Comments on: SF story about formerly-mortal woman

Question: SF story about formerly-mortal woman

tigrrrlily — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:44:57 -0800

SFShortStoryFilter: Looking for a short(ish) story I must have read in one of the more popular SF anthologies about a human race of nigh-immortals spread out through several verses.

The protagonist of the story was a woman who had been born before the advent of the technology of gradually supplanting the human brain with some sort of crystal medium. This made her practically unique in an infinite sea of later generations, and infinitely lonely. She had also, somehow, been responsible for humanity's expansion into different dimensions/verses through some sort of mathematical breakthrough.

Other details I remember:

She'd had a friend in her youth who'd managed to commit suicide. Either that friend or the protagonist herself had some Hungarian-sounding name (Magda? Margit? something like that). There was a game in the story that was reminiscent of volleyball with energy waves. Also, when people grew tired of their surroundings they never said goodbye, they just packed up and slipped away quietly in the night, to set up in some other community.

By: hattifattener

hattifattener — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:59:24 -0800

Hm. It sounds vaguely Greg Egan-ish, but I don't recognize it.

By: The Tensor

The Tensor — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:52:36 -0800

Greg Egan's "Border Guards", looks like (I'm reading it now).

By: tigrrrlily

tigrrrlily — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:18:12 -0800

How cool is that??? Thanks, Tensor. Did you just google something I hadn't thought of? And good call, hattifattener. I wouldn't have guessed Egan, and I had read the damn thing.

By: The Tensor

The Tensor — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:24:48 -0800

I remembered the brain-crystal was called the "Ndoli jewel" and googled around a bit. I was about to give up, but I noticed that most (or all?) of Egan's stories are online, so I checked a few out. The beginning of the story is about quantum soccer -- bingo!

Great story, thanks for wanting to find it. :) I wish Egan would write more short fiction.

By: adipocere

adipocere — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:11:45 -0800

Uh, how totally bizarre. I just began reading a short story collection, today, called Beyond Singularity, and that's exactly the story to which I am turned. I am guessing that may have been the collection in which you read it.

By: tigrrrlily

tigrrrlily — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:35:45 -0800

Had to be Year's Best Science Fiction 17, actually. But that really is bizarre :-)

Hm. Crystal -> jewel. No search AI would have made that leap for me, at least not yet...