The Nearest

by Greg Egan

When a detective, a new mother, is assigned to the case of a horrific triple murder, it appears to be a self-contained domestic tragedy, a terrible event but something that doesn’t affect the rest of the community. But it slowly becomes clear that something much darker may be at play, something that spreads out from the scene of the crime to corrode the closest relationships of everyone it touches.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Fiction, Ebooks, Mystery Thriller

60 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 18, 2018

About the author

Greg Egan specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness. Other themes include genetics, simulated reality, posthumanism, mind transfer, sexuality, artificial intelligence, and the superiority of rational naturalism over religion.

He is a Hugo Award winner (and has been shortlisted for the Hugos three other times), and has also won the John W Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel. Some of his earlier short stories feature strong elements of supernatural horror, while due to his more popular science fiction he is known within the genre for his tendency to deal with complex and highly technical material (including inventive new physics and epistemology) in an unapologetically thorough manner.

Egan is a famously reclusive author when it comes to public appearances, he doesn't attend science fiction conventions, doesn't sign books and there are no photos available of him on the web.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I’ve got a shocker for you, Sarge. Sorry.”

short review for a short story!!

i did not see this one coming at all. it starts out as a police procedural/murrrrrderrr mystery and soon becomes something else that becomes something else in a perfect storm cocktail of unreliable narrator, spoooooky twilight zone nightmare scenario, and "wait, but what IF???" realization that dredges the reader through fifty shades of doubt before leaving them with what will probably be a lifelong fear of figs. intriguing, no?

it's a bit longer than many of the free tor shorts, so make sure you have enough time to settle in with it and then get ready to add one more thing to your list of "irrational things i worry about in the wee insomniac hours."

read it for yourself here:

https://www.tor.com/2018/07/19/the-ne...

come to my blog!

[Bernhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Some half-baked algorithm had already decided that this was a self-contained domestic that posed no threat to the wider public, and would more or less solve itself. Until she could prove otherwise, there was no point begging for more resources.”

The Nearest begins as a murder mystery involving a family tragedy. Kate is a detective whose task is to investigate a crime involving a father and two children found dead, while the wife has gone missing. The case becomes increasingly intriguing as more details are unraveled, but what really propels this story is what happens one night when Kate wakes up and encounters a “different” reality.

Greg Egan’s story is slightly longer than most short stories, but it manages to keep its interest and grip the reader. Partly science fiction and partly mystery, it’s a good short story with Egan’s straightforward style.

You can read it here: https://www.tor.com/2018/07/19/the-ne...

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Award-winning Australian SF author Egan starts this offbeat brain-twister like any other detective story: Kate is called to investigate a horrific crime in which a man and his children are found dead in their home, while his wife has gone missing. With no apparent motive, Kate presumes the wife was kidnapped by the killers, but it soon becomes obvious that she was the killer. Without getting into any spoilers, I’ll say that shit goes sideways from there. Egan is most famous for his math-based sci-fi, but in my favorite of his recent stories, he’s told more personal tales where mathematics and science are more peripheral concerns. “The Nearest” is one of those – not a straight work of science fiction or of fantasy, but a titillating, and somewhat disquieting, work of pure speculation. It’s not hard for the reader to figure out what Kate needs to do to solve this problem once it is unmasked, but watching her do it is certainly a nail-biter.

[Claudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I think of Greg Egan, I think of hard math sci-fi. This story has nothing to do with his usual themes: it’s a murder mystery with a biological component, something Greg Bear would write. It reminded me of a case I read in Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind.

Interesting enough but not what I expected from Egan. It can be read on Tor.com:
https://www.tor.com/2018/07/19/the-ne...

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This sci-fi/horror short story was a surprisingly good one. Surprising as it had the feel of a police procedural or crime story and I'm generally not a big fan of those. I was wary in the early stages that I'd fail to engage with story and fail to engage with the characters emotionally but to Egan's credit the more of this I read the more engaged I became.

This followed the story of Kate, a detective recently returned to duty from maternity leave, as she investigated her latest case. The murder of a man and two young children with the main suspect being the missing wife. It seems a case of domestic violence but Kate soon begins to suspect there might be more to it. Which there was thanks to a fun sci-fi twist!

I've read enough zombie stories that I knew the general direction this story was going in and guessed a lot of the twists but even so I think Egan made a lot of good choices and provided a fresh twist to this one that kept the level of tension high and to keep me interested in the happenings.

I also quite enjoyed the ending. I was aware of Egan as a writer but figured him as the sort who wrote old school hard sci-fi stories, and there is a still a hint of that in his writing, so he was very low on my list of sci-fi authors to try but this story has changed my perception of him as it was more engaging than I was expecting and the wrap up was good enough that I've faith in him as a storyteller I can trust to deliver the story of tale I'll enjoy. I'll definitely consider trying one of his full novels in the future.

Rating: 3.5 stars. I was torn between this and a full 4 stars. I'll round up here at Goodreads.

[Cynnamon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this SciFi/crime mystery mix.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Saw where it was going, but got there logically. “It’s not you, it’s me.” 3, solid, stars.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 and change, rounded up.

I've only read one other thing by Egan, and that was nearly two decades ago. The only thing I remember about it is that I didn't like it. This, though, I liked. It starts out like a bit of a police procedural type mystery, but swerves into more of a body-snatchers / mental-health thriller.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written mystery short with quite a good twist at the end. Didn’t blow me away, but enjoyable all the same. A solid 3.5 stars.

[Arden · Rating 3 out of 5]

What could turn a human being into a walking automaton, a vacant caricature of the person they’d been? Some kind of toxin? Some kind of disease?

Felt just like an episode of Black Mirror. Good mix of police procedural suspense, and the thrill of a captivating science fiction story.

[ash | songsforafuturepoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A family was murdered, mother missing, she's the prime suspect. A detective intuited that this was more than a domestic case and set out to investigate.

Loved the premise, story was short and sweet. Prose was straightforward and it wasn't as impactful as it could have been.

[Silvana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing special.

[Delta · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 No-spoilers-but-you-should-read-it stars.

This is a free horror short that you can click to from the URL on the GR description page.

Enjoy!

[Ashley Marilynne Wong · Rating 5 out of 5]

One word – psychosophical. Haha!

[Tom A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plague Review 13: The Nearest by Greg Egan

A detective's life begins to unravel after she investigates the triple murder of a family by the mother. The case is unusual because the mother had no history of violence, no drug problems, and was generally regarded as a good member of the community. As the detective follows the path of the missing mother, she begins to experience a heightened sense of being, one that may be eerily similar to what possessed the homicidal mother.

This is a superb murder mystery with great horror elements. This is the type of storytelling I seldom see nowadays, with a great, simple, but chilling concept brilliantly played out from beginning to end. I love how the narrative suddenly shifts from a position of safety and speculation to one of isolation, fear, and distrust. The other thing that makes it stand out is the realistic handling of the events, from the police work to the reactions of the various victims of the "other".

And I was surprised at the ending. Just when you thought all was lost, suddenly…

[Gendou · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short is in a category all its own: neurology-based hard science fiction. No spoilers, but I'm glad there are no fig trees in my yard. Cause I have a dog.

[karenbee · Rating 5 out of 5]

What kind of delusion would it take to make a woman kill the people she loved, and neither soften the act with some degree of faux gentleness, nor explode in uncontrollable rage, but just dispatch them, methodically and efficiently, with whatever tools were to hand?

Oh, I loved this one. Started out as an episode of Law & Order and ended up in Black Mirror territory. (But a version of Black Mirror I could actually stand to watch.) I wish it were longer because I think it would have been less predictable/more fun if it had more space to play.


(four and a half stars)

[Andria Potter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite Greg Egan story but I still enjoyed it well enough!

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A homicide detective, freshly back from parental leave, investigates a brutal triple murder, which shakes her to her core. On her return home, though, something has changed.

Egan's "The Nearest" is a cross between Jack Finney's 'The Body Snatchers' and the 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' episode "Whispers" by Paul Robert Coyle. The paranoia ramps up nicely and the ending is more open than readers may like.

[Gregoire · Rating 3 out of 5]

le format "nouvelle" est un excellent choix pour mettre en exergue l'atmosphère particulièrement angoissante Savoir qui est du "bon côté" en se fondant uniquement sur le ressenti... Une histoire qui fait réfléchir sur le pouvoir de l'émotif sur nos comportements et surtout sur la fragilité de nos certitudes

Un grand merci à Tor pour mettre à disposition gratuitement toutes ces nouvelles

[Nerine Dorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid read I picked up over at Tor.com – https://www.tor.com/2018/07/19/the-ne...

I pretty much saw where this was going as soon as things started getting interesting, but this was nonetheless a great story.

[Netanella · Rating 2 out of 5]

This Greg Egan story, found on Tor's website, wasn't really my thing. It's more of a murder mystery police procedural than the hard science fiction I've come to expect from Egan.

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating tale that starts off as a slightly futuristic detective story involving a shocking murder of a family and a search for the missing mother by a detective. But it suddenly switches gear when the detective discovers that the people she knows and love don't appear to be what they are.

The two sides of the story are obviously connected to the reader, but it would require the detective, in her new state, to continue with the investigation and connect the dots before coming to the same conclusion and figuring out how they might be connected.

A fascinating story about dealing with a world that suddenly appears 'wrong' and working through the evidence to come to the correct conclusion.

[Nyx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought it was absolute genius, as I know to expect from greg egan and of course he pulled it off in a different genre to his usual futuristic/hard sci-fi genius.
Spoilers?....
So cleverly and artfully spun, i somehow felt the visceral experience of optical illusion as the tale unravelled.
Even though I knew where it was going early on, at some point I wavered (as surely intended) and saw both possibilities at the same time and it felt exactly like the ambiguous images he mentions..such an interesting experience!!

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An adequate short story but not what I’d expect from Greg Egan. Logically consistent plot twist was telegraphed hard the whole time, and none of the characters were particularly compelling. I wish PKD had written this story, would have actually been entertaining.

[Michelle_Mck · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Nearest was my first introduction to Greg Egan’s writing, and while science heavy speculative fiction isn’t usually my go-to genre, I found this short story unexpectedly absorbing. Rather than relying on action, the story draws its power from a single, unsettling idea and the quiet way its implications impact the characters.

Egan’s approach feels deliberate and restrained. He provides just enough context to make the central concept understandable without explaining it away, allowing a sense of unease to linger well after the end of the story. The focus is less on traditional, emotionally driven character arcs and more on how humans respond when confronted with realities that challenge their assumptions about space, proximity, and understanding.

What I appreciated most was the story’s willingness to sit with ambiguity. It doesn’t rush to offer comfort or resolution, instead left me to reflect on ideas that are fascinating precisely because they remain unsettling.

It’s left me curious and I’m looking forward to reading more.

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I disliked it at first. As other reviewers have mentioned, the plot twist was obvious. It was too obvious. Too much for such a great writer of hard science fiction, whose characters are never dumb, always retrospective and analytical.

I believe that it was purposefully crafted to mess with people's heads. The readers read and can't believe how could the main protagonist not notice the trivial conclusions to be drawn.

This illness can alter the brain so drastically, brain rationalizes what it sees and creates powerful illusions of perception. Moreover managing to hide the fact that own brain is actually at fault. Brains do that-rationalizing situations-, rather blaming the outside world as to be themselves blamed.

Throughout the day I raised my rating of it from 3 to 4 to 5 stars :)

[Alexander Pyles · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing story that pulls you in and forces you to finish it! Egan does a good job with keeping the tension alive throughout the story and I was continually questioning Kate's intentions throughout the story as well.

I will say the pacing didn't work entirely for me and the ending, fell sorta flat. Kind of a mix of Body Snatchers and Gone Girl.

[Vladimir Ivanov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Неожиданная смесь полицейского детектива и медицинского хоррора.
Очень параноидальная и нервная вещь.
Иган, как всегда, прекрасен.

Самый фантастический элемент в рассказе - это авторское допущение, что достаточно умный человек способен вырваться из этой страшной ловушки чисто силой своего интеллекта и логики. В реальности все намного грустнее :(

[Beth Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm. This was a diversion from the standard Tor offerings. Murder mystery with a twist.

However, it seemed to drag for me when so many others don't.

I liked that it was Australian, and I especially liked the fruit bat theory.

Otherwise, not my favorite.