Rank the Greg Egan books from best to worst. I have read Permutation City, Quarantine, and Diaspora, loved them all, and am trying to decide which to read next.
If you liked Diaspora, you’ll like Schild’s Ladder. Zendegi is more psychological and a different kind of fiction, thus not much of my favourite.
Incandescence and Orthogonal should be grouped together; not bad, but different, and IMHO Orthogonal suffers from being a trilogy. They are also much more maths-heavy.
Rank the Greg Egan books from best to worst. I have read Permutation City, Quarantine, and Diaspora, loved them all, and am trying to decide which to read next.
No time to explain, but logged in to list
Distress
Axiomatic (story collection)
Luminous (story collection)
Permutation City
Quarantine
Diaspora
Zendegi
Teranesia
Orthogonal trilogy
Schild’s Ladder
Incandescence
I haven’t read many. I fully recommend Diaspora and Luminous (short story collection), I was less sold on Permutation City.
This should be fun!
Distress—it’s like the kitchen sink of hard/near-future SF
Quarantine—very enjoyable, but a bit simple-minded
Incandescence—seems like a return to early Egan’s minimalism
Permutation City—cool, but rather off for me
Schild’s Ladder—doesn’t feel innovative, the ending has the same vibe as that of Permutation
Zendegi—was expecting more LW mockery after the discussions, unfortunately it was very limited
Diaspora—although brilliant in some respects, very confusingly written
Teranesia—just boring, I understand why it’s not so known
Haven’t read yet An Unusual Angle; the Orthogonal trilogy I’ll read when I get it whole.
Haven’t read them all. Of the ones I’ve read:
Axiomatic (best, collection of short stories)
Permutation City
Distress (contains ‘sufficiently advanced’ biotechnology that amazingly did not piss me off)
Diaspora
<Edge of what I’d wholeheartedly recommend>
Schild’s Ladder
Incandescence
Quarantine (I found it nearly unreadable)
I suspect he’s one of those authors that everyone agrees one of his books is great but nobody can agree on which one...
EDIT: I find myself seriously considering the possibility that Diaspora is in the future of Permutation City...
Diaspora
Distress
Quarantine
I haven’t read the short story collections close enough together to rank them, but I’d generally recommend them
Permutation City
Zendegi
Schild’s Ladder
Teranesia
Didn’t finish (more physics than I could appreciate)
The Clockwork Rocket
Incandescence
If you liked Diaspora, you’ll like Schild’s Ladder. Zendegi is more psychological and a different kind of fiction, thus not much of my favourite.
Incandescence and Orthogonal should be grouped together; not bad, but different, and IMHO Orthogonal suffers from being a trilogy. They are also much more maths-heavy.