New Releases by Greg Egan

Andrew Worth is a science journalist with optic nerve taps and a gut full of memory chips. Burnt out after completing a documentary on controversial developments in biotechnology, he turns down a chance to report on a baffling new mental disorder known as Distress and instead takes an assignment covering the Einstein Centenary Conference on the artificial island of Stateless. There, a young South African physicist, Violet Mosala, is expected to unveil her candidate for a Theory of Everything. But the assignment is not the tropical respite Worth was expecting. While the politics surrounding the creation of Stateless grows more turbulent, and ignorance cults stage protests against the gathering scientists, a secretive group known as the Anthrocosmologists, with some very strange ideas about the Theory of Everything, begin to enact their own agenda.

Axiomatic is a collection of eighteen short stories: “The Infinite Assassin” “The Hundred Light-Year Diary” “Eugene” “The Caress” “Blood Sisters” “Axiomatic” “The Safe-Deposit Box” “Seeing” “A Kidnapping” “Learning to Be Me” “The Moat” “The Walk” “The Cutie” “Into Darkness” “Appropriate Love” “The Moral Virologist” “Closer” “Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies”

For science fiction fans these four short stories blend the cutting edge of new technology with the nature of human kindness to produce tales of great contrast and complexity. ''Chaff'' takes us on a journey into the South American rainforest where a researcher has bioweapons with extensive powers; ''Beyond the Whistle'' uses applied neutral mapping as its theme; ''Transition Dreams'' deals with the realms of electronic brains; and ''Our Lady of Chernobyl'' takes a futuristic look at the consequences of conflicts born out of disputes between history and progress. This first edition is limited to 500 copies. Includes a bibliography.

In 2034, the stars went out. An unknown agency surrounded the solar system with an impenetrable barrier, concealing the universe from humanity’s gaze. In 2067, Nick Stavrianos is hired to investigate the disappearance of a mentally disabled woman, Laura Andrews, from the institution where she was being cared for. Aided by a skull full of neural modifications, he follows her trail to the Republic of New Hong Kong, where an organisation known as the Ensemble has uncovered Laura’s extraordinary secret: an ability that could transform the world.