Genre: Science
Fiction
Description:
In the near future, 2045 according to the Global Future 2045
International Congress of 2013, humans with adequate means will be able to have
their minds uploaded into computers to achieve digital immortality. One
computer specialist and musician who does so finds herself in a legal battle to
maintain her human identity and free will against corporate greed and an
enterprise with a political agenda.
Author:
“Karen A. Wyle was born a Connecticut Yankee, but eventually settled
in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University. She now considers herself
a Hoosier. Wyle's childhood ambition was to be the youngest ever published
novelist. While writing her first novel at age 10, she was mortified to learn
that some British upstart had beaten her to the goal at age 9.
Wyle is an appellate attorney, photographer, political junkie, and
mother of two daughters.”
Appraisal:
Wyle undertakes an ambitious project to give social context to the
seriously considered goal of copying the consciousness of humans into computer
hardware.
How will the “stored” interact with the world of the living? What are
their legal rights? Do they remain citizens of their homeland? Can they vote?
Wyle answers the last question “yes.” If so, can they be manipulated to
support policies they would have opposed when they were alive? Are unrequested
“improvements” made by programmers to the stored’s personalities and physical
characteristics an attack on free will? Or is elimination of arthritic pain and
sagging skin simply a benefit freely provided? How about easing an unsociably
nasty temper?
While the story is thought provoking on an intellectual level, there is
little emotional or plot tension. Even though the stored heroine and her living
husband maintain a loving relationship, including somewhat unfulfilling
romantic encounters, it is presented largely through exposition and sterile
dialog.
The husband and wife are central players in the first half of the book,
but at chapter 13 of the 26 chapter story, they become passive players in their
own destiny except for cooperating with their brilliant lawyer. That might
mirror reality, but it doesn’t make for a gripping story. Much of the second
part is a mockup of court proceedings complete with legal reasoning for assumed
complaints, testimony, objections and conferences with the judge. Rulings by an
appellate court and the Supreme Court follow. That is all interesting in
itself, but it is a tedious advance to the story’s human drama.
If the technology is ever developed, the questions Wyle addresses will
have to be considered. “Who” should be required reading for Ray Kurzweil and
his fellow futurists--or better yet, a short essay by the very thoughtful Wyle.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating:
**** Four Stars
Reviewed
by: Sam Waite
Approximate
word count: 85-90,000 words
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