Cirrus@Austlit

'Discover the mystery of the island of Teranesia, where peculiar biological evolution has created a world both beautiful and deadly. On the small uninhabited island of Teranesia, Prabir and his younger sister Madhusree live with their biologist parents, who are there to study the strange signs of evolutionary mutation in the island's butterfly population. But their peaceful time on Teranesia is cut short when a civil war breaks out in Indonesia, forcing Prabir and his family to flee. Twenty years pass, and Madhusree is now studying biology. She wishes to follow in the path of her parents, hoping to pick up where their research had been halted. Prabir, still feeling a great responsibility over his sister, highly advises her not to go back to Teranesia. But the mutations that happened during their time on the island overpower Madhusree's curiosity, and she goes against her brother's wishes. Struck with overwhelming feelings of responsibility, Prabir finds it as his duty to follow his sister, and travels back to Teranesia for the first time in twenty years. Not knowing what to expect, Prabir discovers the island to be more enchanting, and dangerous, than he could have ever imagined' (Publication summary)

Distress is 'set in 2055 when the centre of Sydney is virtually deserted, as most work and entertainment is conducted at home via broadband optical fibre networks. Egan's main character, science journalist Andrew Worth, is sent to 'Stateless', a bioengineered Pacific coral island to interview a South African Nobel Prize winner who is intending to reveal a major breakthrough in human comprehension techniques. Various competing interests, however, descend on the island and Worth becomes an unwitting agent of change. Biotechnology implants, quantum physics, voluntary autism and mutant cholera are just some of the ingredients mixed into the mystery of who wishes to kill the Nobel Laureate, and for what purpose' (Colin Steele, SF Commentary No 77, p.54).

'It's late in the 21st century and bioengineering is now so common that people are able to modify their minds in any way they wish. It is an era which has been shaped by information systems so vast that security, in any form, is easily breached. Now, you can be whatever you want to be, and do whatever you want to do. On Earth anyway. One night, thirty three years ago, the stars went out. 'The Bubble' - a perfect sphere centred on the sun - appeared in the sky, isolating the solar system from the rest of the universe. For thirty-three years, humanity has lived with the religious cults and terrorism which spawned in the wake of the darkness. We are now alone. Humanity has been cut off: quarantined.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.