From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sun Apr 28 2002 - 20:13:26 MDT
I think someone mentioned this sf novel a little while ago. I've just read
the British edition. It's a rip-snorting noir conspiracy thriller with some
intriguing biological ideas. Bear makes a point of thanking Max More and
Natasha Vita-More in his Acknowledgments, and there is a convention of
`Prometheans' that sounds a little familiar; these extrope/Foresight
lookalikes have an elderly father figure, AY3000, who's dying (despite
years of calorie restriction); I suppose he's a blend of FM-2020, Leary,
and maybe Dr Rot Walford? The visible Prometheans are clearly a blended
composite, but i thought I detected a hint of Greg Burch in one character,
and maybe some of Max More (although I've never met Max).
Several extracts:
It turns out there's a gene called *hades* that does nasty things to
mitochondrial processing. Our hero seeks research funds from Montoya, a
Seattle Bill Gates/Larry Ellison billionaire.
======
`Like a time bomb,' Montoya said. `Awful. I assume you've found a way to
defuse it.'
`I'm close. The solution isn't simple, but it involves training bacteria
to pump in just the right amount of *hades*, at the right times--not too
much, and not too little. And we have to jam the tattletale signals from
our mitochondria. I'm pretty sure I can fool our bacterial partners into
turning back our clocks. We live longer--maybe a lot longer.'
Montoya flexed his fingers and compressed his lips with something like
satisfaction. `Why go against the wisdom of nature?' he asked softly,
fixing me with a limpid stare. `Why live longer than the "judges" want us to?'
`We're big kids now. We made fire. We made antibiotics. Did the bacteria
give us permission to go to the moon? We're ready to take charge and be
responsible for our own destiny. Screw the old ways.' (p. 31)
==========
[Betty is Montoya's assistant:]
`I have one question,' she said. `Why do you want to live a thousand years?'
I cocked my head to one side to work a crick out of my neck. `More is
better than not enough,' said.
`Life is full of pain and disappointment. Why prolong the misery?'
`I don't believe life is all pain and misery,' I said.
`I'm a Catholic,' Betty Shun said, still searching my face with her eyes.
`I know the world is bad. My grandmother is a Buddhist. She knows the world
is illusion. I want to live a healthy life, a useful life, but I don't want
to live forever. Something better is in the wings.'
`I'm more of a Shintoist,' I said. `I believe the living world is all
around us, thinking and working all the time, and that all living things
want to understand what's going on. We just don't live long enough to find
out. And when we die, that's it. No second act.'
`You will push out others not yet born,' she said.
`If the world is full of pain, I'll be doing them a favor,' I said
testily. I wasn't up to a sophomoric debate at midnight... (p. 70)
==============
[Candle, an NSA woman operative sez, outside the luxury supership *Lemuria*:]
`You've been going around hat in hand, promising immortality to every
billionaire you meet...'
`Yeah,' Carson [another cop] says. `Just what the world needs--immortal
plutocrats.'
`My work is for everyone,' I said.
Candle shook her head. `How noble. How incredibly naive. I *know* how
powerful men work. At NSA, we listen to their nasty little secrets all days
long.'
`It's our right,' I insisted... `Who's going to tell us we can't live as
long as we want?'
`They are,' Candle said, pointing to the *Lemuria*. `Every rich son of a
bitch, fat cat, church leader, yammering populist, self-righteous fascist,
Communist, nationalist. They'll call it a sin. They'll make it illegal. But
what they'll really be saying is--' she pointed a tense finger into the
breeze--`it's wrong *for everyone but me*.'
`We'll fight them,' I said.
`No, you won't,' Candle said. `She held on to the rail with one hand as
the sea got heavier. `*You'll* have lots of clients. *You'll* charge them a
fortune. *I'll* lose, my children will lose. Everyone I know and care
about. The same people who pay off the politicians will pay *billions* to
stay alive.' [etc] (p. 297)
===============
Alas, the book falls to pieces toward the end, unless it's *way* cleverer
than I'm able to uncover on one quick reading. I think it just got away
from Bear. He even lists two pages of inconsistencies and dropped threads
near the end, as a way of revealing to the bemused, harried narrator--and
us--how complex the conspiratorial world is. Yeah, right.
Damien Broderick
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