon decay process
Doesn't exist.
Spreaders
Expansionist races.
Seekers
Races that look knowledge and insight from the world around it rather than expanding after money and power.
Sheath fluid
Bodily substance of a Noudah.
RACES
Noudah
People of the planet Joan and Anne visit.
Niah
An ancient Noudah people.
VEHICLES
Matter-antimatter needleship
Capable of extreme speeds and carrying passengers as information.
Small fusion-powered spacecraft
Vehicles built by the traveller's nanomachines to fit Noudah-level technology.
ORGANISATIONS
Amalgam
The metacivilization that spanned the galactic disk.
PLACES
Baneth
The gas giant's moon in the Noudah home system.
Tira
A dominant Noudah nation.
Ghahar
The other dominant Noudah nation.
The Cataract
A black hole remote partner to the Noudah's sun. Orbiting each other at a distance of about eighty billion kilometers.
MEDIA
Seekers and Spreaders: What We Must Learn from the Niah
An article in a Tiran journal.
PLOT
The Amalgman sends two scientists as information in a tiny ship to the Noudah homeworld. They want to study the ancient Niah mathematics, a race that lasted for three million years, but whose ancient artifact sites are in imminent peril.
After convincing the locals that they are aliens, Joan and Anne are each taken to one of the dominant Noudah nations. This splitting up leads to paranoia as each country worries the other has forced the aliens to spill their tech secrets. Violence erupts and Anne is a victim as she tries to get the information back to the Amalgam via a black hole trick. Joan will not let herself be used, either, and she can instantly turn off her Noudah body if she desires.
4.5 out of 5
http://outofthiseos.typepad.com/blog/files/GregEganGlory.pdf
Seekers and Spreaders: What We Must Learn from the Niah : Glory - Greg Egan
An article in a Tiran journal.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
The Cataract : Glory - Greg Egan
A black hole remote partner to the Noudah's sun. Orbiting each other at a distance of about eighty billion kilometers.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Small fusion-powered spacecraft : Glory - Greg Egan
Vehicles built by the traveller's nanomachines to fit Noudah-level technology.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Matter-antimatter needleship : Glory - Greg Egan
Capable of extreme speeds and carrying passengers as information.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Seekers : Glory - Greg Egan
Races that look knowledge and insight from the world around it rather than expanding after money and power.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Glory : Glory - Greg Egan
The particles of fog were scattering the sunlight back, toward them, turning it one hundred and eighty degrees, causing a visible halo effect. Also: every black hole had its glory, twisting light around it in a tight, close orbit and flinging it back out again.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
The Big Crunch : Glory - Greg Egan
A Niah desire for the unification of every field of mathematics that they considered significant.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Quantum Zeno effect : Glory - Greg Egan
Keeps the decay in check to allow the antimatter process to work.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Joan : Glory - Greg Egan
Amalgam Xenomathematican traveller in matter-antimatter needleship as data.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
The Extra - Greg Egan
Short Story
Number of words : 6300
Percent of complex words : 13.3
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 23.3
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 14.6
Flesch : 49.2
Flesch-Kincaid : 12.2
PEOPLE
Daniel Gray
A wealthy man with Extras.
Sarah Brash
Owner of Continental Bio-Logic, and a recent former lover of Daniel's. She has a child by one of his Extras.
C7
The Extra Daniel and Sarah used for sex.
D12
The Extra Daniel chooses for a brain transplant.
TECHNOLOGY
Extras
Congenitally brain-damaged clones of oneself for organ replacement or brain transplant.
CONCEPTS
Batch D
Gray's most recent group of Extras.
PLOT
Daniel and Sarah are billionaires with enough money to have clones of themselves grown to use in keeping themselves healthy and alive. The clones retain some sex drive, and one night they include C7 in a bondage threesome. Sarah gets pregnant by the Extra, and sues Daniel for paternity payments.
Daniel, to try and one-up Sarah on the PR front decides to undergo a brain transplan to his Extra D12. However, he wakes up as his old self in his old body - so what state is the Extra in? There would appear to be two versions of Daniel Gray now, given how the younger D12 body was talking to the doctors.
4 out of 5
http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra&pagetitle=The+Extra§ion=fiction
Number of words : 6300
Percent of complex words : 13.3
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 23.3
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 14.6
Flesch : 49.2
Flesch-Kincaid : 12.2
PEOPLE
Daniel Gray
A wealthy man with Extras.
Sarah Brash
Owner of Continental Bio-Logic, and a recent former lover of Daniel's. She has a child by one of his Extras.
C7
The Extra Daniel and Sarah used for sex.
D12
The Extra Daniel chooses for a brain transplant.
TECHNOLOGY
Extras
Congenitally brain-damaged clones of oneself for organ replacement or brain transplant.
CONCEPTS
Batch D
Gray's most recent group of Extras.
PLOT
Daniel and Sarah are billionaires with enough money to have clones of themselves grown to use in keeping themselves healthy and alive. The clones retain some sex drive, and one night they include C7 in a bondage threesome. Sarah gets pregnant by the Extra, and sues Daniel for paternity payments.
Daniel, to try and one-up Sarah on the PR front decides to undergo a brain transplan to his Extra D12. However, he wakes up as his old self in his old body - so what state is the Extra in? There would appear to be two versions of Daniel Gray now, given how the younger D12 body was talking to the doctors.
4 out of 5
http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra&pagetitle=The+Extra§ion=fiction
Extras : The Extra - Greg Egan
Congenitally brain-damaged clones of oneself for organ replacement or brain transplant.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Sarah Brash : The Extra - Greg Egan
Owner of Continental Bio-Logic, and a recent former lover of Daniel's. She has a child by one of his Extras.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Friday, November 26, 2010
Eugene - Greg Egan
Short Story
Number of words : 5500
Percent of complex words : 15.7
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 20.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 14.6
Flesch : 48.7
Flesch-Kincaid : 11.6
PEOPLE
Angela Cooper
Lottery millionaire mother who wants an enhanced son.
Bill Cooper
Lottery millionaire father who wants an enhanced son.
Sam Cook
MB BS MD FRACP PhD MBA. A reproductive specialist.
Elvis Presley
An early rock singer.
Eugene
Bill and Angela's future child.
Kant
A philosopher.
Beethoven
A composer.
TECHNOLOGY
Perspex
A transparent thermoplastic.
IVF
In-vitro fertilisation.
ORGANISATIONS
Human Potential
A genetic engineering company.
Department of Social Security
Australian government department.
Department of Defence
Australian government department.
PLACES
Melbourne
Capital of Victoria.
Alice Springs
City in the Northern Territory.
CONCEPTS
Neo-blacks
People who have taken a viral treatment to turn their skin black and make it more resistant to skin cancer and radiation given the ozone depletion.
Muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease
Genetic conditions Human Potential can eliminate.
TPGM
Third-party genetic material.
Grand Unified Field Theory
Merged interaction of the fundamental forces.
VEHICLES
Roll-Royces
Expensive cars.
MEDIA
Van Goghs
Old paintings.
PLOT
Bill and Angela meet and decide they are compatible, so do the usual thing. After winning the lottery they decide to have a child that has undergone gene therapy.
The act and possibility of doing so with so many millions behind it earns them a visit from the future-possible avatar of the child - who doesn't see any point in his existence as they desired it, tells them this briefly, empties their banks accounts, and vanishes.
The three people involved go back to their lives.
4 out of 5
Number of words : 5500
Percent of complex words : 15.7
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 20.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 14.6
Flesch : 48.7
Flesch-Kincaid : 11.6
PEOPLE
Angela Cooper
Lottery millionaire mother who wants an enhanced son.
Bill Cooper
Lottery millionaire father who wants an enhanced son.
Sam Cook
MB BS MD FRACP PhD MBA. A reproductive specialist.
Elvis Presley
An early rock singer.
Eugene
Bill and Angela's future child.
Kant
A philosopher.
Beethoven
A composer.
TECHNOLOGY
Perspex
A transparent thermoplastic.
IVF
In-vitro fertilisation.
ORGANISATIONS
Human Potential
A genetic engineering company.
Department of Social Security
Australian government department.
Department of Defence
Australian government department.
PLACES
Melbourne
Capital of Victoria.
Alice Springs
City in the Northern Territory.
CONCEPTS
Neo-blacks
People who have taken a viral treatment to turn their skin black and make it more resistant to skin cancer and radiation given the ozone depletion.
Muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease
Genetic conditions Human Potential can eliminate.
TPGM
Third-party genetic material.
Grand Unified Field Theory
Merged interaction of the fundamental forces.
VEHICLES
Roll-Royces
Expensive cars.
MEDIA
Van Goghs
Old paintings.
PLOT
Bill and Angela meet and decide they are compatible, so do the usual thing. After winning the lottery they decide to have a child that has undergone gene therapy.
The act and possibility of doing so with so many millions behind it earns them a visit from the future-possible avatar of the child - who doesn't see any point in his existence as they desired it, tells them this briefly, empties their banks accounts, and vanishes.
The three people involved go back to their lives.
4 out of 5
Grand Unified Field Theory : Eugene - Greg Egan
Merged interaction of the fundamental forces.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease : Eugene - Greg Egan
Genetic conditions Human Potential can eliminate.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Neo-blacks : Eugene - Greg Egan
People who have taken a viral treatment to turn their skin black and make it more resistant to skin cancer and radiation given the ozone depletion.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Dust - Greg Egan
Novelette
Number of words : 12300
Percent of complex words : 12.7
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 12.3
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 10.0
Flesch : 58.3
Flesch-Kincaid : 8.2
PEOPLE
Paul Durham
Experimenter with Copies of himself.
Dali and Giger
Painters and artists.
Martin Sandover
Former US President and crook.
Tsang Chao and Michael Nyman and Philip Glass
Composers.
Elizabeth
Paul's girlfriend.
Cleopatra or Ramses II
Ancient Egyptian rulers.
Rembrandt and Picasso
Painters and artists.
TECHNOLOGY
Copy
Computer representation of a human created by scanning their brain.
Telepresence
Remote operation of robots.
CONCEPTS
Strong AI Hypothesis
Declares that consciousness is a property of certain algorithms, independent of their implementation.
Gaia
Earth deity.
MEDIA
Principia
A mathematical tome.
Mishima
A Glass composition.
David
A statue by Michaelangelo.
PLACES
Canberra
Capital of Australia.
Sydney
Capital of NSW.
New York
American city.
ORGANISATIONS
Hitachi Supercomputer Facility
In Tokyo. One of the processors Durham uses in his experiments.
PLOT
Paul Durham is creating copies of himself by brain scanning to see if running them via massively distributed processing results in something equivalent to reality. And it doesn't matter where they are run, geographically. Being programs, they can also be run at varying speeds. The Dust Theory.
His girlfriend Elizabeth doesn't like what he is doing, and suggests if he is going to inflict this on Copies, he should undergo it himself, and she helps him set things up so that he thinks he is a copy in a simulation.
5 out of 5
Number of words : 12300
Percent of complex words : 12.7
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 12.3
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 10.0
Flesch : 58.3
Flesch-Kincaid : 8.2
PEOPLE
Paul Durham
Experimenter with Copies of himself.
Dali and Giger
Painters and artists.
Martin Sandover
Former US President and crook.
Tsang Chao and Michael Nyman and Philip Glass
Composers.
Elizabeth
Paul's girlfriend.
Cleopatra or Ramses II
Ancient Egyptian rulers.
Rembrandt and Picasso
Painters and artists.
TECHNOLOGY
Copy
Computer representation of a human created by scanning their brain.
Telepresence
Remote operation of robots.
CONCEPTS
Strong AI Hypothesis
Declares that consciousness is a property of certain algorithms, independent of their implementation.
Gaia
Earth deity.
MEDIA
Principia
A mathematical tome.
Mishima
A Glass composition.
David
A statue by Michaelangelo.
PLACES
Canberra
Capital of Australia.
Sydney
Capital of NSW.
New York
American city.
ORGANISATIONS
Hitachi Supercomputer Facility
In Tokyo. One of the processors Durham uses in his experiments.
PLOT
Paul Durham is creating copies of himself by brain scanning to see if running them via massively distributed processing results in something equivalent to reality. And it doesn't matter where they are run, geographically. Being programs, they can also be run at varying speeds. The Dust Theory.
His girlfriend Elizabeth doesn't like what he is doing, and suggests if he is going to inflict this on Copies, he should undergo it himself, and she helps him set things up so that he thinks he is a copy in a simulation.
5 out of 5
Hitachi Supercomputer Facility : Dust - Greg Egan
In Tokyo. One of the processors Durham uses in his experiments.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Strong AI Hypothesis : Dust - Greg Egan
Declares that consciousness is a property of certain algorithms, independent of their implementation.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Copy : Dust - Greg Egan
Computer representation of a human created by scanning their brain.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
The Demon's Passage - Greg Egan
Short Story
Number of words : 6000
Percent of complex words : 11.4
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 15.5
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 10.7
Flesch : 60.9
Flesch-Kincaid : 8.6
PEOPLE
Demon
The first intelligent tumour.
Chief Oncologist
Head of the department working on the tumour.
Billy
A tumour also known as Spinecrusher.
VEHICLES
Shuttle
The space shuttle.
PLACES
Surry Hills
Suburb in Sydney where the Australian Biotech Playground is located.
King's Cross
Haunt of prostitutes in Sydney.
Belsen
A concentration camp.
Brussels
City in Belgium.
Wellington
City in New Zealand.
Cairns
City in Queensland.
ORGANISATIONS
Australian Biotech Playground
A skyscraper that holds many and varied research facilities with a shopping arcade on the ground floor. Floors two to ten hold consulting rooms: neurologists, endocrinologists, gynaecologists, rheumatologists. Floors eleven to eighteen house a wide range of pathology labs. Nineteen to twenty-five are filled with the offices of pharmaceuticals and medical instrumentation firms. Twenty-six to thirty hold libraries, conference rooms, and row after row of
quiet offices. Thirty-one to forty is administration and marketing. On top of that is a simulated Viennese cafe which revolves. Underneath the shoppers are five levels of research labs: flow cytometry, mass spectrometry,
X-ray crystallography, high performance liquid chromatography. Nuclear magnetic
resonance. There's a level of cold-rooms and freezers. There's a level of equipment stores, and another for chemicals. Second-lowest is where they keep the computers. Four of them, big as elephants. And underneath them all is the animal house.
CONCEPTS
Doppler effect
Change in frequency of a wave relative to a moving body.
Marquat-Levenberg algorithm
A numerical method for minimising a function.
Parkinson's disease
A degenerative neurological condition.
Dopamine
A neurotransmitter.
MIPS
Millions of instructions per second for a computer.
MEDIA
Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare
Television doctor characters.
PLOT
Research at the Australian Biotech Playground has come up with an advanced tumour - feeding it rats and rabbits for growth it appears it has become intelligent. A sardonic tour of the facility is constructed for the reader by the tumour, suggesting that the operations there perhaps may be a tad unethical. They are doing tumour research to look into using controlled cancers as producers of other substances people may lack and to treat other conditions. However, an intelligent being may question their own worth and whether it and its telepathic powers should live.
3.5 out of 5
http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Demons%20Passage&pagetitle=The+Demon's+Passage§ion=fiction
Number of words : 6000
Percent of complex words : 11.4
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 15.5
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 10.7
Flesch : 60.9
Flesch-Kincaid : 8.6
PEOPLE
Demon
The first intelligent tumour.
Chief Oncologist
Head of the department working on the tumour.
Billy
A tumour also known as Spinecrusher.
VEHICLES
Shuttle
The space shuttle.
PLACES
Surry Hills
Suburb in Sydney where the Australian Biotech Playground is located.
King's Cross
Haunt of prostitutes in Sydney.
Belsen
A concentration camp.
Brussels
City in Belgium.
Wellington
City in New Zealand.
Cairns
City in Queensland.
ORGANISATIONS
Australian Biotech Playground
A skyscraper that holds many and varied research facilities with a shopping arcade on the ground floor. Floors two to ten hold consulting rooms: neurologists, endocrinologists, gynaecologists, rheumatologists. Floors eleven to eighteen house a wide range of pathology labs. Nineteen to twenty-five are filled with the offices of pharmaceuticals and medical instrumentation firms. Twenty-six to thirty hold libraries, conference rooms, and row after row of
quiet offices. Thirty-one to forty is administration and marketing. On top of that is a simulated Viennese cafe which revolves. Underneath the shoppers are five levels of research labs: flow cytometry, mass spectrometry,
X-ray crystallography, high performance liquid chromatography. Nuclear magnetic
resonance. There's a level of cold-rooms and freezers. There's a level of equipment stores, and another for chemicals. Second-lowest is where they keep the computers. Four of them, big as elephants. And underneath them all is the animal house.
CONCEPTS
Doppler effect
Change in frequency of a wave relative to a moving body.
Marquat-Levenberg algorithm
A numerical method for minimising a function.
Parkinson's disease
A degenerative neurological condition.
Dopamine
A neurotransmitter.
MIPS
Millions of instructions per second for a computer.
MEDIA
Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare
Television doctor characters.
PLOT
Research at the Australian Biotech Playground has come up with an advanced tumour - feeding it rats and rabbits for growth it appears it has become intelligent. A sardonic tour of the facility is constructed for the reader by the tumour, suggesting that the operations there perhaps may be a tad unethical. They are doing tumour research to look into using controlled cancers as producers of other substances people may lack and to treat other conditions. However, an intelligent being may question their own worth and whether it and its telepathic powers should live.
3.5 out of 5
http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Demons%20Passage&pagetitle=The+Demon's+Passage§ion=fiction
MIPS : The Demon's Passage - Greg Egan
Millions of instructions per second for a computer.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Parkinson's disease : The Demon's Passage - Greg Egan
A degenerative neurological condition.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Marquat-Levenberg algorithm : The Demon's Passage - Greg Egan
A numerical method for minimising a function.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Doppler effect : The Demon's Passage - Greg Egan
Change in frequency of a wave relative to a moving body.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Australian Biotech Playground : The Demon's Passage - Greg Egan
A skyscraper that holds many and varied research facilities with a shopping arcade on the ground floor. Floors two to ten hold consulting rooms: neurologists, endocrinologists, gynaecologists, rheumatologists. Floors eleven to eighteen house a wide range of pathology labs. Nineteen to twenty-five are filled with the offices of pharmaceuticals and medical instrumentation firms. Twenty-six to thirty hold libraries, conference rooms, and row after row of
quiet offices. Thirty-one to forty is administration and marketing. On top of that is a simulated Viennese cafe which revolves. Underneath the shoppers are five levels of research labs: flow cytometry, mass spectrometry,
X-ray crystallography, high performance liquid chromatography. Nuclear magnetic
resonance. There's a level of cold-rooms and freezers. There's a level of equipment stores, and another for chemicals. Second-lowest is where they keep the computers. Four of them, big as elephants. And underneath them all is the animal house.
4 out of 5
quiet offices. Thirty-one to forty is administration and marketing. On top of that is a simulated Viennese cafe which revolves. Underneath the shoppers are five levels of research labs: flow cytometry, mass spectrometry,
X-ray crystallography, high performance liquid chromatography. Nuclear magnetic
resonance. There's a level of cold-rooms and freezers. There's a level of equipment stores, and another for chemicals. Second-lowest is where they keep the computers. Four of them, big as elephants. And underneath them all is the animal house.
4 out of 5
Surry Hills : The Demon's Passage - Greg Egan
Suburb in Sydney where the Australian Biotech Playground is located.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Chief Oncologist : The Demon's Passage - Greg Egan
Head of the department working on the tumour.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Zendegi - Greg Egan
Novel
Number of words : 110000
Percent of complex words : 11.1
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 24.1
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 14.1
Flesch : 53.5
Flesch-Kincaid : 11.8
PEOPLE
Martin Seymour
An Australian foreign correspondent who gets an assignment in Tehran and ends up staying.
Nasim Golestani
An Iranian computer researcher in the USA who returns home after political changes. Also a cousin of Mahnoosh.
Javeed Seymour
Martin's young son.
Alice
A friend of Martin's.
Annie Lennox
Singer for the Eurythmics.
Liz
Martin's ex.
Peter Cook
A comedian and actor.
Haroun
A passenger on a flight who gives Martin music software advice.
Dariush Ansari
Founder of Hezb-e-Haalaa. Is killed.
Omar
Martin's neighbour and friend who will care for his son.
Hassan Jabari
A high-ranking Iranian jurist and politician who gets caught with a trans prostitute. Member of the Guardian Council.
Shoukouh
The trans prostitute whom Martin and Omar help.
Shah
A former ruler of Iran.
Ayatollah Khomeini
A former ruler of Iran.
Behrouz
Martin's fellow journalist, a local.
Kambiz
A student Martin met in the run-up to the election.
Zahra Amin
A reporter from the reformist weekly Emkaanha.
Fariba
A Tehran University student Martin interviews during a demonstration.
Majid
An accounting student demonstrator.
Jane Frampton
A science journalist and author of The Sociobiology of The Simpsons and The Metaphysics of Melrose Place.
Nate Caplan
A brilliant entrepreneur who approaches Nasim - fancies living forever via technology.
Professor John Redland
Faculty on the HCP.
Christopher
IT Tech support for the HCP.
Judith
Co-worker of Nasim's.
Mike
Co-worker of Nasim's. Recently dumped his girlfriend.
Shen
Co-worker of Nasim's.
Melville
An American author.
Proust
A French author.
Dinesh
A co-worker of Nasim's who comes up with HETE.
Sandra Knight
A foreign correspondent.
Mahnoosh
A march organiser who gives Martin information and later becomes his wife.
Rana
Omar's wife.
Mohsen
Rana's father-in-law.
Farshid
Rana and Omar's son.
Zachary Churchland
An octogenarian oil billionaire who had raised the possibility of funding his own brain-mapping project. Also fancies living forever via technology.
William S. Burroughs
An author.
Congressman Fitzwaller
Chairman of the Select Committee dealing with the HCP.
Kourosh Ansari
Brother of Dariush. Becomes President.
Mossadegh
An Iranian prime minister ousted by Churchill and Eisenhower and the CIA.
Karim
A young man who’d spotted Martin taking pictures near Abadan.
Nasim's mother
Left Iran when her husband was executed. Writes a book called After Oil and is headhunted by Kourosh Ansari as an adviser for the new Iran.
Donald Rumsfeld
Dodgy American politician.
Vin Diesel
An actor making a comeback The Chronicles of Kulos, to be shot in the Negev.
Robert Smith
Singer for The Cure.
Bahador
Nasim's chief engineer at Zendegi.
Nahid
Rana's mother-in-law.
Azimi
Iranian football captain and ex-player for Hoffenheim. Mapped as software for a Zendegi game as Virtual Azimi.
Gita Razavi
A critic for Generation 2012.
Michelle Bello
PR for the BSBSP.
Conrad Esch
Director for the BSBSP.
Farah, Chalipa, Asa and Azita
Women used in Nasim's Blank Fariba proxy testing.
Mark and Rachel
Australians who came to Martin's wedding.
Hojatoleslam Shahidi
An anti-AI cleric.
Dr Jobrani
Treats Martin's cancer.
Tim Ritchie
A 1980s 2JJJ presenter.
Reza
Man who buys Martin's shop on Enqelab Avenue to turn into a gym.
Solzhenitsyn
Russian author.
Dr Zahedi
Helps with the Martin proxy recording.
Jafar Falaki
Of Falaki Associates. Looks into the Zendegi security breach.
Arif Bahrani
A tech worker with Zendegi.
Milad
A Zendegi programmer.
Hamid
Nasim's ex-husband.
Bernard
Helped Martin with the scanning, planning on staying in Iran.
Rollo
The CHL hacker who meets with Nasim.
Ali and Zahra
A murdered Afghan family Martin knew in Bamyam Province.
MEDIA
Devo
A band.
The Residents
A band.
The Virgin Prunes
A band.
Elvis Costello
A singer and guitarist.
The Smiths
A band.
Eurythmics
A band.
Touch
A Eurythmics album.
Talking Heads
A band.
The Cure
A band.
The Pretenders
A band.
Paul Kelly
An Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist.
St Kilda to King's Cross
A Paul Kelly Song.
To Her Door
A Paul Kelly song about a break-up and reconciliation.
You Can't Take It With You
A Paul Kelly Song.
The Slave Girl and the Caliph
A story in Arabic.
Saturday Night Live
An American weekly comedy tv show.
Al Jazeera
Arab news channel.
IRIB
Iranian broadcaster.
You Can't Hurry Love
Song covered by Phil Collins.
Run Run Run
Hunters and Collectors song.
Dancing Queen
An ABBA song.
Hunters and Collectors
An Australian band.
Rusholme Ruffians
A Smiths song.
Teddy Bear
An Elvis Presley song.
Enter Sandman
A Metallica song.
LOLCat Diaries
A movie.
The Moor's Last Sigh
A Salman Rushdie novel.
U2
A band.
Shahnameh
A thousand year old Persian epic, popular in Zendegi. Martin and Javeed play this.
Murder in Manolos
A gossipy VR whodunnit set among North Tehran’s Mall Princess cliques.
Midnight Oil
An Australian band.
Carry Me
A Hunters and Collectors song.
Jailhouse Rock
A song covered by The Residents.
The Grapes of Wrath, Animal Farm, Catch-22, and Slaughterhouse-Five
Novels Martin chooses to keep dead tree versions of for his son as he sells his shop.
The Diary of Anne Frank, Down and Out in Paris and London, and The Gulag Archipelago
Non-fiction Martin chooses to keep dead tree versions of for his son as he sells his shop.
Harmony
A VR SF soap opera game.
Minions of Eblis
A Zendegi game.
Bedazzled
A Peter Cook deal with the devil movie.
TECHNOLOGY
Audacity
Open source sound editing software.
Groundhog Cage
Software Alice constructed that made thirty-day free-trial software think it was always on the first day of the trial.
Shalwar kameez
Iranian garment.
HCP
Human Connectome Project. A brain mapping project that Nasim worked on.
AcTach
A reality-mining plug-in that learns about academic networking using physical proximity, along with email and calling patterns.
Tinkle
A femtoblogging service going through a beta trial.
Murmur
A lower-level platform that Tinkle and AcTach run on.
Lichtman-Livet-Sanes ‘Brainbow’ technique
Making neurons that fluoresce.
ATLUM
An Automatic Tape-collecting Lathe Ultra Microtom. A brain peeler used for mapping the grey matter..
Human Excrement Treatment Ecosystems
The aim of the HETE project was to develop a whole portfolio of microbial communities that could render human waste safe in almost any situation, with an absolute minimum of labour and no expensive infrastructure.
Slightly Smart mobile phones
Can do mesh networking.
PowerFlirt and HookMeUp
Speed dating software that works via location of the person.
Zendegi
A mutiplayer online virtual reality that Nasim works for.
Cyber-ketab
An ebook reader.
Blank Frank
A new computer Proxy and AI Nasim works on using her old research, to make it more advanced and capable of better reactions.
Blank Fariba
As Blank Frank, but a female version.
Ghal'eha
VR stations people rent time on in shops.
Proxies
Computer generated characters in virtual reality.
ORGANISATIONS
Eikonometrics
Swiss company who want to see if they can classify images by flashing them on a monitor subliminally and looking at the viewer’s brain activity.
Hezb-e-Haalaa
Iranian political party. Literally the Party of Now.
Hezbollah
The ‘Party of God’.
Guardian Council
Fascist fundamentalist ruling body in Iran.
Majlis
Iranian political body.
VEVAK
The Iranian intelligence service.
Basijis
Iranian militia thugs.
Hungry Mind Cafe
Near the HCP.
House Select Committee
Group of US politicians that deal with a particular area of importance.
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
Used to control Abadan.
MEK
The Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the People’s Army of Iran - a nationalist group formed in opposition to the Shah.
Ministry of the Interior
Iranian government department.
Iranian-American Friendship Council
Nate Caplan donates to them to try and get Nasim on side.
Benign Superintelligence Bootstrap Project
Wants to start off an AI singularity.
Alcor
A cryonics company. Have Zachary Churchland's corpsicle.
People of the Book
Martin's bookshop.
Cyber-Jahan
Succesful major VR competitor of Zendegi's.
Happy Universe
Another VR provider.
Crowds and Power
Games effect subcontractor.
CHL
The Cis-Humanist League. Opposes the Zendegi AI research and hacks the environment.
FLOPS House
A computing service provider in Europe.
PLACES
Tehran
Capital of Iran.
Changi Airport
In Singapore.
Glebe
Suburb of Sydney.
Valiasr Street
One of Tehran's main thoroughfares.
Quetta
Pakistan city.
Ferdowsi Square
Site of an election demonstration in Tehran.
Shiraz
Site of a big demonstration in Iran while Nasim is in the US.
Jomhuri-ye-Eslami Avenue
A broad, elegant street, with a stately row of fountains where it met Baharestan Square in Tehran.
Cinema Europa and Cinema Hafez
In Tehran.
Saf Street
A protest march detour.
Sa'di Station
In Tehran.
Reagan Airport
In Washington DC.
Abadan
Ansari's birth town. Fifty kilometres inland from the Persian Gulf.
Arvand River
Renamed Shatt al-Arab when you crossed it. Goes to Southern Iran. Upstream is Basra.
Evin Prison
On the line where the northern suburbs of Tehran gave way, abruptly, to the Alborz Mountains.
Khavaran Cemetery
Where Behrouz's murdered brother was buried.
Section 240
A political wing of Evin prison.
Karbala
City in Iraq.
Kashmir
Indian-Pakistani region.
Bamyan
A province in Afghanistan.
Houston
US city and site of an anti-AI terrorist attack.
Kabul
Capital of Afghanistan.
CONCEPTS
Farsi
Persian language.
Dari
The Afghani dialect of Farsi.
Noruz
The Persian New Year.
Urdu
Pakistani muslim language.
Femtoblogging
Like microblogging, only snappier. It tells everyone in your network where you are and how you’re feeling, once a minute.
Thirty-Second Pitch
A thought game about selling yourself to a company with outlandish ideas.
Bioinformatics
The application of statistics and computer science to the field of molecular biology.
Sufi
A religion.
Muezzin
Person who leads the call to prayer at a mosque.
Velayat-e-faqih
Religious role of Iranian clerics as guardians of society.
Simorgh
Mythological giant bird with a dog's head.
Zal
An infant the Simorgh thinks looks tasty but decides to rear instead.
News Five Point Oh
Current iteration of journalism in the 2020s.
HigherTribe
Worse than News Five Point Oh.
Ta'arof
Ritual of gift giving and refusal.
Toman
A toman was ten Iranian rials. Five million tomans was about ten thousand US dollars.
ANIMALS
Zebra finch
A type of small bird. Lots of them used in the HCP.
FOOD
Ragout
A stew.
Khoresht sabzi
An Iranian fried meat and vegetable dish. http://www.iranchamber.com/recipes/meat/khoresht_qormeh_sabzi.php
PLOT
A simpler book for Egan.
This one follows two characters. Martin, an Australian journalist and foreign correspondent in Iran, and Nasim, an Iranian researcher studying artificial intelligence in the USA.
While Martin is there a conservative Iranian politician is caught with a tranvestite hooker. An even which becomes a trigger for protest and for the reformers to bring enough pressure to bear on the corrupt power-hungry regime of the mullahs to force elections and constitutional change.
It then skips forward in time to where Martin has married an Iranian woman he met during this time, and they have a son. Nasim moved back to help with the new Iran, along with her mother, and now works for a virtual reality MMO called Zendegi. She is also a cousin of Martin's wife.
Other organisations work towards superintelligent AI.
A breakthrough leads her to putting some of her old academic research to use in building proxy personalities for use in gaming. When Martin's wife is killed in a car accident, and he is diagnosed with serious liver cancer, he asks for Nasim's help in trying to build a proxy personality of him to help raise his son, who is still under double figures.
As the sophistication of these artificial personalities grows, so does opposition to them - on both religious and 'you will put a lot of us out of work' grounds.
4 out of 5
Number of words : 110000
Percent of complex words : 11.1
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 24.1
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 14.1
Flesch : 53.5
Flesch-Kincaid : 11.8
PEOPLE
Martin Seymour
An Australian foreign correspondent who gets an assignment in Tehran and ends up staying.
Nasim Golestani
An Iranian computer researcher in the USA who returns home after political changes. Also a cousin of Mahnoosh.
Javeed Seymour
Martin's young son.
Alice
A friend of Martin's.
Annie Lennox
Singer for the Eurythmics.
Liz
Martin's ex.
Peter Cook
A comedian and actor.
Haroun
A passenger on a flight who gives Martin music software advice.
Dariush Ansari
Founder of Hezb-e-Haalaa. Is killed.
Omar
Martin's neighbour and friend who will care for his son.
Hassan Jabari
A high-ranking Iranian jurist and politician who gets caught with a trans prostitute. Member of the Guardian Council.
Shoukouh
The trans prostitute whom Martin and Omar help.
Shah
A former ruler of Iran.
Ayatollah Khomeini
A former ruler of Iran.
Behrouz
Martin's fellow journalist, a local.
Kambiz
A student Martin met in the run-up to the election.
Zahra Amin
A reporter from the reformist weekly Emkaanha.
Fariba
A Tehran University student Martin interviews during a demonstration.
Majid
An accounting student demonstrator.
Jane Frampton
A science journalist and author of The Sociobiology of The Simpsons and The Metaphysics of Melrose Place.
Nate Caplan
A brilliant entrepreneur who approaches Nasim - fancies living forever via technology.
Professor John Redland
Faculty on the HCP.
Christopher
IT Tech support for the HCP.
Judith
Co-worker of Nasim's.
Mike
Co-worker of Nasim's. Recently dumped his girlfriend.
Shen
Co-worker of Nasim's.
Melville
An American author.
Proust
A French author.
Dinesh
A co-worker of Nasim's who comes up with HETE.
Sandra Knight
A foreign correspondent.
Mahnoosh
A march organiser who gives Martin information and later becomes his wife.
Rana
Omar's wife.
Mohsen
Rana's father-in-law.
Farshid
Rana and Omar's son.
Zachary Churchland
An octogenarian oil billionaire who had raised the possibility of funding his own brain-mapping project. Also fancies living forever via technology.
William S. Burroughs
An author.
Congressman Fitzwaller
Chairman of the Select Committee dealing with the HCP.
Kourosh Ansari
Brother of Dariush. Becomes President.
Mossadegh
An Iranian prime minister ousted by Churchill and Eisenhower and the CIA.
Karim
A young man who’d spotted Martin taking pictures near Abadan.
Nasim's mother
Left Iran when her husband was executed. Writes a book called After Oil and is headhunted by Kourosh Ansari as an adviser for the new Iran.
Donald Rumsfeld
Dodgy American politician.
Vin Diesel
An actor making a comeback The Chronicles of Kulos, to be shot in the Negev.
Robert Smith
Singer for The Cure.
Bahador
Nasim's chief engineer at Zendegi.
Nahid
Rana's mother-in-law.
Azimi
Iranian football captain and ex-player for Hoffenheim. Mapped as software for a Zendegi game as Virtual Azimi.
Gita Razavi
A critic for Generation 2012.
Michelle Bello
PR for the BSBSP.
Conrad Esch
Director for the BSBSP.
Farah, Chalipa, Asa and Azita
Women used in Nasim's Blank Fariba proxy testing.
Mark and Rachel
Australians who came to Martin's wedding.
Hojatoleslam Shahidi
An anti-AI cleric.
Dr Jobrani
Treats Martin's cancer.
Tim Ritchie
A 1980s 2JJJ presenter.
Reza
Man who buys Martin's shop on Enqelab Avenue to turn into a gym.
Solzhenitsyn
Russian author.
Dr Zahedi
Helps with the Martin proxy recording.
Jafar Falaki
Of Falaki Associates. Looks into the Zendegi security breach.
Arif Bahrani
A tech worker with Zendegi.
Milad
A Zendegi programmer.
Hamid
Nasim's ex-husband.
Bernard
Helped Martin with the scanning, planning on staying in Iran.
Rollo
The CHL hacker who meets with Nasim.
Ali and Zahra
A murdered Afghan family Martin knew in Bamyam Province.
MEDIA
Devo
A band.
The Residents
A band.
The Virgin Prunes
A band.
Elvis Costello
A singer and guitarist.
The Smiths
A band.
Eurythmics
A band.
Touch
A Eurythmics album.
Talking Heads
A band.
The Cure
A band.
The Pretenders
A band.
Paul Kelly
An Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist.
St Kilda to King's Cross
A Paul Kelly Song.
To Her Door
A Paul Kelly song about a break-up and reconciliation.
You Can't Take It With You
A Paul Kelly Song.
The Slave Girl and the Caliph
A story in Arabic.
Saturday Night Live
An American weekly comedy tv show.
Al Jazeera
Arab news channel.
IRIB
Iranian broadcaster.
You Can't Hurry Love
Song covered by Phil Collins.
Run Run Run
Hunters and Collectors song.
Dancing Queen
An ABBA song.
Hunters and Collectors
An Australian band.
Rusholme Ruffians
A Smiths song.
Teddy Bear
An Elvis Presley song.
Enter Sandman
A Metallica song.
LOLCat Diaries
A movie.
The Moor's Last Sigh
A Salman Rushdie novel.
U2
A band.
Shahnameh
A thousand year old Persian epic, popular in Zendegi. Martin and Javeed play this.
Murder in Manolos
A gossipy VR whodunnit set among North Tehran’s Mall Princess cliques.
Midnight Oil
An Australian band.
Carry Me
A Hunters and Collectors song.
Jailhouse Rock
A song covered by The Residents.
The Grapes of Wrath, Animal Farm, Catch-22, and Slaughterhouse-Five
Novels Martin chooses to keep dead tree versions of for his son as he sells his shop.
The Diary of Anne Frank, Down and Out in Paris and London, and The Gulag Archipelago
Non-fiction Martin chooses to keep dead tree versions of for his son as he sells his shop.
Harmony
A VR SF soap opera game.
Minions of Eblis
A Zendegi game.
Bedazzled
A Peter Cook deal with the devil movie.
TECHNOLOGY
Audacity
Open source sound editing software.
Groundhog Cage
Software Alice constructed that made thirty-day free-trial software think it was always on the first day of the trial.
Shalwar kameez
Iranian garment.
HCP
Human Connectome Project. A brain mapping project that Nasim worked on.
AcTach
A reality-mining plug-in that learns about academic networking using physical proximity, along with email and calling patterns.
Tinkle
A femtoblogging service going through a beta trial.
Murmur
A lower-level platform that Tinkle and AcTach run on.
Lichtman-Livet-Sanes ‘Brainbow’ technique
Making neurons that fluoresce.
ATLUM
An Automatic Tape-collecting Lathe Ultra Microtom. A brain peeler used for mapping the grey matter..
Human Excrement Treatment Ecosystems
The aim of the HETE project was to develop a whole portfolio of microbial communities that could render human waste safe in almost any situation, with an absolute minimum of labour and no expensive infrastructure.
Slightly Smart mobile phones
Can do mesh networking.
PowerFlirt and HookMeUp
Speed dating software that works via location of the person.
Zendegi
A mutiplayer online virtual reality that Nasim works for.
Cyber-ketab
An ebook reader.
Blank Frank
A new computer Proxy and AI Nasim works on using her old research, to make it more advanced and capable of better reactions.
Blank Fariba
As Blank Frank, but a female version.
Ghal'eha
VR stations people rent time on in shops.
Proxies
Computer generated characters in virtual reality.
ORGANISATIONS
Eikonometrics
Swiss company who want to see if they can classify images by flashing them on a monitor subliminally and looking at the viewer’s brain activity.
Hezb-e-Haalaa
Iranian political party. Literally the Party of Now.
Hezbollah
The ‘Party of God’.
Guardian Council
Fascist fundamentalist ruling body in Iran.
Majlis
Iranian political body.
VEVAK
The Iranian intelligence service.
Basijis
Iranian militia thugs.
Hungry Mind Cafe
Near the HCP.
House Select Committee
Group of US politicians that deal with a particular area of importance.
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
Used to control Abadan.
MEK
The Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the People’s Army of Iran - a nationalist group formed in opposition to the Shah.
Ministry of the Interior
Iranian government department.
Iranian-American Friendship Council
Nate Caplan donates to them to try and get Nasim on side.
Benign Superintelligence Bootstrap Project
Wants to start off an AI singularity.
Alcor
A cryonics company. Have Zachary Churchland's corpsicle.
People of the Book
Martin's bookshop.
Cyber-Jahan
Succesful major VR competitor of Zendegi's.
Happy Universe
Another VR provider.
Crowds and Power
Games effect subcontractor.
CHL
The Cis-Humanist League. Opposes the Zendegi AI research and hacks the environment.
FLOPS House
A computing service provider in Europe.
PLACES
Tehran
Capital of Iran.
Changi Airport
In Singapore.
Glebe
Suburb of Sydney.
Valiasr Street
One of Tehran's main thoroughfares.
Quetta
Pakistan city.
Ferdowsi Square
Site of an election demonstration in Tehran.
Shiraz
Site of a big demonstration in Iran while Nasim is in the US.
Jomhuri-ye-Eslami Avenue
A broad, elegant street, with a stately row of fountains where it met Baharestan Square in Tehran.
Cinema Europa and Cinema Hafez
In Tehran.
Saf Street
A protest march detour.
Sa'di Station
In Tehran.
Reagan Airport
In Washington DC.
Abadan
Ansari's birth town. Fifty kilometres inland from the Persian Gulf.
Arvand River
Renamed Shatt al-Arab when you crossed it. Goes to Southern Iran. Upstream is Basra.
Evin Prison
On the line where the northern suburbs of Tehran gave way, abruptly, to the Alborz Mountains.
Khavaran Cemetery
Where Behrouz's murdered brother was buried.
Section 240
A political wing of Evin prison.
Karbala
City in Iraq.
Kashmir
Indian-Pakistani region.
Bamyan
A province in Afghanistan.
Houston
US city and site of an anti-AI terrorist attack.
Kabul
Capital of Afghanistan.
CONCEPTS
Farsi
Persian language.
Dari
The Afghani dialect of Farsi.
Noruz
The Persian New Year.
Urdu
Pakistani muslim language.
Femtoblogging
Like microblogging, only snappier. It tells everyone in your network where you are and how you’re feeling, once a minute.
Thirty-Second Pitch
A thought game about selling yourself to a company with outlandish ideas.
Bioinformatics
The application of statistics and computer science to the field of molecular biology.
Sufi
A religion.
Muezzin
Person who leads the call to prayer at a mosque.
Velayat-e-faqih
Religious role of Iranian clerics as guardians of society.
Simorgh
Mythological giant bird with a dog's head.
Zal
An infant the Simorgh thinks looks tasty but decides to rear instead.
News Five Point Oh
Current iteration of journalism in the 2020s.
HigherTribe
Worse than News Five Point Oh.
Ta'arof
Ritual of gift giving and refusal.
Toman
A toman was ten Iranian rials. Five million tomans was about ten thousand US dollars.
ANIMALS
Zebra finch
A type of small bird. Lots of them used in the HCP.
FOOD
Ragout
A stew.
Khoresht sabzi
An Iranian fried meat and vegetable dish. http://www.iranchamber.com/recipes/meat/khoresht_qormeh_sabzi.php
PLOT
A simpler book for Egan.
This one follows two characters. Martin, an Australian journalist and foreign correspondent in Iran, and Nasim, an Iranian researcher studying artificial intelligence in the USA.
While Martin is there a conservative Iranian politician is caught with a tranvestite hooker. An even which becomes a trigger for protest and for the reformers to bring enough pressure to bear on the corrupt power-hungry regime of the mullahs to force elections and constitutional change.
It then skips forward in time to where Martin has married an Iranian woman he met during this time, and they have a son. Nasim moved back to help with the new Iran, along with her mother, and now works for a virtual reality MMO called Zendegi. She is also a cousin of Martin's wife.
Other organisations work towards superintelligent AI.
A breakthrough leads her to putting some of her old academic research to use in building proxy personalities for use in gaming. When Martin's wife is killed in a car accident, and he is diagnosed with serious liver cancer, he asks for Nasim's help in trying to build a proxy personality of him to help raise his son, who is still under double figures.
As the sophistication of these artificial personalities grows, so does opposition to them - on both religious and 'you will put a lot of us out of work' grounds.
4 out of 5
Khoresht sabzi : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An Iranian fried meat and vegetable dish. http://www.iranchamber.com/recipes/meat/khoresht_qormeh_sabzi.php
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Toman : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A toman was ten Iranian rials. Five million tomans was about ten thousand US dollars.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Zal : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An infant the Simorgh thinks looks tasty but decides to rear instead.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Velayat-e-faqih : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Religious role of Iranian clerics as guardians of society.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Bioinformatics : Zendegi - Greg Egan
The application of statistics and computer science to the field of molecular biology.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Thirty-Second Pitch : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A thought game about selling yourself to a company with outlandish ideas.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Femtoblogging : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Like microblogging, only snappier. It tells everyone in your network where you are and how you’re feeling, once a minute.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Evin Prison : Zendegi - Greg Egan
On the line where the northern suburbs of Tehran gave way, abruptly, to the Alborz Mountains.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Arvand River : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Renamed Shatt al-Arab when you crossed it. Renamed Shatt al-Arab when you crossed it. Goes to Southern Iran. Upstream is Basra.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Abadan : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Ansari's birth town. Fifty kilometres inland from the Persian Gulf.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Jomhuri-ye-Eslami Avenue : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A broad, elegant street, with a stately row of fountains where it met Baharestan Square in Tehran.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Shiraz : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Site of a big demonstration in Iran while Nasim is in the US.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
CHL : Zendegi - Greg Egan
The Cis-Humanist League. Opposes the Zendegi AI research and hacks the environment.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Benign Superintelligence Bootstrap Project : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Wants to start off an AI singularity.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Iranian-American Friendship Council : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Nate Caplan donates to them to try and get Nasim on side.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
MEK : Zendegi - Greg Egan
The Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the People's Army of Iran - a nationalist group formed in opposition to the Shah.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
House Select Committee : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Group of US politicians that deal with a particular area of importance.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Eikonometrics : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Swiss company who want to see if they can classify images by flashing them on a monitor subliminally and looking at the viewer’s brain activity.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Blank Frank : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A new computer Proxy and AI Nasim works on using her old research, to make it more advanced and capable of better reactions.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
PowerFlirt and HookMeUp : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Speed dating software that works via location of the person.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Human Excrement Treatment Ecosystems : Zendegi - Greg Egan
The aim of the HETE project was to develop a whole portfolio of microbial communities that could render human waste safe in almost any situation, with an absolute minimum of labour and no expensive infrastructure.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
ATLUM : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An Automatic Tape-collecting Lathe Ultra Microtom. A brain peeler used for mapping the grey matter..
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Lichtman-Livet-Sanes ‘Brainbow’ technique : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Making neurons that fluoresce.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
AcTach : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A reality-mining plug-in that learns about academic networking using physical proximity, along with email and calling patterns.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
HCP : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Human Connectome Project. A brain mapping project that Nasim worked on.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Groundhog Cage : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Software Alice constructed that made thirty-day free-trial software think it was always on the first day of the trial.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Diary of Anne Frank, Down and Out in Paris and London, and The Gulag Archipelago : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Non-fiction Martin chooses to keep dead tree versions of for his son as he sells his shop.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
The Grapes of Wrath, Animal Farm, Catch-22, and Slaughterhouse-Five : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Novels Martin chooses to keep dead tree versions of for his son as he sells his shop.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Murder in Manolos : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A gossipy VR whodunnit set among North Tehran’s Mall Princess cliques.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Shahnameh : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A thousand year old Persian epic, popular in Zendegi. Martin and Javeed play this.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
To Her Door : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A Paul Kelly song about a break-up and reconciliation.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Ali and Zahra : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A murdered Afghan family Martin knew in Bamyam Province.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Bernard : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Helped Martin with the scanning, planning on staying in Iran.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Jafar Falaki : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Of Falaki Associates. Looks into the Zendegi security breach.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Reza : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Man who buys Martin's shop on Enqelab Avenue to turn into a gym.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Farah, Chalipa, Asa and Azita : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Women used in Nasim's Blank Fariba proxy testing.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Azimi : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Iranian football captain and ex-player for Hoffenheim. Mapped as software for a Zendegi game as Virtual Azimi.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Vin Diesel : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An actor making a comeback The Chronicles of Kulos, to be shot in the Negev.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Nasim's mother : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Left Iran when her husband was executed. Writes a book called After Oil and is headhunted by Kourosh Ansari as an adviser for the new Iran.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Mossadegh : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An Iranian prime minister ousted by Churchill and Eisenhower and the CIA.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Congressman Fitzwaller : Zendegi - Greg Egan
Chairman of the Select Committee dealing with the HCP.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Zachary Churchland : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An octogenarian oil billionaire who had raised the possibility of funding his own brain-mapping project. Also fancies living forever via technology.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Mahnoosh : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A march organiser who gives Martin information and later becomes his wife.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Nate Caplan : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A brilliant entrepreneur who approaches Nasim - fancies living forever via technology.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Jane Frampton : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A science journalist and author of The Sociobiology of The Simpsons and The Metaphysics of Melrose Place.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Fariba : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A Tehran University student Martin interviews during a demonstration.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Hassan Jabari : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A high-ranking Iranian jurist and politician who gets caught with a trans prostitute. Member of the Guardian Council.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Haroun : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A passenger on a flight who gives Martin music software advice.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Nasim Golestani : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An Iranian computer researcher in the USA who returns home after political changes. Also a cousin of Mahnoosh.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Martin Seymour : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An Australian foreign correspondent who gets an assignment in Tehran and ends up staying.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
An Unusual Beginning - Karen Burnham
A short article about Egan's first mainstream novel :-
"But mostly there’s a kid in high school (the story covers four out of five years of schooling), way too bright for his classes, bored almost literally out of his skull. There are no characters other than the narrator; some of the teacher’s get names but they’re just archetypes. None of his classmates even get names. There’s no real antagonist here except “the system,” probably another reflection of those counter-culture mainstays. The (unnamed) narrator is disgusted by criticism and depicts in-class lit crit as an act of disgusting vivisection. He often uses scientific imagery, and he’s always way more precise about it than your average writer: he specifies that someone’s enthusiasm is “1000 watts (RMS),” and if you don’t understand what that means you can at least see that for most people it’s enough to say “1000 Watts” without specifying the measurement system."
3.5 out of 5
http://spiralgalaxyreviews.blogspot.com/
"But mostly there’s a kid in high school (the story covers four out of five years of schooling), way too bright for his classes, bored almost literally out of his skull. There are no characters other than the narrator; some of the teacher’s get names but they’re just archetypes. None of his classmates even get names. There’s no real antagonist here except “the system,” probably another reflection of those counter-culture mainstays. The (unnamed) narrator is disgusted by criticism and depicts in-class lit crit as an act of disgusting vivisection. He often uses scientific imagery, and he’s always way more precise about it than your average writer: he specifies that someone’s enthusiasm is “1000 watts (RMS),” and if you don’t understand what that means you can at least see that for most people it’s enough to say “1000 Watts” without specifying the measurement system."
3.5 out of 5
http://spiralgalaxyreviews.blogspot.com/
Saturday, October 16, 2010
The Arrows of Time - Greg Egan
The master commits trilogy :-
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
The Eternal Flame - Greg Egan
The master commits trilogy :-
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
The Clockwork Rocket - Greg Egan
The master commits trilogy :-
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
3 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
3 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Judges Who Google: The Tip Of The Iceberg? - Greg Egan
""Today, however, a judge need only take a few moments to confirm his intuition by conducting a basic Internet search," it added. "As the cost of confirming one's intuition decreases, we would expect to see more judges doing just that."
You could probably improve the speed of justice even more by just using a wifi-enabled robot judge (as in Harry Harrison's 1959 story Robot Justice) and defense attorneys, like the lawyer program in David Brin's 1990 novel Earth and LEX (Law Expert System) from Greg Egan's 1991 short story The Moat."
3 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=2841
You could probably improve the speed of justice even more by just using a wifi-enabled robot judge (as in Harry Harrison's 1959 story Robot Justice) and defense attorneys, like the lawyer program in David Brin's 1990 novel Earth and LEX (Law Expert System) from Greg Egan's 1991 short story The Moat."
3 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=2841
Universe May End Sooner Because We Looked - Greg Egan
"Two physicists suggest that we may have brought the universe closer to its death by merely observing dark energy.
“Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe,” says Laurence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University."
...
"If it's true that we've doomed the universe by looking too closely, you can bet that aliens would not be happy about it. Sure enough, in his 1992 novel Quarantine, science fiction writer Greg Egan wrote about how a quirk in human neurology causes us to collapse the waveforms of anything we observe - and as a result, we've been destroying vast swaths of the cosmos with our telescopes. For this reason, they isolated us from the rest of the universe with the "Bubble:""
4.5 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1320
“Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe,” says Laurence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University."
...
"If it's true that we've doomed the universe by looking too closely, you can bet that aliens would not be happy about it. Sure enough, in his 1992 novel Quarantine, science fiction writer Greg Egan wrote about how a quirk in human neurology causes us to collapse the waveforms of anything we observe - and as a result, we've been destroying vast swaths of the cosmos with our telescopes. For this reason, they isolated us from the rest of the universe with the "Bubble:""
4.5 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1320
Screening Software - Greg Egan
"This idea is taken from a 1991 story, which seems very early for this idea. I couldn't find anything like it until at least 1998.We used to get megabytes of automated invective via email, but that, at least, turned out to be easily fixed; we installed the latest screening software, and fed it a few samples of the kind of transmission we preferred not to receive.
From The Moat, by Greg Egan.
Published by Aurealis in 1991"
4 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1276
From The Moat, by Greg Egan.
Published by Aurealis in 1991"
4 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1276
Spam Filter - Greg Egan
"The earliest reference that I can find in sf for the idea of a spam filter or other way to deal with the problem of spam is in The Moat, a 1991 short story by Greg Egan.
We used to get megabytes of automated invective via email, but that, at least, turned out to be easily fixed; we installed the latest screening software, and fed it a few samples of the kind of transmission we preferred not to receive."
3.5 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1933
We used to get megabytes of automated invective via email, but that, at least, turned out to be easily fixed; we installed the latest screening software, and fed it a few samples of the kind of transmission we preferred not to receive."
3.5 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1933
Law Expert System (LEX) - Greg Egan
From Technovelgy :-
"Ranjit arrives a few minutes later, carrying a CD; he mimes staggering under its weight. "Latest set of amendments to the UNHCR regulations. It's going to be a long day."
I groan. "I'm having dinner with Rachel tonight. Why don't we just feed the bloody thing to LEX and ask for a summary?"
"And get disbarred at the next audit? No, thanks." The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software - terrified of putting ninety percent of its members out of work. The irony is, they use state-of-the art software, programmed with all the forbidden knowledge, to scrutinize each practice's expert systems and make sure that they haven't been taught more than they're permitted to know."
"There must be twenty firms, at least, who've taught their systems tax law -"
Sure. And they have programmers on seven-figure salaries to cover their tracks."
From The Moat, by Greg Egan.
Published by Aurealis in 1991"
4 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1239
"Ranjit arrives a few minutes later, carrying a CD; he mimes staggering under its weight. "Latest set of amendments to the UNHCR regulations. It's going to be a long day."
I groan. "I'm having dinner with Rachel tonight. Why don't we just feed the bloody thing to LEX and ask for a summary?"
"And get disbarred at the next audit? No, thanks." The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software - terrified of putting ninety percent of its members out of work. The irony is, they use state-of-the art software, programmed with all the forbidden knowledge, to scrutinize each practice's expert systems and make sure that they haven't been taught more than they're permitted to know."
"There must be twenty firms, at least, who've taught their systems tax law -"
Sure. And they have programmers on seven-figure salaries to cover their tracks."
From The Moat, by Greg Egan.
Published by Aurealis in 1991"
4 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1239
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Plus, Minus: A Gentle Introduction to the Physics of Orthogonal - Greg Egan
"For the past year or so I've been spending most of my waking hours in a place where light, matter, energy and time obey different laws of physics than those that rule our own universe. Studying the way things move and interact under these alternative laws reveals some familiar behaviour, some strange and eerily beautiful phenomena, and some terrifying risks.
To reach what I will call the Riemannian universe involves nothing more than changing a minus sign to a plus sign in a simple equation that governs the geometry of space-time. And curiously enough, although the consequences sometimes seem bizarre, the basic laws here can be understood more easily and intuitively than those that apply in the real world.
We have known for more than a hundred years that the best way to understand time in our universe is to think of it as combining with the familiar three dimensions of space to form a four-dimensional space-time, which obeys its own distinctive geometrical laws. While Newton saw time as an absolute, universal quantity that marched forward in lock-step at an identical rate for everyone, since Einstein we've realised that the passage of time measures an aspect of our paths through four-dimensional space-time that is very similar to the length of a path in space."
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/00/PM.html
To reach what I will call the Riemannian universe involves nothing more than changing a minus sign to a plus sign in a simple equation that governs the geometry of space-time. And curiously enough, although the consequences sometimes seem bizarre, the basic laws here can be understood more easily and intuitively than those that apply in the real world.
We have known for more than a hundred years that the best way to understand time in our universe is to think of it as combining with the familiar three dimensions of space to form a four-dimensional space-time, which obeys its own distinctive geometrical laws. While Newton saw time as an absolute, universal quantity that marched forward in lock-step at an identical rate for everyone, since Einstein we've realised that the passage of time measures an aspect of our paths through four-dimensional space-time that is very similar to the length of a path in space."
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/00/PM.html
Friday, September 17, 2010
Incandescence Discussion Interview - Greg Egan
"RG: After many aeons, why would the Aloof still have the reaction/instinct to want to protect beings from approaching the hub? Don't they know that some beings have the capability to protect themselves?
GE: They're erring on the side of caution, and they're not in a great hurry to make up their minds. Giving the Amalgam precisely what it wants, as soon as it wants it, isn't their priority."
4.5 out of 5
http://www.chicago-sf.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3243
GE: They're erring on the side of caution, and they're not in a great hurry to make up their minds. Giving the Amalgam precisely what it wants, as soon as it wants it, isn't their priority."
4.5 out of 5
http://www.chicago-sf.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3243
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Some Thoughts on Tuesday's Child - Greg Egan
Gary Foshee, a collector and designer of puzzles from Issaquah near Seattle walked to the lectern to present his talk. It consisted of the following three sentences: “I have two children. One is a boy born on a Tuesday. What is the probability I have two boys?”
The event was the Gathering for Gardner earlier this year, a convention held every two years in Atlanta, Georgia, uniting mathematicians, magicians and puzzle enthusiasts. The audience was silent as they pondered the question.
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/TUESDAY/Tuesday.html
The event was the Gathering for Gardner earlier this year, a convention held every two years in Atlanta, Georgia, uniting mathematicians, magicians and puzzle enthusiasts. The audience was silent as they pondered the question.
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/TUESDAY/Tuesday.html
Friday, August 6, 2010
Born Again Briefly - Greg Egan
"It would be absurd to over-generalise from my experience, but equally absurd to treat it as singular. Perhaps neurologists will eventually pin down a particular mechanism associated with the kind of religious practice I've described, but to me it seems equally likely that the mechanisms will be diverse. What I do suspect I once shared with a great many religious believers is not so much the core of mystical experience as the larger package that was wrapped around it: the belief that the universe has a purpose, and that despite the unspeakable horrors of our history and the smaller miseries of everyday life there is a promise that everything will be put right in the end. This is a powerful and appealing notion; once you have it in your grasp it's hard to let go, and some of us will go to very great lengths to rationalise holding on to it."
3.5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/BAB/BAB.html
3.5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/BAB/BAB.html
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Virtual Worlds and Imagined Futures - Greg Egan
An interview with David Conyers, from Albedo One Magazine
"Do transhuman characters with god-like powers alienate readers? Are they too far removed from human emotions and frailties that we experience in modern society?
The frailty of our bodies is an enormously important part of our current reality — and I very much doubt that anyone will ever be literally immortal — but I don't think there's anything all that strange or alienating about the prospect of having, say, a far more robust body, or back-up copies of your mind. These are just ways of enabling us to do the kind of constructive things we're doing right now, with fewer unwelcome interruptions. If you asked someone who'd moved from a country with endemic violence, women dying in childbirth, high infant mortality, and no effective treatment for dozens of infectious diseases to a place where all of those problems had been solved whether they felt alienated by the loss of their precious human frailty, they'd just laugh."
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/INTERVIEWS/Interviews.html
"Do transhuman characters with god-like powers alienate readers? Are they too far removed from human emotions and frailties that we experience in modern society?
The frailty of our bodies is an enormously important part of our current reality — and I very much doubt that anyone will ever be literally immortal — but I don't think there's anything all that strange or alienating about the prospect of having, say, a far more robust body, or back-up copies of your mind. These are just ways of enabling us to do the kind of constructive things we're doing right now, with fewer unwelcome interruptions. If you asked someone who'd moved from a country with endemic violence, women dying in childbirth, high infant mortality, and no effective treatment for dozens of infectious diseases to a place where all of those problems had been solved whether they felt alienated by the loss of their precious human frailty, they'd just laugh."
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/INTERVIEWS/Interviews.html
Friday, June 18, 2010
Gummelt Applet - Greg Egan
"Gummelt draws Petra Gummelt's quasiperiodic tiling of the plane with overlapping decagons.
Decagonal tile
This tiling is related to the rhombic Penrose tiling, with a decagon associated with each “fat” rhomb, and the side-matching rules replaced by the requirement that wherever two decagons overlap, the coloured darts they contain are superimposed. Each decagon contains four darts, two of them pointing clockwise and two pointing counter-clockwise, with one pair overlapping."
4 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/APPLETS/06/06.html
Decagonal tile
This tiling is related to the rhombic Penrose tiling, with a decagon associated with each “fat” rhomb, and the side-matching rules replaced by the requirement that wherever two decagons overlap, the coloured darts they contain are superimposed. Each decagon contains four darts, two of them pointing clockwise and two pointing counter-clockwise, with one pair overlapping."
4 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/APPLETS/06/06.html
With "Zendegi," Greg Egan plunges us into the techno-future of Iran - Chris Braak
"In Zendegi, Greg Egan has created a beautiful, brilliant, near-future world that expertly explores the consequences of mind-mapping technology in the politically volatile world of Iran."
3.5 out of 5
http://io9.com/5564075/with-zendegi-greg-egan-plunges-us-into-the-techno+future-of-iran
3.5 out of 5
http://io9.com/5564075/with-zendegi-greg-egan-plunges-us-into-the-techno+future-of-iran
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Aurealis interview 2009 - Greg Egan
By Russell Blackford :-
"7. Blackford: Is it similar when you deal with advanced scientific and mathematical concepts—concepts that might “lose” even readers with reasonable levels of scientific literacy—or do you see that as a different kind of problem? Again, I'm interested in how it feels from the inside to an author writing this kind of work that could be challenging to an audience and must be extraordinarily challenging to create.
Egan: When scientists and mathematicians think about “advanced” concepts, what they're really doing mostly just involves some relatively simple manipulation of ideas that happen to be unfamiliar to the wider population. There are plenty of card games whose rules are more complex than the rules for doing tensor calculus! So depending on the context, I'll sometimes just try to give the reader the gist of what those manipulations are, even if they're going to be a little bit hazy about the things being manipulated. At other times, I'll do as much as I can to unpack the whole process and demystify it completely. It's impossible to write about every topic in modern science in a way that absolutely anyone can follow, but I'm not afraid to transcribe characters having detailed thoughts or conversations in which they make sense of scientific ideas, and by eavesdropping on those conversations the reader gets invited into the loop."
Originally “Aurealis interview”
Aurealis #42, August 2009. Interview by Russell Blackford.
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/INTERVIEWS/Interviews.html
"7. Blackford: Is it similar when you deal with advanced scientific and mathematical concepts—concepts that might “lose” even readers with reasonable levels of scientific literacy—or do you see that as a different kind of problem? Again, I'm interested in how it feels from the inside to an author writing this kind of work that could be challenging to an audience and must be extraordinarily challenging to create.
Egan: When scientists and mathematicians think about “advanced” concepts, what they're really doing mostly just involves some relatively simple manipulation of ideas that happen to be unfamiliar to the wider population. There are plenty of card games whose rules are more complex than the rules for doing tensor calculus! So depending on the context, I'll sometimes just try to give the reader the gist of what those manipulations are, even if they're going to be a little bit hazy about the things being manipulated. At other times, I'll do as much as I can to unpack the whole process and demystify it completely. It's impossible to write about every topic in modern science in a way that absolutely anyone can follow, but I'm not afraid to transcribe characters having detailed thoughts or conversations in which they make sense of scientific ideas, and by eavesdropping on those conversations the reader gets invited into the loop."
Originally “Aurealis interview”
Aurealis #42, August 2009. Interview by Russell Blackford.
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/INTERVIEWS/Interviews.html
Quote - Greg Egan
" Keep using crappy software, or the AI overlord will eat your children."
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/INTERVIEWS/Interviews.html
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/INTERVIEWS/Interviews.html
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Schwarz Applet - Greg Egan
"Schwarz performs two successive Schwarz-Christoffel transformations of the complex plane: f(z)=1+(z–z0)/(1–z0*z), which maps z0 to 1 and the unit disk centred on 0 to the unit disk centred on 1, and g(z)=(z+1)/(z–1), which maps 1 to infinity and the unit disk centred on 0 to half the complex plane; z0 is either a random point, or the point where you last clicked the mouse."
4 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/APPLETS/05/05.html
4 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/APPLETS/05/05.html
Laplace Applet - Greg Egan
"Laplace displays solutions of Laplace's equation in three dimensions, sampled on the surface of a sphere. The intensity of each colour cycles between two randomly oriented spherical harmonics — functions whose angular dependence has a simple pattern of regularly spaced peaks and troughs."
4 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/APPLETS/04/04.html
4 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/APPLETS/04/04.html
Cantor Applet - Greg Egan
"Cantor is a 2-dimensional Cantor set, a square divided into nine parts with the middle rectangle removed, and the same process applied to the other eight rectangles, ad infinitum. The black region is the Cantor set; the gaps are decorated. A version where all the rectangles are identical squares can be described mathematically as the set of (x,y) such that x and y lie between 0 and 1 and contain no 1s in their base 3 representation (e.g. 0.02202 would be in the set), repeatedly excluding the middle third of both coordinates."
4 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/APPLETS/03/03.html
4 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/APPLETS/03/03.html
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Dark Integers - Greg Egan
Novelette
Number of words : 16300
Percent of complex words : 11.9
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 22.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 13.9
Flesch : 53.6
Flesch-Kincaid : 11.5
PEOPLE
Bruno Costanzo
Mathematical defect mapper and watcher.
Sam
Bruno's counterpart on the far side.
Alison Tierney
Bruno's friend and co-watcher.
Yuen
Alison's mentor.
Laura
Alison's daughter.
Tim Campbell
A number theory researcher working at Victoria University.
Kate
Bruno's girlfriend.
Machiavelli
Political theorist.
Gerard Hooft
Quantum mathematician.
Bridget
Campbell's wife, an organic chemist. Also a lecturer at Victoria University.
Richard Branson
English billionaire.
Brando
An actor.
Hedy Lamarr
An actress.
Genghis Khan
Mongol warlord.
ORGANISATIONS
Industrial Algebra
Company that wants to exploit Bruno and Alison's discovery.
Victoria University
In Wellington.
JJJ
Radio station, focused on new music for the young.
PLACES
Sydney
Australian city.
Shanghai
Major city in China.
Zurich
Where Alison lives.
West Ryde
Suburb of Sydney.
Tasman
Sea between Australia and New Zealand.
Blue Mountains
Outside Sydney.
Penrith
Sydney suburb.
MEDIA
The West Wing
American tv show.
Dick Tracy
Comic strip detective.
Dr Strangelove
Bomb movie.
CONCEPTS
Planck scale
Very, very small. Physics measurement.
Dark Integers
A type definition of 4096 bits.
Fields Medal
Prize awarded to young mathematicians.
VEHICLES
Sputnik
Russian spacecraft.
PLOT
Ten years after Luminous, Bruno, Alison and an ill Yuen work to keep a detente with the far side, who are led by Sam as their contact.
When a New Zealand number theorist makes a discovery on his own, this threatens cordial relations, and Bruno has to scramble to get him onside. As he doesn't want to kill him, being Alison's other option.
Further work of Campbell's allows him to map the other side, showing their space is different, they are in a different solar system, and have different life.
Conflict starts, and changing mathematical axioms can do bad things, like crash markets and make planes fall out of the sky, killing many people.
Bruno and company have to very rapidly come up with proof of the ability to set up a buffer zone between the two sides of the border, to stop a war.
5 out of 5
http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0805/DarkINtegers.shtml
Number of words : 16300
Percent of complex words : 11.9
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 22.9
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 13.9
Flesch : 53.6
Flesch-Kincaid : 11.5
PEOPLE
Bruno Costanzo
Mathematical defect mapper and watcher.
Sam
Bruno's counterpart on the far side.
Alison Tierney
Bruno's friend and co-watcher.
Yuen
Alison's mentor.
Laura
Alison's daughter.
Tim Campbell
A number theory researcher working at Victoria University.
Kate
Bruno's girlfriend.
Machiavelli
Political theorist.
Gerard Hooft
Quantum mathematician.
Bridget
Campbell's wife, an organic chemist. Also a lecturer at Victoria University.
Richard Branson
English billionaire.
Brando
An actor.
Hedy Lamarr
An actress.
Genghis Khan
Mongol warlord.
ORGANISATIONS
Industrial Algebra
Company that wants to exploit Bruno and Alison's discovery.
Victoria University
In Wellington.
JJJ
Radio station, focused on new music for the young.
PLACES
Sydney
Australian city.
Shanghai
Major city in China.
Zurich
Where Alison lives.
West Ryde
Suburb of Sydney.
Tasman
Sea between Australia and New Zealand.
Blue Mountains
Outside Sydney.
Penrith
Sydney suburb.
MEDIA
The West Wing
American tv show.
Dick Tracy
Comic strip detective.
Dr Strangelove
Bomb movie.
CONCEPTS
Planck scale
Very, very small. Physics measurement.
Dark Integers
A type definition of 4096 bits.
Fields Medal
Prize awarded to young mathematicians.
VEHICLES
Sputnik
Russian spacecraft.
PLOT
Ten years after Luminous, Bruno, Alison and an ill Yuen work to keep a detente with the far side, who are led by Sam as their contact.
When a New Zealand number theorist makes a discovery on his own, this threatens cordial relations, and Bruno has to scramble to get him onside. As he doesn't want to kill him, being Alison's other option.
Further work of Campbell's allows him to map the other side, showing their space is different, they are in a different solar system, and have different life.
Conflict starts, and changing mathematical axioms can do bad things, like crash markets and make planes fall out of the sky, killing many people.
Bruno and company have to very rapidly come up with proof of the ability to set up a buffer zone between the two sides of the border, to stop a war.
5 out of 5
http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0805/DarkINtegers.shtml
Industrial Algebra : Dark Integers - Greg Egan
Company that wants to exploit Bruno and Alison's discovery.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Bridget : Dark Integers - Greg Egan
Campbell's wife, an organic chemist. Also a lecturer at Victoria University.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Tim Campbell : Dark Integers - Greg Egan
A number theory researcher working at Victoria University.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Luminous - Greg Egan
Number of words : 12600
Percent of complex words : 13.1
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 15.3
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 11.4
Flesch : 54.0
Flesch-Kincaid : 9.5
PEOPLE
Bruno
Alison's ex-lover and co-operator. Mapper of mathematical defects.
Alison
Bruno's ex-lover and co-operator. Has idea that mathematics might be wonkier than we think.
Julia and Ramesh
Friends of theirs.
Andrew Wiles
Princeton researcher.
Lu Xun
A writer.
Andy Warhol
Artist.
Mao
Chinese leader.
Pinochet
Chilean dictator.
Yuen Ting-fu
Alison's supervisor for her Ph.D. on advanced applications of ring theory.
Cantor
A famous mathematician.
PLACES
Shanghai
Large Chinese city.
Hotel Fleapit
In Shanghai.
Hanoi
Vietnamese city.
Yuyuan Bazaar
Market in Shanghai.
Helsinki
Finnish city.
Zurich
Swiss city.
TECHNOLOGY
Necrotrap
Implanted carrying technology that breaks if disconnected from the host's biology.
Luminous
Chinese supercomputer made of light.
Surgical grade tissue repair cream
Good for stopping bleeding.
CONCEPTS
Mandarin
Chinese dialect.
Fermat's Last Theorem
No three positive integers a , b, and c can satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integer value of n.
Platonist
Follower of Plato's ideas.
Big Bang
Universe creation event.
ORGANISATIONS
Industrial Algebra
Aggressive UK IT company that wants their secrets.
Star TV
International Asian broadcaster.
Fu-tan University
Where Alison studied ring theory.
Exxon
Large corporation.
McDonnell-Douglas
Large corporation.
People's Institute for Advanced Optical Engineering
In Minhang. Houses Luminous and Yuen works there.
RACES
Han
A Chinese race that Bruno looks nothing like.
Australopithecus
Early human ancestor.
MEDIA
1984
Science fiction novel by George Orwell.
Winston Smith
Major character in 1984.
ANIMALS
Sea-urchin
Small, shiny ball-shaped ocean creature.
PLOT
Bruno wakes, having been found by an agent, but their precautions defeat her.
In June 1994, his fellow student Alison and he had a discussion, where she said:
"You're claiming that . . . mathematics might be strewn with primordial defects in consistency? Like space might be strewn with cosmic strings?"
"Exactly." She stared back at me, feigning nonchalance. "If space-time doesn't join up with itself smoothly, everywhere . . . why should mathematical logic?"
Which led to them researching such defects with success, and to agents of IA wanting their secrets to use in financial manipulations.
To further their work they manage to obtain some time on the most advanced computer in the world, thanks to Alison's old supervisor. They are quite shocked to find that what they are doing is being resisted - and stunned when they are contacted with information from this far side realm.
5 out of 5
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b974/Luminous/Greg-Egan/?
Percent of complex words : 13.1
Average syllables per word : 1.6
Average words per sentence : 15.3
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 11.4
Flesch : 54.0
Flesch-Kincaid : 9.5
PEOPLE
Bruno
Alison's ex-lover and co-operator. Mapper of mathematical defects.
Alison
Bruno's ex-lover and co-operator. Has idea that mathematics might be wonkier than we think.
Julia and Ramesh
Friends of theirs.
Andrew Wiles
Princeton researcher.
Lu Xun
A writer.
Andy Warhol
Artist.
Mao
Chinese leader.
Pinochet
Chilean dictator.
Yuen Ting-fu
Alison's supervisor for her Ph.D. on advanced applications of ring theory.
Cantor
A famous mathematician.
PLACES
Shanghai
Large Chinese city.
Hotel Fleapit
In Shanghai.
Hanoi
Vietnamese city.
Yuyuan Bazaar
Market in Shanghai.
Helsinki
Finnish city.
Zurich
Swiss city.
TECHNOLOGY
Necrotrap
Implanted carrying technology that breaks if disconnected from the host's biology.
Luminous
Chinese supercomputer made of light.
Surgical grade tissue repair cream
Good for stopping bleeding.
CONCEPTS
Mandarin
Chinese dialect.
Fermat's Last Theorem
No three positive integers a , b, and c can satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integer value of n.
Platonist
Follower of Plato's ideas.
Big Bang
Universe creation event.
ORGANISATIONS
Industrial Algebra
Aggressive UK IT company that wants their secrets.
Star TV
International Asian broadcaster.
Fu-tan University
Where Alison studied ring theory.
Exxon
Large corporation.
McDonnell-Douglas
Large corporation.
People's Institute for Advanced Optical Engineering
In Minhang. Houses Luminous and Yuen works there.
RACES
Han
A Chinese race that Bruno looks nothing like.
Australopithecus
Early human ancestor.
MEDIA
1984
Science fiction novel by George Orwell.
Winston Smith
Major character in 1984.
ANIMALS
Sea-urchin
Small, shiny ball-shaped ocean creature.
PLOT
Bruno wakes, having been found by an agent, but their precautions defeat her.
In June 1994, his fellow student Alison and he had a discussion, where she said:
"You're claiming that . . . mathematics might be strewn with primordial defects in consistency? Like space might be strewn with cosmic strings?"
"Exactly." She stared back at me, feigning nonchalance. "If space-time doesn't join up with itself smoothly, everywhere . . . why should mathematical logic?"
Which led to them researching such defects with success, and to agents of IA wanting their secrets to use in financial manipulations.
To further their work they manage to obtain some time on the most advanced computer in the world, thanks to Alison's old supervisor. They are quite shocked to find that what they are doing is being resisted - and stunned when they are contacted with information from this far side realm.
5 out of 5
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b974/Luminous/Greg-Egan/?
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