266:. One day Mahnoosh is killed in a car accident, and Martin has to raise Javeed on his own. Then Martin discovers he has terminal cancer, and concerned that Javeed will grow up without a father, he contacts Nasim and asks her to create a Virtual Martin that Javeed can communicate with in Zendegi. Nasim conducts MRI scans on Martin while prompting him with images and memories. But Zendegi comes under fire from religious fanatics. Iranian clerics denounce Virtual Azimi as "an afront to God and human dignity". It is also criticized by the Cis-Humanist League (CHL), a human rights group who object to enslaved proxies, saying that "it's unethical to create conscious software that lacks the ability to control its own destiny".
274:, making Virtual Martin think he is talking to his son, but the proxy overreacts to Javeed's (Martin's) behaviour and this upsets Martin. After Martin dies, Nasim has second thoughts about what she is doing. The Virtual Martin she has created from fragments of Martin's brain is far from human. She realises that CHL are right: to upload a complete person into VR to achieve immortality is a noble goal, but "to squeeze some abridged, mutilated person through the first available aperture s not".
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worse, arrest him in Iran. Fortunately for Egan, only a few sites had published it, and his publisher was quick to put out an official, less revealing summary. During his stay in Iran, when he fleshed out the details of the government's downfall, the country was quiet, but in June the following year it erupted in turmoil after that month's presidential elections.
247:, whereas her goal was to simulate the brain. Nasim decides to continue what she had started on HCP using the project's publicly available brain scans. Her goal is to improve the realism of Zendegi's proxies, computer-generated people that flesh-out the VR's landscape. She takes this a step further and starts taking
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technologies is "sometimes quite moving", and that while the novel focuses on the quest of preserving humans digitally, it is also "a powerful meditation on loss" when "quasi-Frankenstein-like" "fragmented consciousness" are created. The first part of the book dealing with the post-election unrest in
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magazine's review of the book said that the novel centres around the possibilities and limits of technology, and fills the gap between "can-we and should-we". Egan's depictions of life in a 21st-century Iran are appealing, and "when he turns his attention to ordinary humans, living in a world that is
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Egan applied for his
Iranian visa in June 2008, and in August that year he learnt that a synopsis of the novel that he had sent to his publisher, which included mention of the overthrow of the Iranian regime, had been leaked. Egan's concern was if Iran picked it up, they might deny him a visa, or
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A reviewer at
ScienceFiction.com said that while the novel is well researched and the depictions of Zendegi's virtual reality is "detailed and compelling", he felt that many of the book's characters are "pretty unpleasant": Martin is "self-righteous", and Nasim is too ordinary and a push-over. He
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magazine said that Egan, renowned for his hard science fiction, pushes the science in this novel to the background and brings its characters, their experiences and the world they live in to the front. He tells a "very human story" set in a "brilliantly realised" Iran in the near future. The book
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Nasim continues developing
Virtual Martin in secret. While she knows that Virtual Azimi has no consciousnesses, she is not sure what Martin's proxy is turning into. Meanwhile, Martin's health is deteriorating and she sets up a VR session for him to evaluate the current state of his proxy. Martin
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also felt that Egan's statement "If you want to make it human, make it whole" is "both too restrictive and too woolly", and said that had Egan chosen to take on the storm of protest technology like
Zendegi would have generated, instead of "just say no", he would have produced a better novel.
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as "boring", saying that the mood of the book is "strangely diffident: themes tail off, confrontations are dodged, ambitions are deflated, breakthroughs happen to other people". The review said that Egan's "once-mighty imaginative muscles have atrophied during his long break from writing".
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covering the 2012 Iranian parliamentary elections. The elections turn out to be a sham as many of the opposition candidates are banned, but Martin remains in Iran to cover the post election protests. Unrest escalates and the authorities are forced to hold free elections.
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and Iran "take on a particular resonance" that makes "perfect thematic sense". He said that the novel is "well written, smartly paced and ... thought-provoking", and "pushes the boundaries of what is commonly called 'science
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was "generally well written", and that its "ideas and narrative come together for a fantastic emotional and intellectual payoff that is as mature as it is heart-rending – making it all worthwhile".
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with
Mahnoosh, an Iranian political activist he married, and their six-year-old son, Javeed. Nasim heads a company in Tehran that has developed Zendegi-ye Behtar, an online multi-player
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to run its operations across several countries. But
Zendegi has to compete with several other VR providers, and Nasim looks for something new to add to Zendegi to give it an edge.
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while he replays games in his head. Virtual Azimi enables football fans to play games with Azimi's proxy, and it is a huge success, boosting
Zendegi's popularity.
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song production by using thousands of finch brain scans. But when
Congress turns down funding for the project, Nasim returns to Iran to help rebuild her country.
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on actual reports of previous protests in the country. To gather more information, Egan spent two weeks in Iran in
October 2008, his first trip outside of
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brain scans of living people. Nasim's first breakthrough comes with
Virtual Azimi, a proxy she creates by scanning Ashkan Azimi, Iran's national
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displays a respect and understanding of Iranian culture that came from Egan's extensive research into the subject. The magazine said that
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Nasim learns that HCP finally took off in the US and has published its first draft brain map based on thousands of brain scans of human
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praised Egan for "boldly going where few SF writers have gone before—namely, into the street demos and sitting rooms of near-future
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Nasim Golestani is an Iranian computer scientist living in exile in the United States following the execution of her father by
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Javeed loves Zendegi and Martin often takes him to local gaming booths where together they participate in
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than Egan's previous books. He said that Egan's speculation on the ethical impact of
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822:"The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang and Zendegi by Greg Egan"
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in early 2008. Early drafts of the novel based the fictional unrest in
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and the democratization of Iran. The title of the book means "life" in
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is "a well-grounded analysis of some important contemporary trends".
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just around the corner from our own, he will break your heart".
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The story moves to a democratized Iran in 2027. Martin lives in
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in the near future and deals with mapping the human brain,
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Iran is "wonderfully rich in detail", and that overall
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Martin Seymour is an Australian news correspondent in
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516:(paperback) (UK ed.). Victor Gollancz Ltd.
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497:(paperback) (US ed.). Night Shade Books.
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488:(ebook) (UK ed.). Night Shade Books.
161:(زندگی بهتر), Persian for "better life".
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596:"Book Review: 'Zendegi' By Greg Egan"
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1298:Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies
228:(VR) gaming platform. Zendegi uses
820:Miller, T. S. (15 November 2010).
781:"Book Review: Zendegi – Greg Egan"
555:"Russell Letson reviews Greg Egan"
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1470:Australian science fiction novels
716:"Iran Trip Diary: Part 1, Tehran"
553:Letson, Russell (9 August 2010).
347:British science fiction magazine
1169:Crystal Nights and Other Stories
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1161:Dark Integers and Other Stories
625:Science Fiction Awards Database
851:Bandah, Sam (23 August 2010).
779:Berriman, Ian (18 June 2010).
594:Seel, Nigel (28 August 2010).
270:enters Zendegi using Javeed's
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484:Egan, Greg (September 2010).
461:Egan, Greg (September 2010).
167:was shortlisted for the 2011
1480:Novels about virtual reality
1291:The Hundred Light-Year Diary
255:team captain, to record his
1465:2010 science fiction novels
1209:Phoresis and Other Journeys
915:(paperback) (UK ed.).
145:in June 2010. It is set in
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531:Source: FantasticFiction.
465:(hardback) (US ed.).
414:(hardback) (UK ed.).
1500:Victor Gollancz Ltd books
371:as "a little more 'human'
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512:Egan, Greg (July 2011).
452:Egan, Greg (June 2010).
433:Egan, Greg (June 2010).
206:Human Connectome Project
1485:Novels set in the 2020s
493:Egan, Greg (May 2011).
16:2010 novel by Greg Egan
1475:Novels about computing
1460:2010 Australian novels
1361:Reasons to Be Cheerful
853:"Book review: Zendegi"
33:First UK edition cover
1185:The Best of Greg Egan
950:title listing at the
748:(12 September 2012).
1396:Riding the Crocodile
1270:The Safe-Deposit Box
1242:The Moral Virologist
1106:The Clockwork Rocket
1495:Novels by Greg Egan
1228:Neighbourhood Watch
917:Victor Gollancz Ltd
621:"Locus Awards 2011"
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1122:The Arrows of Time
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714:(24 August 2009).
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306:American novelist
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467:Night Shade Books
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216:Part 2: 2027–2028
159:Zendegi-ye Behtar
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257:motor skills
241:neurologists
237:organ donors
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184:Part 1: 2012
179:Plot summary
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1354:Silver Fire
1137:Collections
1075:Dichronauts
889:15 February
864:17 February
833:16 February
800:16 February
761:17 February
725:16 February
605:16 February
574:16 February
308:David Maine
245:pathologies
210:zebra finch
1454:Categories
1096:Orthogonal
1011:Quarantine
911:(2011a) .
909:Egan, Greg
755:PopMatters
712:Egan, Greg
696:Egan 2011a
684:Egan 2011a
672:Egan 2011a
657:31 January
630:1 February
535:References
408:Egan, Greg
367:described
353:dismissed
316:PopMatters
278:Background
173:Le Bélial'
135:Australian
1389:Singleton
1249:Axiomatic
1235:The Cutie
1145:Axiomatic
1043:Teranesia
988:Greg Egan
880:"Zendegi"
795:1749-6969
646:"Zendegi"
569:0047-4959
302:Reception
292:Australia
243:diagnose
139:Greg Egan
133:novel by
82:June 2010
67:Publisher
43:Greg Egan
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1035:Diaspora
1027:Distress
858:SciFiNow
389:SciFiNow
327:fiction'
253:football
143:Gollancz
71:Gollancz
49:Language
22:Zendegi
1375:Oceanic
1177:Oceanic
1067:Zendegi
947:Zendegi
913:Zendegi
902:Sources
514:Zendegi
495:Zendegi
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324:Zendegi
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284:Zendegi
204:on the
165:Zendegi
155:Persian
137:author
126:Zendegi
52:English
1256:Eugene
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320:Tehran
272:avatar
222:Tehran
39:Author
1403:Glory
1312:Chaff
560:Locus
336:Locus
198:VEVAK
129:is a
103:Pages
57:Genre
921:ISBN
891:2012
866:2012
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791:ISSN
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288:Iran
190:Iran
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786:SFX
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