"The Planck Dive" is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novelette

Novelette

A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 published in 1998 by Greg Egan

Greg Egan

Greg Egan is an Australian science fiction author.Egan published his first work in 1983. He specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness...

. It was nominated for the 1999 Hugo Award for Best Novelette

Hugo Award for Best Novelette

The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

.

Plot summary

The story is set in the polis known as Cartan Null, where five explorers are preparing to send cloned copies of themselves on a scientific journey into a black hole. As they are about to make the dive a biographer from Earth and his daughter arrive with intentions of writing their story.

External links

• The Planck Dive - freely downloadable from the author's website.