[11] 9-year-old Prabir Suresh lives on a small tropical island among the South Moluccas where strange mutations generate unique plants, birds and creatures.
As the civil war expands across the area, they scramble on a boat to the nearest inhabited island, where they are taken to Australia, and seek asylum with their aunt in Canada, far way away from Teranesia and their family's homeland of India.
He starts work at a bank and Madhusree grows to pursue biology, carrying the lineage of their parents' passion for evolutionary research.
One day, reports emerge of an abnormal species of plants and animals that have mutated throughout the South Moluccas region that are going out of control, including on the island Prabir called Teranesia.
He assumes the messages were intercepted, and believes he's the reason the militia plane flew to their home, ultimately causing his parents' deaths.
Grant, having pretended to return to their boat but realizing something is off, uses multiple tranquilizer darts to stop Prabir and convince him that his parents' death wasn't his fault.
When they return to the island where Madhusree'a expedition is camping, Grant and Prabir encounter Christian militia, who end up testing him for the mutant gene, only to find that he carries the São Paulo protein in his bloodstream.
Prabir rapidly returns to normal, and promises to take Madhusree to a festival in Calcutta, where their parents tested the limits of the human body before they were born.
[12] Karen Burnham, an engineer and science fiction literary critic, stated how Egan's novels dive into scientific and socio-political discourse in an "elegant" way to contribute to these conversations.
[17] Egan dives into the foundations of quantum mechanics in a series called 'Foundations', where he explains modern physics concepts for fans who yearn to understand the scientific theory in his fictions.
The refugee experience and impacts of migration can be seen in an array of his novels such as Distress (1995), Zendegi (2010) and Teranesia (1999), where Prabhir and Madhursee seek asylum in Canada.
[21] Steven Shaviro, an American philosopher and cultural critic states how Teranesia explores ramifications of inter-ethnic and religious conflict in Indonesia through migration.
[8] In the acknowledgements of Teranesia, Egan shows appreciation toward The Malay Archipelago (1869) by Alfred Russel Wallace, a journal of scientific exploration around the Dutch East Indies, also known as Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
[22] Egan references documentary Guru Busters, directed and produced by Robert Eagle, which follows members of the Indian Rationalist Association journey in debunking those who claim supernatural powers.
In Teranesia, Prabir's aunt makes a comment on how computers are reinforcing the patriarchy due to the sexist nature of ones and zeros which are the foundation of binary numbers.
[6]: 43 In an article in The New York Review of Science Fiction, Kate Burnham comments on Egan's affinity to explore free will, but "not without its limits".
[26] Palmer supports this idea, voicing how in Teranesia, Egan has a clear inclination to tell stories regarding rationalism and self-willed decision making.
He continues to state as Teranesia is one of Egan's character-driven novels, emphasis on Prabir's self-determinism and rational thought roots from his father's involvement with the Indian Rationalist Association.
[6]: 175 In N. Katherine Hayles' journal article surrounding the notions of cognitive consciousness in Teranesia, she transcends this state of mind to a perpetuating motif in the novel.
[30] Grimwood then critiques how Egan doesn't fully explore pertinent themes in the narrative such as religion, political strife and Indonesian imperialism in detail, leaving fallacies when constructing motivations for the protagonist Prabir.
[7] N. Katherine Hayles, whose specialty lies in the literary intersection of technology and science, claims that Egan's novels, including 'Teranesia' offers a "millennial reassessment" to the concepts of consciousness.
[4] Literary and science fiction expert and author Christopher Palmer asserts how Egan intertwines biological concepts of evolution to exemplify human flaws such as misjudgements and impulse.