{"product_id":"the-best-of-greg-egan-9781596069428","title":"The Best of Greg Egan","description":"\u003cp\u003eGreg Egan is arguably Australias greatest living science fiction writer. In a career spanning more than thirty years  he has produced a steady stream of novels and stories that address a wide range of scientific and philosophical concerns: artificial intelligence  higher mathematics  science vs religion  the nature of consciousness  and the impact of technology on the human personality. All these ideas and more find their way into this generous and illuminating collection  the clear product of a man who is both a master storyteller and a rigorous  exploratory thinker. The Best of Greg Egan contains twenty stories and novellas arranged in chronological order  and each of them is a brilliantly conceived  painstakingly developed gem. The book opens with Learning to be Me  about a society in which the organic human brain can be replaced by a miraculous piece of technology called the jewel  a mock brain that confers  among other things  a kind of immortality on its recipients. Bit Playersthe opening movement in a trio of tales that continues with 3-adica and Instantiationposits a world in which cheaply generated software beings are exploited for the basest commercial purposes. (Other sets of interconnected storiesall of them reprinted hereinclude the mathematically-themed Luminous and Dark Integers  and a pair of stories centered on the complex marriage of a physicist and a mathematician: Singleton and Oracle.) Reasons to be Cheerful  concerns a young boy whose brain tumor has an unexpected effect on his life  moods  and view of the world. Axiomatic tells the story of a society in which implants can be used to alter the human personality  with potentially lethal results. And the Hugo Award-winning novella Oceanic is a powerful account of a boy whose deeply held religious beliefs are undermined by what he comes to learn about the laws of the physical world. This book really does represent the best of Greg Egan  and it therefore takes its place among the best of contemporary SF. Startling  intelligent and always hugely entertaining  it provides an ideal introduction to one of the most accomplished and original writers working today. This is an important and provocative collection  and it deserves a place on the serious science fiction readers permanent shelf.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45792395264053,"sku":"ByrdShop_1596069422","price":337.57,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781596069428.jpg?v=1784748424","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-best-of-greg-egan-9781596069428","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}