''Luminous'' is a collection of short
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
stories by
Greg Egan
Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) is an Australian science fiction writer and amateur mathematician, best known for his works of hard science fiction. Egan has won multiple awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Hugo Award, an ...
.
Contents
''Luminous'' contains the following short stories:
*"Chaff" — An agent is sent to kill a geneticist who is working in a drug lord-controlled stronghold in the jungles of Colombia, and working on important brain-altering research.
*"Mitochondrial Eve" — An organisation is trying to trace a common maternal ancestor for recent humanity.
*"Luminous" — A pair of researchers find a defect in mathematics, where an assertion (X) leads to a contradictory assertion (not X) after a long but finite series of steps. Using a powerful virtual computer made of light beams (Luminous), they are able to map and shape the boundary between the near-side and far-side mathematics, leading to a showdown with real consequences in the physical universe.
*"Mister Volition"
*"Cocoon"
*"Transition Dreams"
*"Silver Fire"
*"Reasons to Be Cheerful" — A boy discovers he has a serious brain tumour, which was causing him to be amazingly happy. With it removed, he becomes despondent, and undergoes a new and extensive treatment eventually, with a form of brain network, to try to get back to a more useful life many years later.
*"Our Lady of Chernobyl" — A man is hired to find a
radioactive
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
religious icon. The search turns deadly.
*"
The Planck Dive
"The Planck Dive" is a science fiction novelette by Australian writer Greg Egan, published in 1998. It was nominated for the 1999 Hugo Award for Best Novelette
The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for ...
"
The title story has since seen a sequel entitled "Dark Integers". The sequel was published in the October/November 2007 issue of ''
Asimov's Science Fiction
''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It is currently published by Penny Publications. From January 2017, the publication ...
''.
Short story collections by Greg Egan
1998 short story collections
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