This book was sent to me by a mystery philanthropist in South Africa. (Actually, I have a pretty good idea who sent it.) It took almost three months to get here. Three months. Roll on quantatronic matter transfer machines I say.This is lifted from the cover: As a young boy, Prabir Suresh lives with his parents and sister on an otherwise uninhabited island in a remote part of the Indonesian peninsula. Prabir names it Teranesia, populating it with imaginary creatures even stranger than the evolutionarily puzzling butterflies that his parents are studying. Civil war strikes, orphaning Prabir and his sister. Eighteen years later, rumours of bizarre new species of plants and animals being discovered in the peninsula that was their childhood home draw Prabir's sister back to the island - Prabir cannot bear for her to have gone out alone and he follows, persuading a pharmaceutical researcher to take him along as a guide. I'm undecided about this one. It was entertaining but - and this may be down to my appalling memory of whatever happened at the beginning - the protagonist somehow developed an intimate understanding of genetics by the end of the book. It is well written but there are times when I don't believe the cause and effect, such-and-such happened to this character so he reacts by doing whatever. I didn't quite buy it sometimes. And there's a scene with a snake which didn't seem to move the plot along or enlighten me at all.The author seems to know a shed-load about genetics. Do you ever watch House? The TV show? Part of the pleasure for watching House, for me, is the bewildering language the doctors use when trying to figure out whatever is wrong with the patient. "He may have Fibro-hairy-mitosis, so start him on ten CC's of Streptro-fusion-olive-duplo-matt, stat." There's a bit of that in this book too - though about genetics and DNA strands and RNA re-combatant yadda-blah. Not too much. Just enough to make you me feel stupid.All-in-all a pretty good read but erring on the side of 'meh'. I'd be interested in what you think.I have another Greg Egan, Distress, which has been entertaining dust-bunnies on my shelf for several years. I'll read that shortly as the guy seems to have a lot of fans.
Not his best work. I liked the shift from astrophysics and technophilia to biology, but even though the main evolutionary puzzle/MacGuffin in the book was fairly interesting, a good cross between quantum computing and evolution, I thought Prabir was one of the weakest protagonists Egan has ever written, and the emotional logic behind his decisions was as incoherent as it was annoying. Prabir was especially irritating in the beginning of the book, when he was an unconvincing wunderkind; it was the least believable child character I've read since I suffered through a Don DeLillo novel. It really seemed like Egan got it into his head that he would write an Indian main character just because he could, because though his heritage plays a very minor role in the story, it's fairly incidental and ultimately doesn't add much. Also, maybe I only noticed this because I had read Luminous so recently, but Prabir's attitude towards his homosexuality ("aggressive ambivalence", if that makes sense) is almost exactly the same as the attitude of the protagonist in the short story Cocoon. My final complaint: the post-modern parody sections might have seemed funny when they were being written, but they provoke barely a chuckle at this point. I think this book could have been stronger if Egan had tossed a few more ideas in (the genetic changes described could have been much more dramatic and cooler; speaking of Luminous again, the setting of the Chaff short story would have been a much better choice) and if he had made the main character less of a tool. Time for a break from Egan, sadly.
Do You like book Teranesia (2000)?
...All things considered, Teranesia is a novel composed of a number of interesting parts that somehow don't seem to fuse into a cohesive narrative. The main character has his moments, the science is at times absolutely thought-provoking, the satire makes one grin at several occasions, but all of that is not enough to make this a successful novel. Structurally, the narrative has so many problems that the components remain interesting loose bits of information that do not manage to create something more than the sum of its parts. Interesting as the scientific speculation is, the book doesn't fulfil its potential. I thought it was a mildly disappointing read.Full, quite spoilerish Random Comments review
—Rob
http://nhw.livejournal.com/1069410.html[return][return]This is basically the book I wished that Darwin's Radio, by Egan's near namesake Greg Bear, was going to be. The central idea is the same: peculiar mutations are occurring which will not only upset evolutionary biology but also perhaps imperil the future of humanity. However Egan ties his viewpoint character into a disturbing but believable family background with consequent psychoses, and the politics and biology all seemed considerably more credible. It is set in a part of the world I don't know at all - the South Moluccas, in the near future; with excursions to the gay/academic scene in Toronto - but all very vivid and believable. I'm not surprised that this won prizes, if anything I'm surprised it didn't win more.
—Nicholas Whyte
A sluggish start, but it builds up into something quite interesting, and less weird than Quarantine or Distress -- although still weird, in the way that only Egan is. The end is abrupt, but does wrap things up. Needlessly heavy-handed in its uniformly scathing treatment of the religious and the intellectuals of the arts community, but that's really my only criticism. Otherwise, a solid entry in Egan's impressive opus. I'd still start with Incandescence, but Teranesia is easily up there with Distress. Like Egan in general, this is about as hard as hard SF gets. I like that a great deal, but others might not.
—Raja
