This is interesting.

I'd read all of Egan before finding LW/encountering serious singularity/AI thinkers. (I'm a generalist). I read Zendegi recently but didn't immediately connect it with here - I may go and re-read it now.

For the record, I would have to say, though, the Egan's characterisations of all protagonists is weak - a tendency that is, I find, widespread among hard SF writers. Not surprisingly; they are interested in the interactions of imaginably real science with the history and future of humanity. Significant emphasis on the characteristics of particular individuals (making them seem real by letting us understood their particular identity as distinctive) is likely to undermine their purpose in examining these interactions. It takes a great artist to unite disparate angles one a topic into a whole (I hesitate to use my usual word for this achievement here - I call this achievement 'transcendent')