Customer Reviews

Axiomatic

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Utterly fascinating and mind-blowing. So much so, that halfway through it, I felt in danger of being overwhelmed by the sheer force of new ideas and had to stop to let what I'd already read sink in. If you read a story in this collection and it *doesn't* blow your mind, you are experiencing cognitive saturation and should take a short break to allow your mind to return to something resembling its normal size and shape before continuing -- that is, if you want the full effect. It's quite interesting picking out the themes and tropes Egan is most fond of exploring -- even more fun if you've read his longer work, since some of the ideas in his novels can be found here in their distilled essence. The only thing I found somewhat wearying is his constant use of first-person narration, which isn't a problem in small doses (and is actually quite engaging much of the time), but which by repeated use gives the unintentional impression that most of Egan's protagonists have very similar personalities, or are even, impossibly and insupportably, in some way the same person, a vaguely disorienting effect that causes the stories to blur together in the reader's memory. This is unfortunate because the stories are well worth recalling as distinct entities.

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I'm slow reading Axiomatic, I guess, because I put it on my "to read"
list back in 1995, when the Commonwealth edition was published,
and missed the US release.

Better late than never -- it's a terrific collection, a must-read for
short-story and Egan fans. And I do mean *short* -- the longest story
here is 28 pages, and the average length is 16. All were first published
in 1990-92, when Egan was making his reputation. If you read the
Dozois Year's Best, you've seen "The Caress", in which a leopard-
woman chimera is created by a millionaire with way too much time
on his hands, to "realize"the eponymous, & famous, 1896 Belgian
Symbolist painting -- Egan's harried policeman-protagonist is drafted
to play the male caressor. This was his sixth(!)-published story, and it
has many of his trademarks: more good ideas than most novels, an
understated future-Australia setting, clean, transparent prose and a
helluva story.

Well -- I could rattle on about individual stories, but in my usual
slothful fashion I'll refer you to others who've already done so --
personally, I don't find 2-3 line summaries of short stories to be
helpful (but YMMV). What I *can* say is, you'll find all of the
virtues of Egan's novels here, and few of the faults. There's really
not a weak story in the bunch. You can sample the excellent
scientific-romance "Closer", and "The Moral Virologist", a rather
loathsome Tiptree-inspired ("Last Flight of Dr. Ahn"/ "Screwfly
Solution") piece (plus some later stories) at Egan's website:
www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/ [Google if Amazon censors it]

Happy reading!
Pete Tillman

I'm writing this review not having read the book for a long time, but it grows in my estimation with time, and I often think about the stories. They are classic examples of "Hard SF," but have the perfection of logical puzzles or chess problems. They seem to spring from abstract speculations about physics, biology, or philosphy, but are turned into affecting and involving vignettes and characters that often leave you stunned and moved. I can't recommend it highly enough.

If you love sci-fi books you have to think to fully understand - this book is for you! Actually, I'd say, most of Greg Egan's books are for you. This is a collection of short stories, unlike any I have ever read (and I love reading these collections! ). Almost every single one of them is extraordinary. At times I had to slow down, and try to grasp what he means in order to continue, but once I got it, it just made the story more enjoyable. If you're a hard core sci-fi reader - buy this book! You won't regret this desicion. :)

What John Varley was to the 1970s and early 1980s, Greg Egan is to the 1990s and 2000s: An author who thinks about what it will be like for the human mind and soul to encounter the technological advances that can change the nature of consciousness itself. After reading a story like one of these you are too stunned to think, because the concepts themselves are so mind-blowing. This book, by the way, is only the beginning: Egan's later stories (many of which can be found in Gardner Dozois's annual collections of science fiction) and Egan's novels (especially Diaspora) show more of the same.

Short stories are possiblly the best format for Egan's idea dense writing. This wonderful book never makes you stop thinking.

I knew I was in for a good read when one of the early stories useda set of measure zero to describe time travel.

From an objective standpoint this may be Egan's best book but the ideas didn't affect me quite as strongly as permutation city did so I am rating this only as a four.

This is what SF was made for. The science part is fun -- and Egan clearly knows his stuff. But this is more than science for its own sake. Egan uses the science angle to explore philosophical stumpers in otherwise impossible ways. The stories are wonderfully original and distinct, but two philosophic threads tie them together. The stories explore questions of determinism and free will or questions of where our identity resides and what are its irreducible components. Some stories explore both. So it's not just a bunch of unconnected Egan shorts hustled between two covers. The cumulative impact exceeds what any one of these stories could have hoped for on its own. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.

I found "Permutation City" at a used book store last summer and was so taken by it I ended up buying all of Egan's books, going so far as to order "Axiomatic" and "Dispora" from a British bookstore, since they're not yet availabke in the US. It was worth the trouble--"Axiomatic" is a collection no SF fan should be without. Egan is one of the very few writers doing true science fiction, where the science is an integral part of the story. You'll be rereading these stories for years.

I read Ted Chiang's _Stories of Your Life_ and found it incredible (I'd have to count two-thirds of the collection as being among the best short fiction I've ever read in any genre), so naturally I checked around for other people's comments, and about 5 or 6 people who liked Chiang's stuff led me to this book (a couple of them recommending this book OVER the Chiang collection).

Having just finished reading it, I can only say I feel a bit numb and let-down. Sure, some (but nowhere near all) of the ideas are fascinating, but the storytelling leaves much to be desired. Conceptually, I suppose it's above-average science fiction fare, but in terms of the execution, pretty much everything is run-of-the-mill SF. Nearly all of the stories could be given a one-paragraph "wouldn't it be cool if..." treatment, and not be much worse off for it. The pacing is disappointing (sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow), the characters are like cardboard (which is disastrous in stories that are primarily first-person), and Egan even allows some of the ideas, however brilliant, to fizzle out ("The Moat" is the most extreme example of this).

There are three or four gems here ("Learning To Be Me" comes to mind), but for people looking for moving or cleverly-plotted stories, I would have to recommend looking elsewhere. Nonetheless, for hard SF enthusiasts, this is a decent collection, so long as you're not looking for style to go with the substance.

Greg Egan's strength certainly lies in short stories. His ideas are fascinating, and though his characterisation is minimal and serves only to advance the plot or his ideas, the ideas alone make this worth a read. Concept-driven hard SF at its best