Outis's Reviews > Greg Egan

I knew so little about Egan as a person going into this book that I learned quite a few things. But that's of course not what most of the book is about.
Much of Egan's fiction is summarized and not just discussed in the abstract so while I guess that could work as a decent guide to people who have yet to explore Egan's work, readers concerned about spoilers should avoid it for now or possibly stick to the long interview at the end. The spoilers are of course not gratuitous but the book doesn't go out of its way to avoid them either. The flipside is that readers will be reminded of what they might have forgotten. No need to re-read what Egan published over the decades.

Burnham tried to do two main things: first, highlight the main topics that Egan explored in his work and relate his angle to what both fiction writers and scientists were doing at the time.
I think that part is somewhat lacking as relatively few fiction writers are cited. She goes into a long tangent about Chiang (which is understandable) while there are so many proeminent authors who have things in common with Egan but either don't get a mention (Reynolds for instance, possibly because of the book's North-American bias) or who are only mentionned in passing without making reference to the main ways their work connects with Egan's (Williams would be one such case). As a result, the book fails to shed light on Egan's legacy. In fairness, that might yet be overshadowed by the reception of future works (but Burnham is doubtful about that).

The other thing the book tries to do struck me as ill-inspired. It repeatedly tries to stir up a whiff of controversy by airing the opinions of some of Egan's detractors (or the detractors of fairly widespread ideas) in a we-report-you-decide manner. It even editorializes in favor of them occasionally and Egan is evidently offended by one such insinuation Burnham put forth in the interview.
I would have thought that someone who spends so much time discussing an author would get their work but apparently not. Or maybe Burnham or her editor(s) are just pandering to widespread prejudices among English majors who are perhaps supposed to constitute the main audience of such books.
In some cases, I could write off vague and conventionally-biased literary charges against Egan as merely lazy (in contrast with the well-referenced thematic analysis) but in other cases, Burnham is being irresponsible. She would never have given such a coyly favorable airing to the opinions of the homophobes who object to Egan's work but by her crass obscurantism is apparently OK.
Nevertheless, reminiscing Egan's stories was a pleasant experience. Burnham figures Egan's characters aren't idiotic enough. While idiots would be out of place in some of his stories, I have to concede that she has shown that idiotic opinions do not necessarily ruin a book.