J-Sun
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- Joined
- Oct 23, 2008
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Locus Roundtable discussion
I thought this was a pretty good discussion (as did Greg Benford and Al Reynolds, apparently).
My first encounter was basically as Letson's - Dozois annuals with his stories in them led to novels and collections by him. Have to confess that, unlike Letson, I see very little Silverberg or PKD in him to speak of, though. (Maybe Silverberg's Dying Inside (as an example) explores in a kind of fuzzy poetic way some of the sorts of things Egan explores with more rigorous underpinnings and, indeed, some of Egan's altered physics can reach Dickian acid-trip proportions but that's really stretching to make a comparison, which comes from people seeming to feel more comfortable with X if they can say "X is like Y".)
Pursuing implications, pushing boundaries, combining science and fiction and with a certain muscular leanness in the fiction. These are definite elements of his work.
I like Dozois' discussion of the early history of Egan. His technohorror strain was evident for a long time and may still crop up but he started as essentially a technohorror writer which is sort of strange as, while some of what he discusses can verge on the horrific if viewed that way, it doesn't seem to fit his general weltanschauung (speaking of handy polysyllabic German words). It's at least an interesting complexity in him. And I also don't see much LeGuin in him but at l see where he's coming from in that particular case as long as you underscore "harder-edged".
The next point is also great - Egan has such a vast array of ideas and topics on the one hand, but he's certainly not afraid to explore them more than once, on the other. So his work doesn't seem repetitious but nor is there any simple definitive story - all the ideas are deepened and made more complex with each new take. For me, I like a lot of his stuff but I find his neurobiology stories some of the most effective and interesting, such as in "Reasons to be Cheerful". But I'm afraid it's likely his post-human (Raven) or super-physics stuff (Dozois) that he'll get reduced to. Hopefully that won't happen though, and all his variety will persist.
There's another interesting point in there about his "love" and "cynicism". I agree with Burnham that he does have what seems to be a cynical view - any clear-enough vision is cynical (or is that too cynical?) - but I like how Egan doesn't believe (like, e.g., Keats) that philosophy will clip an angel's wings. Analysis and understanding doesn't result in the thing disappearing, else there'd have been nothing there to understand in the first place. IOW, even the analysis of an illusion reveals an optical truth and the oar still looks bent after you understand.
Raven's excellent on the "too-human post-human" point. A superficial reading might lead to that complaint but, if you're actually paying attention, it's easy to see that the "humanity" you see as a reader is just the tip of the posthuman iceberg. The book is an interface - it and the reader can communicate - but there's obviously much behind the "human avatar" in the story. So I think that, and Egan, are pretty dead-on. It's the best (really only) way to eff the ineffable.
And Letson's dead-on about the importance of choice and the drive to know.
Anyway - like I say, excellent stuff on the writer who I think stands alone in the last 20 years in terms of quality and importance.
I thought this was a pretty good discussion (as did Greg Benford and Al Reynolds, apparently).
My first encounter was basically as Letson's - Dozois annuals with his stories in them led to novels and collections by him. Have to confess that, unlike Letson, I see very little Silverberg or PKD in him to speak of, though. (Maybe Silverberg's Dying Inside (as an example) explores in a kind of fuzzy poetic way some of the sorts of things Egan explores with more rigorous underpinnings and, indeed, some of Egan's altered physics can reach Dickian acid-trip proportions but that's really stretching to make a comparison, which comes from people seeming to feel more comfortable with X if they can say "X is like Y".)
Pursuing implications, pushing boundaries, combining science and fiction and with a certain muscular leanness in the fiction. These are definite elements of his work.
I like Dozois' discussion of the early history of Egan. His technohorror strain was evident for a long time and may still crop up but he started as essentially a technohorror writer which is sort of strange as, while some of what he discusses can verge on the horrific if viewed that way, it doesn't seem to fit his general weltanschauung (speaking of handy polysyllabic German words). It's at least an interesting complexity in him. And I also don't see much LeGuin in him but at l see where he's coming from in that particular case as long as you underscore "harder-edged".
The next point is also great - Egan has such a vast array of ideas and topics on the one hand, but he's certainly not afraid to explore them more than once, on the other. So his work doesn't seem repetitious but nor is there any simple definitive story - all the ideas are deepened and made more complex with each new take. For me, I like a lot of his stuff but I find his neurobiology stories some of the most effective and interesting, such as in "Reasons to be Cheerful". But I'm afraid it's likely his post-human (Raven) or super-physics stuff (Dozois) that he'll get reduced to. Hopefully that won't happen though, and all his variety will persist.
There's another interesting point in there about his "love" and "cynicism". I agree with Burnham that he does have what seems to be a cynical view - any clear-enough vision is cynical (or is that too cynical?) - but I like how Egan doesn't believe (like, e.g., Keats) that philosophy will clip an angel's wings. Analysis and understanding doesn't result in the thing disappearing, else there'd have been nothing there to understand in the first place. IOW, even the analysis of an illusion reveals an optical truth and the oar still looks bent after you understand.
Raven's excellent on the "too-human post-human" point. A superficial reading might lead to that complaint but, if you're actually paying attention, it's easy to see that the "humanity" you see as a reader is just the tip of the posthuman iceberg. The book is an interface - it and the reader can communicate - but there's obviously much behind the "human avatar" in the story. So I think that, and Egan, are pretty dead-on. It's the best (really only) way to eff the ineffable.
And Letson's dead-on about the importance of choice and the drive to know.
Anyway - like I say, excellent stuff on the writer who I think stands alone in the last 20 years in terms of quality and importance.
