Greg Egan Quotes

“To continue the debate, Egan has responded directly to interview questions about his approach to characterization: There's a preconception in some circles that the characters in realistic fiction ought to have a certain quota of relationship problems, family issues and emotional baggage of various kinds—and some people seem literally unable to believe that a real human being can be more passionate about scientific ideas than anything else, even though the history of science is littered with people for whom that was true. I write about characters for whom the events of whatever story I'm telling are among the most important things in their lives, and there's not much point writing about science through the eyes of someone who'd rather be down the pub. (“Interview: Virtual Worlds”)”
― Karen Burnham, Greg Egan

“Art that's blind to the true landscape we inhabit - physical reality in the widest sense - is just absurdly, pathetically blinkered and myopic.
So while I'm sure that the individual works I've written have only succeeded to varying degrees, I'm still proud to have done something to nudge the center of gravity of contemporary SF some microscopic distance towards a genuine engagement with reality." -Greg Egan”
― Karen Burnham, Greg Egan

“Both Chiang and Egan agree and make clear in their fiction that at the point where we create anything resembling lifelike AIs, we will need to ensure that we give them rights and see that they are treated well, lest we end up repeating some of the injustices of the past.”
― Karen Burnham, Greg Egan

“Quarantine is real s.f. It is speculative fiction whose adventures of the mind are based in our contemporary understanding of what the universe is actually like…. By the time this fast-paced narrative enters its final phase, the author is producing new and unforeseen consequences of his line of extrapolation at 4- or 5-page intervals. Every single one of them exhibits that wonderful combination of glorious unexpectedness and seeming logical inevitability which is the main aesthetic reward of true s.f.”
― Karen Burnham, Greg Egan