Teranesia: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Amazon.com Review

Nine-year-old Prabir Suresh lives alone with his baby sister, Madhusree, and his biologist parents on a tropical Indonesian isle. Teranesia is so small and remote, it's not on the maps, and its strange native species of butterfly remained undiscovered until the 21st century. Prabir never wants to leave, but war forces him to flee with Madhusree. He believes he has saved his sister--until she returns to Indonesia, a grad student seeking to carry on their parents' forgotten work, pursuing reports of strange new plant and animal species. Prabir follows, to discover birds and orchids even stranger than the butterflies: mutants that are evidence of frightfully sped-up evolutionary changes with no discernable cause.

Greg Egan has received the Hugo Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He was widely considered the best SF author of the '90s, and one publication (Science Fiction Weekly) has named him "perhaps the most important SF writer in the world"--high praise, but not unjustified. For evidence, check out not only Teranesia, but works like Diaspora, Distress, and Quarantine. --Cynthia Ward

Review

"Immensely ambitious, intellectually exhilarating...Greg Egan is perhaps the most important SF writer in the world." -- -- Science Fiction Weekly

"One gets the feeling at times not of reading a novel, but of witnessing an extended conversation Egan is having with himself on subjects ranging from biotechnology to particle physics to social theory...Egan knows his material, has a keen talent for extrapolation, a vivid imagination and a passion for intellectual banter." -- San Francisco Examiner

"One of the very best." -- -- Locus

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 295 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006105092X
• ISBN-13: 978-0061050923
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,199,014 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly promising, but..., December 15, 1999

By A Customer

...unfortunately not done nearly as well as it could have been. The characters are far better drawn than they have been in any previous Egan books, but the plot suffered. The ending is terrible. Nothing is resolved, nothing is connected from the story. Characters just disappear, without anything really explained.

The idea behind the book, as it always is in what Egan writes, is fascinating. It could have been used far more than it was, however; I got the feeling that Egan rushed through the writing of the book. The typeface is rather large and only lasts for 320 pages - this book should have been a good 50% longer. More of the ideas should have been illustrated by things happening instead of through implausible long conversations between characters.

"Teranesia" is worth reading simply for the brilliant ideas behind the text. But it's not worth buying, especially not in hardcover, when it only takes a few hours to read. Get it from the library instead.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great writing from Egan, March 14, 2000

By A Customer

Teranesia has the most satisfying conclusion of any of Egan's novels yet.

From a literary standpoint, his writing continues to improve. Here he sets himself some ambitious goals and achieves them with a lightness of touch that is refreshing.

The novel is certainly one of his most readable. It is more accessible than, say, Diaspora or Distress, with a story that is moving, human, and revealing of the author's values.

Egan continues his passionate advocacy of science as the one sincere path towards truth, and this was the only aspect that made me uncomfortable. He is persuasive when demonstrating the scientific method and its power, but like most passionate advocates, he loses some credibility when he sets out to discredit the competition. The novel's population comprises scientists and buffoons, and that's about it.

A series of religious straw men are set up and demolished to demonstrate that no good thing can emerge from religion. He does the same to post-modernism but since I agree with him there, that was much less alienating! As a religious person who would not dismiss a scientific hypothesis just because it conflicted with my beliefs I might just scrape into Egan's DMZ as one of the very few who are deluded but honourable.

Given what I have just said, it is a good thing that the story remains focussed on the scientists, and here there is depth of characterization. These are no stereotypes, but likeable, believable people, with plausibly messed up psychologies and mixed motives.

A thoroughly enjoyable book, with enough left unsaid to inspire further speculation about the implications of his remarkable invention.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too much character - too little science, March 18, 2000

By A Customer

Having read all of the previous titles, it was with high expectations that I tore into this latest creation of the new saint of SF. What a letdown, perhaps akin to watching Michael Jordan play baseball. Greg's understanding of the AI nature of technology futures is truely profound and he has the ability to weave this into a deeply moving, spiritual tale that keeps you on the edge. Now that he has proven that he can write deeply detailed characters with a patina of science, let's hope that he gets back in the kitchen and serves up some meat & potatoes.