this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
25 points (100.0% liked)
MoreWrite
181 readers
6 users here now
post bits of your writing and links to stuff you’ve written here for constructive criticism.
if you post anything here try to specify what kind of feedback you would like. For example, are you looking for a critique of your assertions, creative feedback, or an unbiased editorial review?
if OP specifies what kind of feedback they'd like, please respect it. If they don't specify, don't take it as an invite to debate the semantics of what they are writing about. Honest feedback isn’t required to be nice, but don’t be an asshole.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
For more than a decade now Egan has been enthusiastically taking the piss at the rationalists and singulatarians. For more than 20, he has been gently making vague fun of them, or calmly including stuff in his stories that flatly contradict them without commentary in a way you can tell he's influenced to do so by them.
It is also interesting (but looking at his bsky profile not shocking) how much he predicted re genai like bots. Even if they have a different source in the book. Having bots check bot output for example. Most of the book taking place in modern iran (after a revolution succeeded) is interesting
Working in academia I have close friends who were born all over the world. A good friend of mine from Iran has told me that the two things he has read from Egan that take place in Iran - this novel, and a short story in a recent collection in which the main character is an afghan refugee woman trying to go through higher education - capture the essence of life in Iran better than any other english-speaking work he has ever read, to the point he was questioning Egan's Australian origin to me.