Zendegi [Hardcover]

Greg Egan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2010

In 2012, journalist Martin Seymour travels to Iran to cover the parliamentary elections. With most would-be candidates disqualified this turns out to be the expected non-event, but shortly afterward a compromising image of a government official captured on a mobile phone triggers a political avalanche.
Nasim Golestani, a young Iranian scientist living in exile in the United States, is hoping to work on the Human Connectome Project -- which aims to construct a detailed map of the wiring of the human brain -- but when government funding for the project is cancelled and a chance comes to return to her homeland, she chooses to head back to Iran.
Fifteen years later, Martin is living in Iran with his wife and young son, while Nasim is in charge of the virtual world known as Zendegi, used by millions of people for entertainment and business. When Zendegi comes under threat from powerful competitors, Nasim draws on her old skills, and data from the now-completed Human Connectome Project, to embark on a program to create more life-like virtual characters and give the company an unbeatable edge.
As controversy grows over the nature and rights of these software characters, tragedy strikes Martin's family. Martin turns to Nasim, seeking a solution that no one else can offer ... but Zendegi is about to become a battlefield.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this provocative near-future tale, humans mingle with artificial intelligences called proxies in the virtual world of Zendegi. Shortly after Iranian scientist Nasim Golestani develops a way to make proxies so lifelike that some people believe they should have the same rights as humans, journalist Martin Seymour, an Australian living in Iran, finds out that he might not live to raise his young son, Javeed. He becomes obsessed with finding a way to guide Javeed even after his death and decides that if he could make a proxy of himself, then he could die in peace. Nasim agrees to help him even as proxy rights activists attack her for creating and enslaving conscious entities. Egan (Crystal Nights and Other Stories) creates a thought-provoking, intensely personal story about conflicting instincts and desires as technology recapitulates humanity.
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Martin Seymour is in Iran to cover parliamentary elections in 2012. They are, as expected, a nonevent, but when a government official is caught in a particularly compromising position, a cascade of world-changing events follows. Nasim Golestani, an Iranian expat living in the U.S. and working on the Human Connectome Project, watches from her distant vantage point, hoping to return as soon as an opportunity presents itself. Martin and Nasim are thrown together 15 years later, when Martin's family is shattered by tragedy. By now Nasim is working on a virtual gaming world called Zendegi. She's developing increasingly complex virtual characters by drawing on her prior research on the brain. Then Martin asks her to try for something that seems impossible, just as conservative politicians are catching wind of the ethical implications of Zendegi. It might look, at first glance, like a plot we've already seen hashed out ad nauseam, but have faith in Egan's ability to create stunning, complex futures, with grand themes given a human dimension: he delivers something extraordinary, with no easy answers. Despite its tragedies, the story is remarkably hopeful and certainly one of the best of its kind. --Regina Schroeder

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 278 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books; First Ed edition (September 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597801747
• ISBN-13: 978-1597801744
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #971,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a science fiction writer and computer programmer. You can find information, illustrations and interactive applets that supplement my books at www.gregegan.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful speculation, June 25, 2010

By 

Mike Fazey (Perth, Western Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zendegi (Hardcover)

The idea of mapping and uploading human consciousness isn't new to science fiction. Indeed, Egan has explored it in a couple of his earlier novels and in his short stories. Other SF writers have done so too. But Zendegi isn't stale or hackneyed; quite the opposite in fact.

Zendegi is the name of a virtual reality role-playing game whose designers manage to create game characters from partially mapped human minds. They do so for commercial reasons, to give their product an edge in an increasingly competitive VR market place. It's ironic that something so complex and amazing should be applied to such mundane purposes - entertainment and money-making. Egan juxtaposes this scenario with another far more worthwhile one - using a virtual version of a dying parent as way of ensuring that the child doesn't grow up totally without parental guidance. But what are the moral implications of doing this? And what other applications, altruistic or otherwise, might such technology lead to, especially given the increasingly commercial nature of scientific research?

Exploring big questions like these is what great SF is all about, and Egan's treatment of this particular topic is fascinating. Equally fascinating is the setting - a near-future Iran which is now democratic but where religious ideology is still a factor.

By contrast with his previous two novels, Egan balances the science and the storytelling really well, creating believable characters and putting them in a setting that, while speculative, is eminently plausible. There's also a touch of humour where, early in the novel, one of the characters is confronted by a science journalist whose previous works include `The Sociobiology of The Simpsons' and `The Metaphysics of Melrose Place'. Ha ha! Shades of the pretentious academics in Teranesia whose careers have been forged in the cutting edge fields of X-Files Theory and Diana Studies.

The characters in the book are not heroic, but they are very human. The story does not have a dramatic climax, but it leaves you thinking about morality, about politics, about business, about humanity's future. It's a provocative speculation on the possibilities of technology and it's Egan's best novel in years.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Is This the Same Greg Egan?, August 18, 2011

By 

Chris Fox "Cheopys" (Can Tho, Vietnam) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Zendegi (Hardcover)

I don't exaggerate when I say that some of Egan's earlier books changed my life. The intellectual repartee got me thinking as no other fiction writer ever has except maybe Dostoyevsky. The solidly grounded speculative physics was the best ever. Permutation City, Distress, Quarantine, Diaspora .. but then after Schild's Ladder there were some disappointments. Teranesia didn't measure up, the next one didn't either. And I was two thirds of the way through Zendegi before I realized it just wasn't going anywhere. Sorry Mr. Egan but I'm not impressed that you've learned Farsi and I just don't find Iranian culture all that fascinating. This book was a pale ghost of Egan's earlier speculation on consciousness in inorganic substrates like the Qusp, and when I finished the last page I realized that unlike so many others read dog-eared, this is one I won't be reading again.

And the first story in Crystal Nights? More Farsi. Doesn't do a thing for me.

Come on, Mr. Egan, get back that spark of the earlier books. This was an honest to god letdown.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unexceptional, January 17, 2011

By 

Polarity Reversal - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zendegi (Hardcover)

What could have been a very good short story has been stretched into a so-so novel, which (at times) is more about parenting than anything else. The story is not riveting and it's not in league with Egan's best. It drags in several places and only has a couple of mildly interesting ideas.