Subject: Review: Teranesia by Greg Egan

From: "Aaron M. Renn" <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Nov 1999 16:06:50 -0500

Teranesia by Greg Egan
	Review Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron M. Renn

Conclusion: Worth Reading

It's very interesting that this book should follow so closely after Greg
Bear's Darwin's Radio (in the US at least).  In both novels we see
unexplained genetic alterations that turn out to be the manifestation of
some sort of advanced computer-like processes taking place in nature.  In
this case, a butterfly that is far different than expected leads a husband
and wife team of biologists from India to a remote island in the South
Pacific seeking an answer to the mystery.

The scientific premise was interesting, but does not dominate the novel,
which is too bad because I didn't care all that much for the characters in
the book.  It wasn't that they were poorly drawn or unlikeable except
where Egan plainly wanted them to be, only that they did not connect with
me.  I did find a few flaws in the execution of the protagonist Prabir.
At times, he's vulnerable and tortured with self doubt.  But other times
he's extremely cool and rational.  I just didn't think he was portrayed
consistently throughout, even given the growth one would ordinarily expect
someone to go through during the years we know him.  As a youngster, he
seemed particularly precocious, particularly in the way he dispassionately
dissected the behavior and motivations of the adults around him.  It just
wasn't believeable.

Since it's the characters rather than the science driving this one, that
downgraded my opinion of the novel.  But on the plus side, Egan avoided
subjecting us to a barrage of biology lectures like Bear did, and he kept
the book fairly short and sweet.  However, like Robert Charles Wilson's
Bios, which I also just finished reading, this one might have better been
done as a novella than a novel.

If forced to draw a picture of Egan from only this novel, I think it's
fair to say one would be forced to conclude he's an arrogant, self-
righteous arsehole.  There are a number of gratuitous themes in this book
that take an extremely simplistic, one-sided, and negative view of things
the protagonist - and, one suspects, Egan in real life - hates.  For
example, we're treated to an offhand remark that NATO was an
"imperialistic" force in Europe.  Prabir ruminates often about how
illogical and downright evil religion is.  The one time we find people of
different religions living together in harmony, Egan is quick to point out
that this has nothing to do with the religions themselves, but rather
shows how the people found a way to contain religion.  His portrayal of
post-modern, post-structuralist academic bullshit might have been funny if
there hadn't been such an undercurrent of viciousness running through it.

Since none of these elements were really crucial to the story, I'm not
sure why Egan threw them in there.  They were almost calculated to offend.
But again, since they were done with such a simplified worldview there's
no way this book would in itself convince anyone of the correctness of his
claims.  Are we perhaps seeing a bit of reverse psychology here?  Somehow
I suspect shallowness instead.

%A Egan, Greg
%T Teranesia
%I HarperPrism
%D 1999-11
%G ISBN 0-06-105092-X
%P 293 pp.
%O hardcover, US$24.00

Aaron M. Renn ([email-masked]) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/