Greg Egan (www.gregegan.net) published his first story in 1983, and followed it with more than fifty short stories and seven novels, including Permutation City, Distress, Diaspora, Teranesia, and Schild's Ladder. During the early 1990s Egan published a body of short fiction—mostly hard science fiction focused on mathematical and quantum ontological themes—that established him as one of the most important writers working in science fiction. His work has won the Hugo, John W. Campbell Memorial, Locus, Aurealis, Ditmar, and Seiun awards. Upcoming is a new novel, Incandescence.
Having written very little during the first half of the decade, Egan has returned to science fiction recently with a handful of excellent stories, arguably the best of which is this rich, strange space opera that follows.