Axiomatic

I bought this collection of Greg Egan short stories because [b:Stories of Your Life and Others|223380|Stories of Your Life and Others|Ted Chiang|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1356138316s/223380.jpg|216334] made me realize how much fun a short story collection is, because Greg Egan is a genius, and because it was cheap. No regrets! Let's see the stories one by one.

The Infinite Assassin: I recently read [b:Dark Matter|27833670|Dark Matter|Blake Crouch|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1472119680s/27833670.jpg|43161998] from Blake Crouch, a fantastically suspenseful novel about a guy moving between different "branches" of a quantum superposition of infinitely many worlds. I had some reservations about its physics and logic. The Infinite Assassin is sort of the same deal, just written by someone who thought the physics through fully, and replaced the grade-school level twist with a PhD level twist. I think I understand it to some extent, and that's already fulfilling.

The Hundred Light-Year Diary: Stories of Your Life and Others had a bunch of time-travel stories. I have read/watched a thousand time-travel stories by now. And it's still possible to tell new stories about it! Awesome. It's also a great example of the strong undercurrent of mistrust in this set of short stories. I get the feeling that Greg Egan is not a very trusting person. I have nothing against that, but I felt it was a bit overwhelming to find corruption in every institute in story after story.

Eugene: Another parallel with Stories of Your Life and Others, this time on super-human intelligence. Discusses some nice questions about genetic engineering humans.

The Caress: Gives an interesting look into the Greg Egan-flavored near-future. Particularly it is a showcase of what a future with fantastic medical advances might look like. Would we all just be super healthy with perfect teeth and smooth skin? Greg Egan has some other possibilities in mind.

Blood Sisters: Mistrust combined with some drama and another helping of mistrust. (Cool science things too, but that's a given.)

Axiomatic: It's mostly about what it takes to cope with the loss of a loved one. But it also introduces the concept of cheap, easily applicable brain implants that change something profound about a person, such as how they value human life. These come back in another story, and it's possible that all the stories on some level take a look at such profound beliefs.

The Safe-Deposit Box: This one is a bit different in that it's not set in the future and it's not about technology. It is one of my favorites nevertheless. It introduces and entirely new kind of really awesome "monster".

Seeing: Interesting brain damage story. We can chalk up another parallel to Stories of Your Life and Others (Calliagnosia).

A Kidnapping: A virtual retirement home for the dead, like in the brilliant Black Mirror episode (San Junipero). Or rather a cautionary tale about the security risks of digitizing human consciousness. (You deserve everything that happens, of course, if your root password is Benvenuto.)

Learning to Be Me: My favorite! The protagonist is afraid of A. Then something happens and they think it's actually B. Then they realize they are actually not who they thought they were and it's really C. In the end it's not C, but the reader realizes that actually it's D. A, B, C, and D are all horrifying and increasingly so. And it's all a natural deduction from an immortality device that is a common sci-fi trope. Natural, at least, if you have trust issues like Greg Egan.

The Moat: This one has the best science idea. Suppose you change the DNA to code the same information, but using different nucleotides instead of GTCA. (You have to replace some enzymes that are responsible for working with DNA too.) A lot of work with not much to show for it at the end. Except that this organism (and of course we mean human) is now immune to all existing viruses. So, yeah, a rather educational short story.

The Walk: A bit like a mini-[b:Permutation City|156784|Permutation City (Subjective Cosmology #2)|Greg Egan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1287341300s/156784.jpg|1270567], but with axiomatic implants.

The Cutie: Another way to make the deduction from medical advances to horror.

Into Darkness: Brave rescue worker saves three lives and unintentionally destroys the planet. A great examination of some weird physics. I like this kind of sci-fi, which is connected to real life not through any possibility of ever coming through, but through being a logical extension of real physics.

Appropriate Love: Another of my favorites. And another that shows unexpected truths about medical advances. "The technology exists to give just about anyone — however sick, however old, however badly injured — a perfectly normal life. But it all costs money. Resources are limited. [...]" So we should expect some inconveniences. Such as carrying the comatose brain of our husband in our wombs for years while his new body gets grown.

The Moral Virologist: Quite technical microbiology sci-fi with mistrust falling on religion this time. Perfect fit in this collection.

Closer: Solid preview of what kind of dramas we can expect when digital consciousness becomes common.

Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies: Pretty strange and non-technological. But no matter how weird the ingredients are, a good sci-fi examines them calmly and thinks things through. I would love to read Greg Egan fantasy too, if that is possible.