AustLit logo

AustLit

Bernard Sigaud Bernard Sigaud i(A68488 works by)
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
9 12 y separately published work icon Distress Greg Egan , London : Millennium , 1995 Z381122 1995 single work novel science fiction

Distress is 'set in 2055 when the centre of Sydney is virtually deserted, as most work and entertainment is conducted at home via broadband optical fibre networks. Egan's main character, science journalist Andrew Worth, is sent to 'Stateless', a bioengineered Pacific coral island to interview a South African Nobel Prize winner who is intending to reveal a major breakthrough in human comprehension techniques. Various competing interests, however, descend on the island and Worth becomes an unwitting agent of change. Biotechnology implants, quantum physics, voluntary autism and mutant cholera are just some of the ingredients mixed into the mystery of who wishes to kill the Nobel Laureate, and for what purpose' (Colin Steele, SF Commentary No 77, p.54).

8 15 y separately published work icon Permutation City Greg Egan , St Leonards : Allen and Unwin , 1994 Z455855 1994 single work novel science fiction (taught in 2 units) 'In Permutation City Egan has said that his main goal was "to take the idea of conscious software - whether it's some kind of scanned human duplicate, or some AI created from scratch - and push it to its logical conclusion'." The story involves human identities being 'loaded into computer memory banks where they become virtual people' (Colin Steele, SF Commentary No 77, p.53).
X