One of the biggest current buzzwords in SF is “transhumanism.” Transhumanism is a set of ideas that began in science fiction and were then appropriated by the futurist community; like steampunk, transhumanism has also become something of a pop culture movement.
The concept is a familiar one to science fiction readers. Technological advances, particularly in nanotechnology and genetics, will soon make it possible for us to remake our bodies and minds, enhance our abilities, and conquer death—leading to a radical redefinition of what it means to be human. Modern transhumanism is tied up with Vernor Vinge’s notion of the technological singularity; a period when the pace of technological advance becomes so fast that it overwhelms human society and psychology, representing a quantum leap into a future that’s literally incomprehensible.
Of course, the idea of a new and improved human race was around in science fiction long before the transhumanism movement came along.
This is the point at which I usually go back to the ancient Greeks, or at least the 1600s, to trace the development of a notion in SF. But transhumanism is something different; the concept doesn’t seem to have existed prior to the mid-1800s, and science fiction is arguably the only route through which it could be explored in popular culture.
Here’s the story.
Throughout the history of literature, there had always been races superior to humanity: gods, angels, and all manner of supernatural entities. But humanity was humanity, and the notion that it could evolve into something better was nonexistent. To be sure, individuals could, through heroic feats, achieve apotheosis and join the ranks of the advanced beings—think of Imhotep, Hercules, Elijah, or the Hindu hero-king Yudhisthira. That was fine for the occasional hero; as for the race as a whole, if there was any change at all, it was a devolution from the Golden Age of the distant past.
Before Darwin spread the idea that species (including humans) could evolve, there was no intellectual framework for imagining that the future of humanity would be any different from its past. And it wasn’t until the end of the Nineteenth Century that philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche introduced his idea of the übermensch, a new breed of superior humans.
Nietzsche’s ideas would probably have languished in the realms of philosophy and racist politics (where the evolution idea got dropped and various groups proclaimed themselves as the übermensch), had it not been for the science fiction writers.
About the same time, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells at last depicted a far future in which the human race became something different—although Wells’ Morlocks and Eloi were both clearly devolutions. In 1930 Olaf Stapledon published Last and First Men, a brilliant work that chronicled the development (positive and negative) of the human race into the far future.
Then, out of biology there came a new metaphor for the advancement of humanity: the mutant. Olaf Stapledon’s Odd John (1935) set the fashion: a mutant or group of mutants with superior abilities (usually mental in nature), persecuted and hunted by the society of normal humans. It was a theme that resonated with the SF readers of the period, and with the coming of the Campbell Age, stories of mental and psionic supermen were everywhere. A.E. van Vogt’s Slan (1940) and Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human (1953) were among the best and most influential of these.
A slightly different strain of SF, exemplified by E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Children of the Lens (1947) and Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End (1953), portrayed the arrival of mental superfolk as a natural step toward the next stage in human evolution.
As all this mental evolution was going on, another strain of SF grew up investigating the possibilities of physical enhancements to the human form. Frederik Pohl’s Man Plus (1976) and Martin Caidin’s Cyborg (1972; the basis of the popular TV show The Six Million Dollar Man) dealt with bionic enhancements, and soon cyborgs were all the rage.
Recently, with the growth of nanotechnology, neurology, and genetics, speculation about transhumanism moved in those directions, led by Marc Stiegler’s classic short story “The Gentle Seduction” (Analog, April 1989). Other authors who’ve explored this territory include Greg Egan, Linda Nagata, Rudy Rucker, Bruce Sterling, Charles Stross, and David Zindell. A 2008 anthology (Transhuman, edited by Mark L. Van Name & T.K.F. Weisskopf) simultaneously demonstrated and capitalized on transhumanism’s growing popularity.
All of which brings me to:
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Pink Noise
Leonid Korogodski
Silverberry Press, 190 pages,
$25.95 (hardcover)
iBooks: $11.99, Kindle: $9.39,
Nook: $9.59 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-9843608-2-6
Genre: Transhuma
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Pink Noise
Pink Noise is surely the most stylish book I’ve received this year. It’s printed on glossy paper in black and red, and fancifully illustrated by an artist called Guddah. There are over 60 pages of notes and references—including a map, glossary, pronunciation guide, three essays, and a bibliography. There’s even a fancy pink ribbon sewn into the binding for use as a bookmark.
At this point you might expect a triumph of style over substance (I certainly did). After all, when you boil away all the pretty trappings, what’s left is a 130-page novella. Yet substance is there—it’s a good novella.
Five hundred years ago, Nathi became transhuman; that is, he uploaded his consciousness into cyberspace. Since then, the transhumans have been conquered and enslaved by entities calling themselves the Wizard Orders. With a computer virus known as The Wish, the Wizard Orders keep transhumans (as well as ordinary humans) under their control.
On Mars, Nathi is summoned to help heal a comatose human girl (called The Girl). Her brain is badly damaged, but Nathi maps portions of his own mind onto hers in order to bring her to consciousness.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, The Girl is a secret host for The Wish Fairy, which is a sapient being with the power to destroy The Wish. Before you can say “singularity,” Nathi and The Girl (joined in symbiosis) escape their prison and dash out across treacherous Martian polar terrain. The Wizard Orders are right on their heels (both in cyberspace and in the physical world). All they really have on their side is the unpredictability of the physical brain—the “pink noise” of the title.
Blending fairy tale with hard SF, and written in an easy yet lyrical style, Pink Noise is a surprisingly good story. Although it seems to be aimed toward non-SF readers, the book and its language are sophisticated enough to satisfy any Analog reader.
Whether it’s worth the price of admission depends on how much you value a beautiful physical book. Perhaps this would be a good one to put on your holiday shopping list as a gift to one of your transhumanist friends . . . assuming the Singularity holds off until then.
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Grail
Elizabeth Bear
Spectra, 352 pages, $7.99 (paperback)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $7.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-553-59109-5
Series: Jacob’s Ladder 3
Genre: Far Future/Clarke’s Law,
Generation Ships, Transhuman |
Grail
Take a generation ship, a large vessel that is a self-contained world carrying the descendants of an original crew across interstellar gulfs at sublight speed. Stir in transhumanism, seasoned with intelligent but slightly mad artificial intelligences and a big dollop of nanotechnology. Add a generous helping of Arthurian mythology and more than a dash of Roger Zelazny. Let cook for several generations. Strain the result through Elizabeth Bear’s fertile imagination and consummate writing skill.
The result is the Jacob’s Ladder trilogy, of which Grail is the concluding volume (the two previous books were Dust and Chill). The generation ship Jacob’s Ladder left a devastated Earth, and during its voyage the inhabitants have made the leap to transhuman status—they’ve spent the last two books becoming demigods in response to a variety of threats.
Now the ship’s long journey is over: these transhumans are approaching their destination, a planet they call Grail. There’s just one problem: Grail is already inhabited. Worse, it was settled by regular humans, who call the planet Fortune and aren’t exactly in the mood to share it with a shipful of newcomers who might as well be aliens.
Like the first two books, Grail is a mythic story full of wonder and detailed worldbuilding, told through the eyes of sympathetic characters. If you want to spend some time in not one, but two fully-realized worlds, this is the book for you.
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The Gravity Pilot
M.M. Buckner
Tor, 329 pages, $25.99 (hardcover)
Kindle, Nook: $12.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2286-9
Genre: Cyberpunk,
Ecological/Environmental SF |
The Gravity Pilot
It’s good to know, in this age of genetically-enhanced and nano-reconstructed transhumans, that there’s still a place in SF for a character who excels by sheer physical ability. Orr Sitka is just such a character. In a dystopian near-future world, Orr has found happiness in two ways: his lover (named Dyce), and skydiving over the Alaska wilderness. One day, quite by accident, Orr makes (and survives) a jump from a record altitude—and his happy life is never the same. Suddenly he’s a media darling, with ever-more-daring jumps turned into virtual reality simulations to feed the entertainment appetites of a jaded population.
The media attention is too much for Dyce; she leaves Orr to become a librarian working in the bowels of a decadent Seattle. While the media are ruining Orr, Dyce becomes addicted to seamy virtual reality. Separately but in parallel, the two of them descend into their own private hells.
Then Orr learns of Dyce’s fate, and sets off to rescue her.
The book is billed as a retelling of the Orpheus myth (Orr-pheus trying to rescue Euri-Dyce from Hell, get it?), but don’t let that put you off. It’s a rollicking good cyberpunk adventure as well as a nice love story, with a fine overlay of psychological and social commentary.
M.M. Buckner won the 2005 Philip K. Dick Award for best original paperback in SF, and she’s been making a name for herself with well-crafted SF adventures. The Gravity Pilot is her fifth book; she’s definitely a name to watch in the future.
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This Shared Dream
Kathleen Ann Goonan
Tor, 400 pages, $25.99 (hardcover)
Kindle: $17.15 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1354-6
Series: Dance Family 2
Genre: Alternate History, Parallel Worlds,
Time Travel |
This Shared Dream
What do you do after you’ve created utopia?
In her Campbell Award winning novel In War Times (2007), Kathleen Ann Goonan introduced Sam and Bette Dance, a couple of time travelers who went back to World War II in an attempt to make our present world a better one. They succeeded, and a long period of peace replaced the Cold War.
This Shared Dream takes up the story of the present-day children that Sam and Bette left behind. Jill, Brian, and Megan Dance are all bothered by shadowy memories of the world as it was, as well as the mystery of their parents’ disappearance. Jill even seems to remember that her mother departed to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy . . . an event that never occurred in the current timeline.
As they grow, the Dance children develop strong desires, almost compulsions, to improve the world. At first their means are politics, music, and science. Then comes the fly in the ointment: in creating this new alternate world, the Dance parents caused the erasure from history of a good many powerful and malicious people. But it turns out that previous timelines don’t cease to exist; instead, there’s a multiverse of alternate histories.
And what Sam and Bette did once, others can un-do. Soon enough, the Dance kids find their utopian timeline threatened with destruction. All they have is their own abilities, their drive for improvement . . . and the power of jazz music.
Goonan’s previous work (The Nanotech Quartet) was more cyberpunk in nature; in the Dance Family books, there’s nary a nanobot to be seen. She masterfully relates this story mainly from the separate viewpoints of the three Dance children, and it works beautifully. The details of her alternate world are fascinating and fun to uncover; the personality of this utopian timeline is almost a fourth main character in the book.
A great adventure story, an engaging alternate history, characters the reader can really care about, and jazz. What more can you ask?
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To the Galactic Rim
A. Bertram Chandler
Baen, 553 pages, $12.00 (trade paperback)
Baen Webscriptions: $6.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3421-4
Series: John Grimes 1-4
Genre: Military SF |
To the Galactic Rim
Before Honor Harrington, Daniel Leary, or even Miles Vorkosigan, there was John Grimes. Long out of print, now the Federation Survey officer is back. And there is great rejoicing.
The name of A. Bertram Chandler is a familiar one to longtime readers of this magazine. During the Astounding years he was a frequent contributor of short fiction, but first he moved into novels and then in 1984 he passed away, so those who have been reading Analog for less than 25 years might not have heard of him.
Grimes isn’t, technically, a military man. Rather, he’s an explorer—although like Poul Anderson’s Nicholas Van Rijn and David Falkayn or Keith Laumer’s Retief, he’s really a problem-solver on a grand scale. Across 22 books from the late 1960s until Chandler’s death, Grimes works his way around the Galaxy. In the typical Grimes novel, Grimes and his crew encounter a new planet, realize that there’s a problem, and succeed in solving it. The planets are exotic and full of wonders; the problems are extremely unusual; and Grimes’ solutions are brilliantly outrageous.
Chandler was another of those Aussies who pop up in SF every once in a while, bringing their own unique viewpoint to the field. The Grimes books are filled with humor and some fine detail about the experience of space exploration.
This volume collects the first four Grimes books in chronological order: The Road to the Rim, To Prime the Pump, The Hard Way Up, and The Broken Cycle. It begins with Grimes’ graduation from the Academy and takes him through a series of adventures with a planetful of frustrated women, an alien god, and various other dubious situations. In either print or e-book, this volume is a bargain not to be missed.
Don Sakers is the author of Dance for the Ivory Madonna and A Voice in Every Wind. For more information, visit www.scatteredworlds.com. Genre and series information is based on listings at www.readersadvice.com.
"The Reference Library" copyright © 2011, Don Sakers
