Greg Egan Orion Millenium 1 857985 52 4 [9781857985528] RRP $24.95

Reading science fiction is to live in the hope that one day you'll pick up a book that's as good as the ones you remember reading years ago. Sadly, it rarely happens. Like many other areas of genre writing in contemporary fiction, sf has moved into smaller and smaller sub-groupings of factional interests amongst a broader, more fashionable drift in subject matter, ambience and mis-en-scene. While some writers may take an interest in the psychological aspects of media, (William Gibson's Idoru is just one example), or attempt to recreate the glory days of wide-screen sf with a more contemporary, cynical edge, (Iain M. Banks's excellent Culture series), the future just isn't what it used to be.

All of which makes reading Greg Egan's Luminous a fascinating insight into the state of the art. A collection of short stories by Australia's most successful science-fiction writer, Egan scored a coup against the limited, dismissive Australian sf community by having his novels and short stories published internationally. Egan's work is currently enjoying acclaim in the US and the UK and this edition of the book proudly displays a recommendation from no less an authority than New Scientist.

Turning his back on the local scene that spurned him, Egan's book looks towards the world with Australian locations appearing as exotic locales for his stories. Credited with reinvigorating sf with hard science, Egan's characters exist in dystopian near-futures where biotechnology is fully integrated into daily life. Indeed, it's this curious combination of locale and first person narrative that so radically marks out Egan's writing from his international contemporaries. His prose is like an sf Andrew McGahan and the stories read like Praise with a hot-wired brain implant. His stories revel in the banality of the everyday while investing his near-futures with believable tech. It's easy to see why his work is garnering such admiration from sf readers.

Egan mixes old style sf with the new, taking the approach of Clarke and Asimov of giving his future bio-technology a credible context, but, like contemporaries such as William Gibson, Egan gives his characterisation only the most cursory of detail. The short story form in sf is not generally known for its character development and, like the work of Egan's cyber -punk alumni, character detail is lost in the plot. But like the best sf, Egan's tales are also parables of the contemporary world. Two examples of his stories illustrate his approach.

The authenticity of race and its attendant notions of pc-ness are addressed in his story Mitochondrial Eve and, tellingly, the location is none other than the University of NSW. Egan takes a subtle look at claims to racial purity from the perspective of a scientist researching genetic heritage in the midst of a greater search for the original Eve. Shades of One Nation, Indigenous groups and quasi-Nazi Aryan purists are invoked in the struggle to claim one genetic origin over another. It's a clever gambit that pays off. Although the reader is left with no particular notion of who any of these characters are, the story is a vehicle for a single, provocative idea. And that's classic science fiction.

Andrew G. Frost.

Other works by same author:

- Quarantine, HarperCollins 0061054232 RRP $ unavailable at time of writing [9780061054235]

- Permutation City, Orion Group UK 0752816497 RRP $14.95 [9780752816494]

- Axiomatic, Orion Group UK 0752816500 RRP $14.95 [9780752816500]

- Distress, Orion Phoenix 1857994841 RRP $14.95 [9781857994841]

- Diaspora, Orion Group UK 0752809253 RRP $14.95 [9780752809250]

Other works on same/related theme:

- Iain M. Banks, The State of the Art, Sphere Orbit Legend 1857230302 RRP $17.95 [9781857230307]

- Bruce Sterling, Islands in the Net, Ace Books USA 0441374239 RRP $9.95 [9780441374236]

- William Gibson, Idoru, Penguin 0140241078 RRP $14.95 [9780140241075]