Luminous (Paperback)

by Greg Egan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

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LUMINOUS collects together one original story plus nine previously unpublished in book form.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.

About the Author
SALES POINTS Cutting edge science fiction from 'one of the genre's great ideas men' THE TIMES Bio-science is extremely commercial sf sub genre Never one short of startling ideas, Egan's latest, greatest novel presents us with hard SF miracles... Remember to keep your mouth closed when reading this or your jaw might drop clean off' STARBURST; 'Succeeds wonderfully in expanding the mind...rewards the reader with ever expanding vistas of wonder...The Universe may be stranger than we can imagine, but it's going to have a tough time outdoing Egan' NEW SCIENTIST '

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Gollancz (August 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857985737
• ISBN-13: 978-1857985733
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #770,211 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gets the neurons firing double time, December 17, 2004

By	monkey mind (Edmonton Canada) - See all my reviews

This is an excellent collection of hard sci-fi shorts. The stories start on a groudwork of scientific/mathematical speculations and soar from there, exploring a diverse range of themes. Egan can truly envelope you in another world, and show the consequences of the story's central idea.
Anyone with an innate curiousity for science/mathematics and a love of sci fi should definately check these out. I'm a little surprised that I'm the first reviewer.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Luminous - Greg Egan, July 31, 2007

By	Blue Tyson "- http://freesf.blogspot.com" - See all my reviews

Luminous : Chaff - Greg Egan
Luminous : Mitochondrial Eve - Greg Egan
Luminous : Luminous - Greg Egan
Luminous : Mister Volition - Greg Egan
Luminous : Cocoon - Greg Egan
Luminous : Transition Dreams - Greg Egan
Luminous : Silver Fire - Greg Egan
Luminous : Reasons to Be Cheerful - Greg Egan
Luminous : Our Lady of Chernobyl - Greg Egan
Luminous : The Planck Dive - Greg Egan


An agent is sent to kill a geneticist who is working in a druglord controlled stronghold in the jungles of Colombia, and working on important brain altering research.

3.5 out of 5


An organisation is trying to trace a common maternal ancestor for recent humanity. A woman's geneticist boyfriend is dragged into this, and embarks on a long-term supercomputer project to track this.

A racist equivalent for men springs up, and the researching man decides to get subversive.

4 out of 5


A pair of researchers have found a defect in mathematics, where something can be true and false at the same time. This leads to them going on the run to keep the power of changing reality out of corporate hands, and leads them to a startling discovery.

"Alison gave me a strange look. "You still don't get it, do you, Bruno? You're still thinking like a Platonist. The universe has only been around for fifteen billion years. It hasn't had time to create infinities. The far side can't go on forever-because somewhere beyond the defect, there are theorems that don't belong to any system. Theorems that have never been touched, never been tested, never been rendered true or false.

"And if we have to reach beyond the existing mathematics of the universe in order to surround the far side . . . then that's what we'll do. There's no reason why it shouldn't be possible-just so long as we get there first.""

5 out of 5


A man steals a brain patch, and it is blackmarket, called Pandemonium, so no-one knows what it does. He tries it anywhere, and is quite severely affected.

4 out of 5


A private policeman investigates a bombing of a biological research centre looking into natal protection of babies, when he stumbles across the fact of the company moving anyone not died in the wool hetero away from the project, and realises they are also experimenting with preventing non-hetero births by controlling maternal stress factors.

4.5 out of 5


A man is creeped out when he finds out that while being frozen and scanned to be given software immortality as a Gleisner Robot, that there will be dreams involved.

3.5 out of 5


A CDC researcher looks into the agonising titular disease, and has to track it through a travelling dance and music scene, where a cult of sorts has grown up around it.

4 out of 5


A boy discovers he has a serious brain tumour, and it was causing him to be amazingly happy. Removed, he becomes despondent, and undergoes a new and extensive treatment eventually, with a form of brain network, to try and get back to a more useful life many years later.

4.5 out of 5


A man is hired to find a radiocative religious icon. The search turns deadly.

3.5 out of 5


Some polis residents, Diaspora style, perform a highly complex experiment regarding quantum physics and existence.

4 out of 5

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great NEW science fiction, April 18, 2006

By	AlexJB (san francisco, ca United States) - See all my reviews

greg egan is one of the few authors who's really breaking into new territory in "hard science" fiction. Luminous is a collection of shorts; like so much writing in that style, they just start to open up an idea, which can sometimes be frustrating, but it's all good stuff.

themes include speculation about the future results of our work with genetic manipulation, microbiology, neuroscience, genetics, nanotech. egan also has a website with 'supplemental materials' to back up the great stuff he writes about.

this is definitely not cowboys in space, or the same old robot stories.