Teranesia
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Amazon.co.uk Review
In the new millennium, Prabhir spends his childhood on the small Indonesian island where his biologist parents are investigating anomalous butterflies:
"The butterfly--a female twenty centimeters across, with black and iridescent-green wings--clearly belonged to some species of swallowtail: the two hind wings were tipped with long , narrow "tails" or "streamers". But there were puzzling quirks ... the pattern of veins in the wings. and the position of the genital openings ... How could this one species of swallowtail been isolated longer than any other butterfly in the world."A childish prank leads to Prabhir's blaming himself for the violent deaths of his parents and he devotes the rest of his life to protecting his young sister; aged 9, he sails with her to safety and later abandons his education to give her a home. Maddie becomes a biologist, and takes an interest in the strange creatures now proliferating in the islands; when she goes on a field trip, Prabhir feels obliged to follow... Greg Egan's recent books and short stories of the near future--Distress and Luminous --have combined their intellectually challenging scientific speculations with a good deal of human drama, and Teranesia continues this trend in his work; Prabhir's irrational guilt and obsessive protectiveness make him a memorable flawed protagonist. In the end, though, the point is the wonders--Egan comes up with some fascinating speculation on mechanisms whereby evolution could suddenly go into overdrive, and has the good sense not to push conclusions too far; the reader's informed imagination continues well beyond the book's end. All this, and some scathing satire on Critical Theory and Cultural Studies too. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
As a young boy, Prabir Suresh lives with his parents and sister on an otherwise uninhabited island in a remote part of the Indonesian peninsula. Prabir names it Teranesia, populating it with imaginary creatures even stranger than the evolutionarily puzzling butterflies that his parents are studying. Civil war strikes, orphaning Prabir and his sister. Eighteen years later, rumours of bizarre new species of plants and animals being discovered in the peninsula that was their childhood home draw Prabir's sister back to the island - Prabir cannot bear for her to have gone out alone and he follows, persuading a pharmaceutical researcher to take him along as a guide.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I think this is Egan's best novel; that makes it compulsory if you like science fiction, but it deserves to be read by the widest possible audience. Although he is best known for high-concept, hard science fiction, here he has found a superb balance between characterisation, plot and science.
Some have criticised the satire of postmodernism in this book as heavy-handed. Personally I find it spot on; anyone who is familiar with the Sokal hoax or Sadie Plant's oeuvre will see what he's getting at.
That aside, the history and psychology of the main character are worthy of any literary novelist. The McGuffin driving the plot is very clever and plausibly grounded in real science as with most of Egan's fiction. The novel builds to a conclusion which, in a perverse way, celebrates the best of humanity while commenting wryly on the human condition.
Even if you're not normally interested in science fiction, I strongly urge you to read this book. If you like literary authors playing at doing science (like David Lodge's "Thinks" or Jeanette Winterson's "Gut Symmetries"), why not try an SF author who can write?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is probably Greg Egan's most accessible book for readers without the SF habit. It displays more of the conventional "literary" values than his other works, while at the same time being science fictional to the core. The satire of contemporary culture is spot on, which may explain the novel's mysterious neglect by mainstream critics. Greg Egan seems to be that rare thing, a novelist who actually lives in the same world as modern science.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've never read anything by Egan before, so I didn't know what to expect. Well, I'll be looking out for him in future. Teranesia is the name for a Malaysian island given by Prabir, the son of two Indian biologists trying to uncover the secrets of genetic mutation in a population of butterflies. Set against continued political trouble in the region into the next decade, the story relates the personal guilt and anguish that Prabir, a nine year old boy who successfully escapes the island with his baby sister, carries with him into his thirties. By the end of the novel, the roles are reversed: young sister manages to save older brother and whisk him from the island, this time from a far more dreadful threat than that of air-delivered mines. As Prabir and his sister, Mudhusree, travel back to the island the butterflies are made to speak their ugly truth. Bascially, a gene capable of reading all the quantum histories of possible mutations has taken root on the island and that means it anticipates its own evolution. And survives. Just like the two central characters whose frail and battered humanity emerges all the more strong for that. This is surely how science fiction should be written - a grand idea wrapped in the grander enigmas of being human. Even if at times the characterisation can get a little overbearing, the relationships between characters a little trite, Egan weaves us a tale about guilt which will only fail to reach the most unfeeling of androids. Simply superb.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
!!!Concept Vertigo!!!
Firstly; watch out for plot spoiler reviews!!
(it's not a mystery tour if you know where your heading)
Egan's work is 'Hard' Sci-Fi of the highest order. Read more
(it's not a mystery tour if you know where your heading)
Egan's work is 'Hard' Sci-Fi of the highest order. Read more
Published on 11 Jan 2010 by numpty
Evolution gone crazy
Egan fans will go for this book. It has his usual hard science (this time in an accelerated evolutionary context) with plenty of explanations laid on, and a good deal of persuasive... Read more
Published on 23 Jan 2002
Another tour de force by Egan
Once again, another engaging, witty and mind-expanding book from Greg Egan. The characters are engaging, the settings detailed, and as usual the main premise is mind-bending. Read more
Published on 27 Sep 1999
Not quite Egan as we knew him
Teranesia is a calmer work than any of Egan's previous works. The first sections of the book deal with the protagonist's early life on a scientific/tropical paradise, moving on,... Read more
Published on 10 Sep 1999
Greg Egan is the most important Hard SF Writer of the 1990's
I have just read this book, and I have mixed feelings (as per usual!!!) about novels by Greg Egan.
Do not get me wrong, Greg Egan is the most important new Hard SF short story... Read more
Published on 18 Aug 1999
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