Subject: QUARANTINE by Greg Egan

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995 23:36:33 GMT

QUARANTINE by Greg Egan
       Harper, ISBN 0-06-105423-2, 1995 (1992c), 280pp, US$4.50
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Greg Egan is the major rising star of Australian science fiction.  His
short fiction has appeared in the United States before, but only now is
this, his first novel, being published here.

     On November 15, 2034, a giant "bubble" with a radius of 12 billion
kilometers appeared around the solar system.  (This is described as being
twice the size of Pluto's orbit, so these are American billions rather than
British billions, but it's still more like three times the radius.)  Private
investigator Nick Stavrianos was eight years old at the time and remembers
what the night sky looked like when it had stars.  Now it's 2067, and Laura
Andrews has disappeared from Hilgemann Institute in a sort of reverse
"locked room" mystery.  These two events seem unrelated, but of course they
are not.

     If nothing else, QUARANTINE is unique for its excessive product
placements of non-existent products.  For example, the narrator writes, "The
mod I use, CypherClerk (Neurocomm, $5,999), also provides a virtual larynx
option, for complete two-way security."  This is cute at first, but does
wear after a while.  Luckily this doesn't get too much in the way of the
story.

     In trying to solve the mysterious disappearance, Stavrianos discovers
he is also digging for deeper answers.  Though the story seems to veer off
into fantasy, or possibly surrealism, I think Egan wrote it as straight hard
science fiction, and an argument can certainly be made that it is.  Egan's
depiction of New Hong Kong on the Australian continent is well-done (except
maybe for the product placements, though I can understand why he included
them).  Stavrianos is an interesting character, perhaps a bit cleverer than
seems likely, but not so prone to wildly lucky deductions as to be
unconvincing.  And unlike a lot of books of this sort, whose endings appear
to move much faster than the pace of the rest of the book, QUARANTINE
maintains a measured (albeit not necessarily sedate) pace throughout.

     I suppose that the idea of the bubble reminds people of David Brin's
"Crystal Spheres."  They may have been the inspiration, but Egan goes in a
different direction entirely, and does it very well.

%T      Quarantine
%A      Greg Egan
%C      New York
%D      Jnauary 1995
%I      Harper
%O      paperback, US$4.50 [1992]
%G      ISBN 0-06-105423-2
%P      280pp

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
"I don't think adversity necessarily builds character, but it certainly gives
you an opportunity to display it."  --Gary Bean (Open Systems Today, 1/9/95)
--
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