AustLit

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).

'In a distant future of Earth's galaxy, exotic castes of humanity coexist uneasily with descendants of humans who colonised the stars. Peace is often short-lived. Commander Morgan Roche of the Commonwealth of Empiresarmada delivers an AI to her superiors in Intelligence. Just before completion of this mission, she is ambushed on Sciacca's World but escapes and her survival becomes dependant on a castaway, Adoni Cane, an adept fighter without a past. Betrayed, and abandoned by those she has trusted, Roche must tread a path that forces her to question everything she has held dear. Just what powers does this AI have and does it have its own agenda? Morgan will prove to be a tough adversary and a skilled survivor.' (Publication abstract)

'It's late in the 21st century and bioengineering is now so common that people are able to modify their minds in any way they wish. It is an era which has been shaped by information systems so vast that security, in any form, is easily breached. Now, you can be whatever you want to be, and do whatever you want to do. On Earth anyway. One night, thirty three years ago, the stars went out. 'The Bubble' - a perfect sphere centred on the sun - appeared in the sky, isolating the solar system from the rest of the universe. For thirty-three years, humanity has lived with the religious cults and terrorism which spawned in the wake of the darkness. We are now alone. Humanity has been cut off: quarantined.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.