Australian science fiction author Greg Egan's latest novel is titled Zendegi. According to a review that I have read Egan's new book is very cerebral, bursting with ideas, but not over-endowed with warm and touching characters. No surprises there!
Greg Egan has the distinction of being one of the first (maybe the first for all I know) authors to write a novel with an autistic main charcter. I refer to Egan's novel Distress which was released way back in 1995. This book has two autistic characters, one explicitly autistic (James Rourke) and one who seems to be on the spectrum (Andrew Worth). It is one of the very few works of fiction that I have read that features characters that I can in any way identify with, but that's not saying a lot as I rarely read fiction. Chick lit it was not! (Who reads that shit? One can write a novel about shopping for footwear? Get a ****in' life ditzy girlies!). I'm quite proud that I managed to wade my way through that novel from cover to cover. I've not even contemplated reading other Egan novels. There is a good reason why Egan's works have been labelled with the tag "Hard Science Fiction". My brain has come close to slipping a cog, seizing up and overheating just from reading the blurbs on the back covers of some Egan paperbacks in bookshops.
Zendegi
http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/ZENDEGI/ZENDEGI.html
Reissued Distress at Orion Publishing Group
http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/books/distress-paperback2
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