Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) is an Australian science fiction writer and mathematician, best known for his works of hard science fiction. Egan has won multiple awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award.
Life and work Egan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Western Australia.
He published his first work in 1983. He specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness. Other themes include genetics, simulated reality, posthumanism, mind uploading, sexuality, artificial intelligence, and the superiority of rational naturalism to religion. He often deals with complex technical material, like new physics and epistemology. He is a Hugo Award winner (with eight other works shortlisted for the Hugos) and has also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. His early stories feature strong elements of supernatural horror.
Egan's short stories have been published in a variety of genre magazines, including regular appearances in Interzone and Asimov's Science Fiction.
Mathematics In 2002, Egan co-authored two papers about Riemannian 10j symbols, spin networks appearing in Riemannian quantum gravity, together with John Baez and Dan Christensen. Spin networks also play a central role in his novel Schild's Ladder released the same year.
In 2014, Egan conjectured a generalization of the Grace–Danielsson inequality about the relation of the radii of two spheres and the distance of their respective centres to fit a simplex between them to also hold in higher dimensions, which later became known as the Egan conjecture. A proof of the inequality being sufficient was published by him in 2014 under a blog post of John Baez. They were lost due to a rearrangement of the website, but the central parts were copied into the original blog post. Further comments by Greg Egan on 16 April 2018 concern the search for a generalized conjecture involving ellipsoids. A proof of the inequality also being necessary was published by Sergei Drozdov on 16 October 2023 on ArXiv.
In 2018, Egan described a construction of superpermutations, thus giving an upper bound to their minimum length. On 27 February 2019, using ideas developed by Robin Houston and others, Egan produced a superpermutation of seven symbols of length 5906, breaking previous records.
Personal life As of 2015, Egan lives in Perth. He is a vegetarian and an atheist.
Egan does not attend science fiction conventions, does not sign books, and has stated that he appears in no photographs on the web, though both SF fan sites and Google Search have at times mistakenly identified him as the subject of photos of other people with the same name.
Awards Egan's work has won the Japanese Seiun Award for best translated fiction nine times.
Teranesia was named the winner of the 2000 Ditmar Award for best novel, but Egan declined the award.
Work Year & Award Category Result Ref."Scatter My Ashes"1989 Ditmar AwardAustralian Short Fiction1989 Interzone Readers PollFiction "The Cutie"1990 Interzone Readers PollFiction "Learning to Be Me"1991 BSFA AwardShort Fiction 1991 Interzone Readers PollFiction1991 Locus AwardShort Story1995 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's AwardForeign Short Story2007 Premio IgnotusForeign Short Story"Axiomatic"1991 BFSAShort Fiction1991 Interzone Readers PollFiction1991 Locus AwardShort Story1997 Premio IgnotusForeign Story"Eugene"1991 Interzone Readers PollFiction"The Safe-Deposit Box"1991 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette1991 Locus AwardNovelette"Appropriate Love"1992 Interzone Readers PollFiction1999 Premio IgnotusForeign Story"The Caress"1991 Ditmar AwardAustralian Short Fiction1991 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette1991 Locus AwardNovelette"Fidelity"1992 Locus AwardShort Story"Reification Highway"1992 BFSAShort Fiction"The Infinite Assassin"1992 Interzone Readers PollFiction2002 Premio IgnotusForeign Story"Blood Sisters"1992 Locus AwardShort Story1992 Interzone Readers PollFiction"Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies"1993 Locus AwardShort Story1993 Interzone Readers PollFiction"Closer"1993 Ditmar AwardShort FictionQuarantine1993 Ditmar AwardLong Fiction1994 Kurd Laßwitz AwardForeign Work2000 Premio IgnotusForeign Novel2000 Seiun AwardTranslated Long Work"Into Darkness"1993 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette1993 Locus AwardNovelette"Dust"1993 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette1993 Locus AwardNovelette1997 Premio IgnotusForeign Story"The Walk"1993 Asimov's Readers' PollShort Story"Worthless"1993 Ditmar AwardShort Fiction"The Extra"1994 Locus AwardShort Story"Chaff"1994 Locus AwardNovelette1994 Interzone Readers PollFiction"Cocoon"1994 Otherwise Award1995 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction1995 SF Chronicle AwardNovelette1995 Locus AwardNovelette1995 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette1995 Hugo AwardNovelette1995 Ditmar AwardAustralian Short FictionPermutation City1995 BSFA AwardNovel1995 John W. Campbell Memorial AwardScience Fiction Novel1995 Locus AwardSF Novel1995 Ditmar AwardAustralian Long Fiction1996 Philip K. Dick Award1996 Kurd Laßwitz AwardForeign Work1999 Italia AwardsInternational Novel1999 Premio IgnotusForeign Novel2000 Seiun AwardTranslated Long Work"Our Lady of Chernobyl"1995 Interzone Readers PollFiction1995 Ditmar AwardAustralian Short Fiction1995 Locus AwardNovelette"Luminous"1995 Aurealis AwardScience Fiction Short Story1996 SF Chronicle AwardNovelette1996 Locus AwardNovelette1996 Hugo AwardNovelette2003 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story2011 Premio IgnotusForeign Short Story"Wang's Carpets"1995 Aurealis AwardScience Fiction Short Story1996 Locus AwardNovelette1998 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's AwardForeign Short StoryDistress1995 Aurealis AwardScience Fiction Novel1997 Locus AwardSF Novel2000 Kurd Laßwitz AwardForeign Work2001 Premio IgnotusForeign Novel2005 Seiun AwardTranslated Long Work"Mister Volition"1995 Aurealis AwardScience Fiction Short Story1995 BFSA AwardShort Fiction1999 Premio IgnotusForeign Story2003 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's AwardForeign Short Story"TAP"1996 Hugo AwardNovelette1996 Locus AwardNovelette1996 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette"Silver Fire"1996 Interzone Readers PollFiction1996 Locus AwardNoveletteAxiomatic (Collection)1996 Locus AwardCollection2008 Grand prix de l'ImaginaireForeign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short StoriesOur Lady of Chernobyl (Collection)1996 Locus AwardCollection1997 Grand prix de l'ImaginaireForeign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short StoriesTransition Dreams1997 Grand prix de l'ImaginaireForeign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short StoriesDiaspora1997 Aurealis AwardScience Fiction Novel1998 Locus AwardSF Novel2001 Kurd Laßwitz AwardForeign Work2006 Seiun AwardTranslated Long Work2010 Premio IgnotusForeign Novel"Reasons to Be Cheerful"1997 Aurealis AwardScience Fiction Short Story1998 Interzone Readers PollFiction1998 Ditmar AwardShort Fiction1998 Locus AwardNovelette2002 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story2003 Premio IgnotusForeign Story"Orphanogenesis"1998 Locus AwardShort Story"Oceanic"1998 Aurealis AwardScience Fiction Short Story1998 HOMer AwardNovella1999 Asimov's Readers' PollNovella1999 Locus AwardNovella1999 Hugo AwardNovella2000 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's AwardForeign Short Story2001 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story2010 Grand prix de l'ImaginaireForeign-language Short Fiction"The Planck Dive"1998 HOMer AwardNovelette1999 Locus AwardNovelette1999 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction1999 Hugo AwardNoveletteLuminous (Collection)1999 Locus AwardCollectionTeranesia1999 Aurealis AwardScience Fiction Novel2000 Locus AwardSF Novel2000 Ditmar AwardNovel2001 Gaylactic Spectrum AwardNovel2002 Italia AwardsInternational Novel2002 Kurd Laßwitz AwardForeign Work"Border Guards"2000 Hugo AwardNovelette2000 Locus AwardNovelette2000 Interzone Readers PollFiction"Oracle"2001 Hugo AwardNovella2001 Asimov's Readers' PollNovella2001 Locus AwardNovella2001 Gaylactic Spectrum AwardShort Fiction"Singleton"2002 BFSA AwardShort Fiction2003 Locus AwardNovella2003 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science FictionSchild's Ladder2003 Prometheus AwardSF Novel2003 Locus AwardSF Novel"Riding the Crocodile"2007 Locus AwardNovella"The Hundred Light-Year Diary"2007 Premio IgnotusForeign Story"Dark Integers"2008 Hugo AwardNovelette2008 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette2008 Locus AwardNovelette2010 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story"Glory"2008 Hugo AwardNovelette2008 Locus AwardNovelette"Crystal Nights"2008 BFSA AwardShort Fiction2009 Interzone Readers PollStory2009 Locus AwardNovelette2011 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story"Lost Continent"2009 Locus AwardNoveletteDark Integers and Other Stories2009 Locus AwardCollectionIncandescence2009 Locus AwardSF Novel2011 Italia AwardsInternational Novel2014 Seiun AwardTranslated Long WorkOceanic (Collection)2010 Locus AwardCollection"Hot Rock"2010 Locus AwardNovellaThe Clockwork Rocket2011 Goodreads Choice AwardsScience Fiction2012 Locus AwardSF NovelZendegi2011 Locus AwardSF Novel2016 Seiun AwardTranslated Long WorkThe Eternal Flame2013 Locus AwardSF Novel"Zero for Conduct"2014 Locus AwardNoveletteThe Arrows of Time2014 Locus AwardSF Novel"Seventh Sight"2015 Locus AwardNovelette2017 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story"Shadow Flock"2015 Locus AwardNovelette"The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred"2016 Locus AwardNovella2016 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction2016 Asimov's Readers' PollNovella2017 Canopus AwardShort-Form Fiction"Uncanny Valley"2017 BFSA AwardShort Fiction2020 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story"The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine"2018 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction2018 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette"The Slipway"2019 Analog Readers PollNovelette"3-adica"2019 Asimov's Readers' PollNovellaThe Best of Greg Egan2020 Locus AwardCollection"Bit Players"2020 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story"This is Not The Way Home"2021 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story"Light Up the Clouds"2022 Asimov's Readers' PollNovella"Didicosm"2023 Analog Readers PollNovelette"Solidity"2023 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette2023 Locus AwardNovelette2024 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story"Crisis Actors"2025 Seiun AwardsTranslated Short Story"After Zero"2026 Seiun AwardsTranslated Short Story
Works Novels An Unusual Angle (1983), Quarantine (1992), Permutation City (1994), Distress (1995), Diaspora (1997), Teranesia (1999), Schild's Ladder (2002), Incandescence (2008), Zendegi (2010), Dichronauts (2017), Perihelion Summer (2019), The Book of All Skies (2021), Scale (2023), Morphotrophic (2024),
Orthogonal trilogy
The Clockwork Rocket (2011), The Eternal Flame (2012), The Arrows of Time (2013),
Collections Axiomatic (1995),
Our Lady of Chernobyl (1995),
Luminous (1998),
Dark Integers and Other Stories (2008),
Crystal Nights and Other Stories (2009),
Oceanic (2009),
The Best of Greg Egan (2019),
Instantiation (2020),
Sleep and the Soul (2023),
Phoresis and Other Journeys (2023),
Other short fiction
Excerpted Diaspora: "Orphanogenesis" in Interzone issue 123, September 1997
Academic papers An Efficient Algorithm for the Riemannian 10j Symbols by Dan Christensen and Greg Egan Asymptotics of 10j Symbols by John Baez, Dan Christensen and Greg Egan Conic-Helical Orbits of Planets around Binary Stars do not Exist by Greg Egan
Short movies The production of a short film inspired by the story "Axiomatic" commenced in 2015, and the film was released online in October 2017.
Notes
References
External links
Greg Egan at Library of Congress Authorities – with 11 catalogue records Stories currently online at Free Speculative Fiction Online