fairandfast1
Price: £0.01
In stock
woodys-uk
Price: £114.16
In stock
11 used & new from £0.01
See All Buying Options
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
Luminous
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book

Luminous (Paperback)

by Greg Egan (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


2 new from £0.01 9 used from £0.01
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover 10 used & new from £1.48
Paperback £7.99 £5.99 33 used & new from £0.24

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Axiomatic

Axiomatic

by Greg Egan
4.3 out of 5 stars (3)  £4.99
Distress

Distress

by Greg Egan
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £5.97
Quarantine

Quarantine

by Greg Egan
4.2 out of 5 stars (5)  £5.03
Permutation City

Permutation City

by Greg Egan
3.8 out of 5 stars (11)  £5.99
Schild's Ladder (Gollancz S.F.)

Schild's Ladder (Gollancz S.F.)

by Greg Egan
3.7 out of 5 stars (6)  £6.19
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz; New edition edition (12 Aug 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1857985737
  • ISBN-13: 978-1857985733
  • Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 478,561 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #19 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > E > Egan, Greg

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Greg Egan is an Australian with a worldwide perspective--seven of the ten stories in this fine and thoughtful collection appeared in Britain's premier SF magazine Interzone and the rest in America's Asimov's SF Magazine. In a time when it's frequently claimed that SF holds no more surprises Egan casts a coldly innovative eye on old themes like the problem of consciousness: where in the human brain's intricate mess does the "I" actually live? He delivers shocking body-blows to received ideas in thought- experiment stories that like Jorge Luis Borges's philosophical squibs are booby- trapped with terrible truths and paradoxes. Standouts here include the title piece where a supercomputer built from pure light explores a defect in known mathematics that could smash not only the theoretical but the physical universe; "Silver Fire", an unspeakably bleak examination of our need for superstition, however irrational; "Reasons To Be Cheerful", exploring with chilling logic the implications of the likelihood that human emotions are "only" chemical states; "Cocoon", testing liberal sentiments to destruction with a biotechnology that might let parents choose only heterosexual kids; and "The Planck Dive", a one-way trip into a black hole that makes most previous SF versions of this ultimate bungee-jump seem naive. Egan's visions of the future glow with gloomy intellectual fire. Luminous indeed. --David Langford


Product Description

LUMINOUS collects together one original story plus nine previously unpublished in book form. Greg Egan's short fiction is at the cutting edge of the genre. His stories range from near future predictions to far future, far space improvisations. His grasp of the latest scientific breakthroughs is unparalleled in science fiction. The stories include 'Transition Dreams', 'Cocoon', 'Our Lady of Chernobyl', the title story 'Luminous' and 'The Planck Drive'. Egan's particular interests range from the farther shores of chaos theory and black hole science to bio-technology and cloning.
See all Product Description
Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
not free sf reader
hard science fiction
ebook
collection
australian sf reader
australian sf
australian author
2007f

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Luminous
45% buy the item featured on this page:
Luminous 4.6 out of 5 stars (5)
Distress
16% buy
Distress 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£5.97
Diaspora
16% buy
Diaspora 4.3 out of 5 stars (11)
£5.99
Schild's Ladder (Gollancz S.F.)
13% buy
Schild's Ladder (Gollancz S.F.) 3.7 out of 5 stars (6)
£6.19
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, 28 Nov 2000
By Andrew X. Lias "http://andrewlias.blogspot.com" (Colorado Springs, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
SF has long been described as the genre of "What if", meaning that most science fiction stories take as their premise a hypothetical question such as "what if there were a male birth control pill" and use it as the grist for a story.

In that sense, Egan's work is definitely in the classic mould. The primary difference is that the "what if's" that Egan works with tend to be on the bleeding edge of science and philosophy. The amazing thing is how the human (indeed, humanistic) dimesion manages to shine through.

Some have complained that Egan is too militantly a rationalist. One can just as easily say that he's a champion of rationality. Your opinion of his work is likely to be influenced by your opinion of the broader subject. Certainly if you aren't comfortable with the skewering of such things as postmodernism or religious sentimentalism, you'll probably find his stories to be a source of irritation. If that doesn't bother you, I would recommend this selection of short stories without hesitation.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Hard, thoughtful, Australian Cyberpunk /SF. Great stuff !, 28 Oct 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Luminous (Hardcover)
This new collection of short stories by Greg Egan delivers more of the hard, thoughtful, Australian Cyberpunk and Science Fiction that he is famous for.'Luminous' is more than just your average Cyberpunk techno-romp, Egan deals with the big issues. For instance, in 'Mitochondrial Eve', Egan invents the field of "quantum genopaleontology" in order to examine issues of religion, tribalism and racism. Another story, 'Mr Volilition', draws on Minsky's pandimonium model of the mind, and describes the effect on a murderous theif when a neural monitor dispels the myth of free will. The title story, 'Luminous', deals with the very nature of reality, as two mathematicians struggle to prevent a pockets of "alien mathmatics" slipping into the hands of a corporation with sinister motives. Great stuff ! Highly recomended. I look forward to his next novel.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Sci fi for the 21st century., 25 Jun 2009
By Mr. P. M. Hodges - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Luminous (Paperback)
Not being a big science fiction fan I was suprised how much I enjoyed this collection of short stories.The author is obviously a very intelligent and knowlegeble guy where cutting edge science is concerned.Although some of the science bits went way above my head (paticurlary the 'Luminous' story which deals with some very complex math theory) underneath all the science jargon are some very intresting studies of the human conditon such as what really is happiness in the story 'Reasons to be cheerful'.The stories are not bogged down with the usual sci-fi cliches which tend to put me off this genre and in the main are very inventive and intresting.Most of the stories really made me think and ponder on what some of the issues of the future might be.All in all even if you don't usually enjoy Sci-fi but do enjoy stories which get your brain going give this great book a try.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the modern greats of SF
I read a lot of SF in my younger days from Asimov, Clarke and Niven through to Greg Bear, Ballard and Phil Dick. Read more
Published 2 months ago by tell it like it is

4.0 out of 5 stars A cracking set of SF shorts
Egan has managed to find the perfect balance of hard SF concepts and human interest. He seems to have a particular interest in the emerging science of biotech, and the end... Read more
Published on 17 Oct 1999

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject









i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.