Luminous by Greg Egan
Mr. Bsag started reading this but gave up, telling me, "It's a bit geeky for me". Obviously, that really attracted me to the book 
This is a fantastic collection of short stories. I haven’t come across Greg Egan before, but I really like his writing style. These are science fiction stories which are generally tilted in the direction of science, but with very involving storylines. I enjoyed all of the stories (with the exception of ‘Planck Drive’, which was a bit too ‘physics-y’ even for me), but here are my favourites.
In ‘Chaff’ the Amazonian rainforest has developed into a ‘thieve’s nest’: a haven for drug-dealers, criminals and other outcasts from society, where they are protected from scrutiny and interference by the forest itself. In a nice reversal of the current situation, the forest protects itself from attack and entry. It’s bioengineering extrapolated to its furthest extreme. ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ is darkly funny, where the ‘Daughters of Eve’ (who trace the line of mitochondrial DNA back through the female line) are pitted against the ‘Sons of Adam’ (who trace Y-chromosonal DNA back through the male line) — funny, but scarily believable. I also loved ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’, which is about happiness — what does it mean to be happy? How do you know if your happiness is real.
That last story is a wonderful demonstration of what I’ve always loved about sci-fi. In the end, the science bit is more or less a McGuffin which gives you a perfect excuse to explore interesting ideas in novel ways, asking “what if?” questions that don’t make sense in the real, current world.
