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