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| "The Moat" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Greg Egan | |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Aurealis |
| Publication type | Periodical |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | March 1991 |
"The Moat" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Aurealis #3 in March 1991.[1] The short story was included in the anthology The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois in 1992 and the collection Axiomatic in 1995.[2][3][4]
Plot
editWith an ever rising number of refugees arriving in Australia, the overall opinion continues to change into keeping them out and a new bill is proposed. Rachel, a pathologist whose husband works as a lawyer for refugees, investigates a crime scene involving rape and finds out that the sperm samples collected are found to be invisible to genetic testing. It turns out that the DNA and RNA of the rapist were altered to contain more than the primary nucleobases (adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine, and uracil), which also grants full immunity against viruses. Rachel later reflects about how often humans separate themselves into "us" and "them". Although the bill is ultimately rejected, Rachel is aware that whoever responsible for the genetic alternation can target all other humans biologically, so that only the desired group of humans survives.[5]
Translation
editThe short story was translated into Czech by Václav Mikolášek, Romanian by Florin Pîtea (1993), Italian by Riccardo Valla (2003), Spanish (2006), French by Francis Lustman & Quarante-Deux (2006), Japanese by Makoto Yamagishi (2008) and Chinese.[2][3]
Background
editLater in the 2000s, Egan was active in campaigning for refugee rights, including the end of mandatory detention for asylum seekers in Australia, for a few years.[6] In an interview with David Conyers for Virtual Worlds and Imagined Futures in 2009, Egan called it an "eye-opening experience to see people mistreated in that way" and later picked up the premise again in "Lost Continent", which he called "an allegory of the whole thing, just to get some of the anger out of my system and move on."[7] Egan further wrote about his experience and personal connections made with refugees in The Razor Wire Looking Glass in November 2003, an essay finished after his fifth journey to the immigration detention centre in Port Hedland:
Of eight Afghanis I know who’ve gone back, unable to bear detention any longer, six found the situation so perilous that they had to flee again. People returning to other countries have been arrested at the airport and imprisoned without charge or trial. In at least three cases documented by church groups, rejected asylum seekers returning from Australia have been murdered. That’s the choice we’re offering people: be delivered into the hands of your enemy, or stay here and rot in prison. [....] At the less subtle end of the spectrum, I know an Afghani man who was told, “Yes, the Taliban killed your father and your brother, so your father and your brother would have deserved visas, but you’re safe here in front of me now, so how can you say you were in danger?” It’s hard to imagine a more brutal catch-22. I also know people who’ve been told, “Your life would be in danger if you returned, but not for a reason covered by the refugee convention, so we don’t owe you any kind of protection.”[6]
Reception
editJames Nicoll wrote in a review of The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection, that the "medical mystery’s solution has deeply disquieting implications, particularly in the context of a society embracing virulent xenophobia" and claimed to have "particular interest" in the short story, which furthermore could be called a "mirror image" to "Eyewall" by Rick Shelley also contained in the anthology.[8]
technovelgy.com calls it an "excellent short story about the ways that people are trying to distance themselves from others in our increasingly small planet."[9]
References
edit- ^ "Aurealis #3 — Aurealis". aurealis.com.au. Retrieved 2024-09-10.
- ^ a b "Bibliography". 2024-04-09. Retrieved 2024-04-17.
- ^ a b "Summary Bibliography: Greg Egan". Retrieved 2024-04-19.
- ^ "The SF Site: Year's Best Science Fiction: Contents Sorted by Volume". www.sfsite.com. Retrieved 2024-09-10.
- ^ "Book review of Axiomatic by Greg Egan". sfbook.com. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ a b Egan, Greg (2003-11-19). "The Razor Wire Looking Glass". Greg Egan. Archived from the original on 6 April 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
- ^ "Interviews". Greg Egan. 2010-06-20. Archived from the original on 11 May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
- ^ "Light the Corners of My Mind". James Nicoll Reviews. 2022-06-27. Retrieved 2024-09-10.
- ^ "Science Fiction in the News Articles,Related to material in The Moat by Greg Egan". technovelgy.com. Retrieved 2024-05-30.
External links
edit- The Moat title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database