Luminous

Greg Egan
1998

Greg Egan is the master of the modern short science fiction, and this collection is another example of why. The subjects he deals with are often confronting or disturbing, but the are very real and very valid.

The potential near future is brought to vivid life, frightening and wonderous, and the way that the people in these stories interact with it is written in a plausible and sympathetic style.

His ability to explore both complex scienitific concepts and questions of the human mind is unrivalled and displayed here in an amazing variety of ways. From maths and physics in Luminous and The Planck Dive to psychology in Mister Volition and Transition Dreams, this is a collection just as fresh and imaginative as Axiomatic.

My favourite stories include:

Chaff

El Nido de Ladrones, the Nest of Thieves, is a fifty thousand square kilometre area of bioengineered jungle in the amazon. Out of it comes designer drugs which interact in the user’s system with common addictives in food.

Guillermo Largo has defected to them with the results of his research and one man is sent in to get him. But Guillermo hasn’t concoted a new drug to get high with, he has concoted a drug that allows you to restructre your own mind.

Luminous

What begins as a joke between two student ends up being one of the most important questions in the world. Can simple mathematics be proved to be inconsistent in a finite number of steps? Using dead time on the computers of a thousand interested people, they finally realise it can.

What does this mean for the stability of our reality, and who will want access to it?

Cocoon

Based on the idea that homosexuality is a result of high levels of cortisol in the blood during pregnancy. One company is developing a cocoon for unborn shildren that will allow only the necessary substances through to the child. But if it protects against toxins, it also protects against homosexuality, and they are willing to do anything to promote this aspect of their product.

Reasons to be Cheerful

A mutation in a type of brain tumor makes the main character, a young boy, incapable of feeling anything but completely happy and optimistic. It is producing high levels of Leu-enkephalin, a drug that makes people happy. When he is given a radical new treatment for the tumor, all the receptors for leu-enkephalin are burned away, leaving him incapable of feelings any positive emotion.

When a new treatment, twenty years later, returns his ability to enjoy life, he is also given a control, he can choose how much he enjoys any given thing, music, exercise, a person’s company. But what does happiness mean then?

The stories in this collection include: