Beyond Human by Eve Herold

Published by St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books on August 16, 2016

The title Beyond Human implies a discussion of posthuman existence, which might be defined as the next stage of human evolution, either naturally or in combination with technology that drastically enhances knowledge or intelligence while eliminating (or drastically altering) the frail and troublesome bodies that humans now inhabit. There’s almost none of that in this book.

The nature and timing of posthuman existence is purely speculative, but in between human and posthuman existence is transhuman existence. Transhumanism generally refers to the nanobiotechnological enhancement of human beings. That ground is partially covered, in cursory fashion, in Beyond Human. Eve Herold’s book should not be confused with other books of the same name (a couple for sale on Amazon seem to have religious or self-help themes), including science fiction author Gregory Benford’s, which is subtitled “Living with Robots and Cyborgs.” Herold’s book is subtitled “How Cutting-Edge Science is Extending Our Lives,” which has precious little to do with the main title.

Herold begins a number of her sentences with phrases like “It may seem like science fiction, but ….” In fact, science fiction fans will be familiar with the more futuristic life-extension and life-enhancement techniques that Herold discusses. Using nanobots to cure disease, augmenting vision with biotechnology, improving memory by wirelessly connecting the brain to the internet, avoiding accidental death with the help of self-driving cars and robotic servants -- it’s all a given to science fiction fans. And while these technologies aren’t all just around the corner, they’re coming. That makes it imperative to think about the practical and ethical problems that the technologies might create, because it’s better to avoid a problem than to contain it after it begins to spread. Unfortunately, Herold’s book doesn’t demonstrate much original thought in those areas.

The first few chapters deal with hearts and other organs. Transplants are nothing new, although Herold finds promise in rapamycin, a drug made from a fungus found on Easter Island that has proven useful in deterring tissue rejection and may soon be used to slow aging and extend lifespans. Herold also talks about artificial organs (again focusing more on current rather than future technologies) and on the medical uses of nanotechnology. The latter is truly a future technology, and one that sf writers have explored in greater depth than Herold manages.

Later chapters discuss anti-aging drugs and gene manipulation and stem cell treatments. Herold again mentions the potential of nanomedicine without providing enough detail to grasp its implications. Herold does recognize that granting immortality to old people (like me) will crowd the planet with seniors yelling “get off my lawn” while limiting the ability of young people to innovate -- a sure recipe for stagnation, followed by disaster.

More interesting are Herold’s summaries of ethical issues surrounding artificial life extension. Some of those issues exist now (when is it ethical to turn off a pacemaker or an implanted defibrillator in a dying patient?) and others will eventually arise. If a failing heart is only beating because hundreds of nanobots have been programmed to emulate heart functions such as oxygenating blood, is it ethical to turn off the nanobots if they are extending the suffering life of a critically ill patient?

Herold also explores brain enhancement, including potential cures for Alzheimer’s and various devices that might improve cognitive ability through brain stimulation. We’re told that “very little is known” about memory-enhancing brain implants so their impact on society can’t be predicted, which seems to defeat the purpose of a book that is predicting the future of life extension and enhancement. Herold nevertheless addresses the future of brain-computer interfaces. She recognizes the Borg problem (talk to a Trekkie if you don’t know what means) that could result from the creation of an artificially intelligent hive-mind, and nods to Ray Kurzweil’s prediction of the Singularity. Readers who really want to understand the risks and benefits of a future in which artificial intelligences develop themselves into a superintelligence should probably read Kurzweil, Vernor Vinge, or other writers who do the concept justice. Herold’s discussion is too superficial to be a useful introduction.

When Herold engages in philosophical discussions of artificial life extension or enhancement, she sometimes draws upon Our Posthuman Future by Francis Fukuyama, which sounds like a deeper and more useful book than Beyond Human. Many interesting questions are posed -- Should we prolong life if we are just prolonging suffering? Shouldn’t aging people just get out of the way of generations that are more capable of producing and reproducing? Does technology replace humanity in transhuman life? -- but Herold’s answers are again superficial. I suspect Fukuyama addressed those questions more meaningfully. I had the same reaction to the provocative material she drew from James Hughes’ Citizen Cyborg.

Herold seems rather dismissive of the concerns addressed by “bioconservatives” but offers little evidence to support her more Pollyannaish take on the future (although she does acknowledge that the gray goo problem is worrisome). The final chapter tells us to embrace transhumanism (at least in the medical field) and to reject the “blind prejudice” of fuddy-duddies like Fukuyama. Get rid of that stinkin’ thinkin’, she seems to say, and everything will be fine. (In that regard, Herold’s tone is similar to that of nonscientists who tell us not to worry about climate change.) I’m not a conservative, bio or otherwise, but I didn’t find Herold’s unsupported optimism to be all that persuasive.

A chapter on social robots is sort of funny, and her discussion of the potential usefulness of robots (particularly as doctors, cars, and soldiers) is straightforward but not particularly illuminating. I did enjoy the discussion of whether robots should have rights, although I have enjoyed pondering that question in decades of sf novels, beginning with my first exposure to Isaac Asimov. I also appreciated the thought that robots should be required to carry insurance. Tons of insurance, since moviegoers all know that robots will eventually run amok and kill lots of people.

Readers who want a very simple overview of how technology can extend and enhance life will find it here. Science fiction readers will have been exposed to more stimulating discussions of the transhuman future and the ethical issues that accompany it. If the book had included more original thinking, it might have been an engrossing read. As it stands, I would recommend it only as a very basic overview for readers who have had little exposure to the subject matter. And even those readers might be better served by reading works of science fiction by Charles Stross, Vernor Vinge, Greg Egan, and dozens of other authors who illuminate the issue more brightly than Herold managed.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Three Years with the Rat by Jay Hosking

First published in Canada in 2016; published by St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books on January 24, 2017

Scruffy has been grieving the loss of John and Grace, causing him to enter a depressive self-destructive state, much to the consternation of everyone who knows him, particularly Nicole, his former girlfriend. Scruffy probably has a real name, but if Jay Hosking revealed it, I missed it. Scruffy calls Nicole Trouble and Nicole calls him Danger, but most of his friends seem to call him Scruffy if they use his name at all. Maybe the absence of an identity is meant to symbolize the illusory nature of reality that is (I think) the story’s point.

John was Scruffy’s good friend and Grace is Scruffy’s sister. Grace has been missing since 2006, although there have been some sporadic Grace sightings since then. John, after trying to harm himself, spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. Immediately after his discharge in 2007, he starts building a box. In 2008, John is also gone, and it falls to Grace’s brother to remove the box from their apartment. He also adopts Buddy, John’s lab rat.

There are mirrors on the walls inside the box and … well … other things. Scruffy reassembles the box and enters it. The experience is unpleasant. Eventually Scruffy’s life becomes unpleasant, or at least odd, as he enters a reality in which memory of his existence fades away.

The story bounces around in time, which seems appropriate since time plays a key role in the story. Grace and John were researching the difference between objective and subjective time. Once Scruffy starts messing around with their experiment in an attempt to rescue John and Grace, he finds himself in a reality that differs from the one he remembers.

Even if the shifting time frames sort of make sense in the framework of the story, the technique is usually used to bring different timelines together in a way that slowly reveals whatever the author has been concealing from the reader. Sometimes the technique works well, but in this story it contributes little more than confusion. The hidden fact (what happened to John and Grace?) could have been revealed with just as much impact, and probably more suspense, if the story had been told in a linear fashion.

Eventually — and it takes too long to happen — the novel morphs into a horror story melded with a science fiction story. It is an imperfect meld because the horror isn’t frightening and the science fiction builds rather unscientifically on concepts that been around for decades.

That doesn’t mean Three Years With the Rat doesn’t have entertainment value, but the slow development doesn’t lead to the big payoff that justifies investing so much time to get there. I found myself asking “But why?” at several places in the climactic scene, and never quite puzzled out the answer. Fortunately, Hosking writes smoothly and his agreeable prose style offsets some of the novel’s weaknesses. Still, I can only give Three Years with the Rat a qualified recommendation because too much of it makes too little sense.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Fifth Element by Jorgen Brekke

Published in Norway in 2013; published in translation by St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books on February 28, 2017

Rolf Fagerhus takes advantage of his position in the police to steal an Oslo drug dealer’s stash of cash. His wife has taken his daughter from him and Fagerhus intends to take her back. With the cash and forged passports, he plans to spirit his daughter away to Central America. His plan is complicated by his rushed decision to kidnap the drug dealer’s son, who witnessed his crime.

Odd Singsanker also works for the police. His wife, an American ex-cop named Felicia Stone, has disappeared, at least from Odd’s perspective. She had become irrationally jealous, they had a spat, and she went to Oslo to visit his son. But then she didn’t return to Trondheim as planned. From Felicia’s standpoint, she just dropped out for a while, making a series of impulsive decisions fueled by alcohol. When Felicia decides to go back to Trondheim, the weather impedes her return home, and since she wants to explain herself to Odd in person, she doesn’t call him before she rents a car and begins a treacherous drive. That’s always a dumb thing for a thriller character to do, and it doesn’t work out well for Felicia.

Like a good Scandinavian, Felicia takes time away from her life-threatening adventure to reflect on all the depressing events that have shaped her life, beginning at age 5. Felicia is so introspective, if not self-obsessed, that I liked her the least of all the characters.

Nearing the midway point, the novel takes a break from Odd and Felicia and tells the story of a young man named Knut who finds himself on the wrong side of a nasty drug dealer. Not long after that, it takes another break to tell the story of Sving, who solves the nasty drug dealer’s problems with a baseball bat and whose girlfriend wants him to blow up her husband. Sving’s section of the novel is quite amusing.

With its different episodes, The Fifth Element reads more like a series of related short stories than a novel, but the stories are all entertaining and they eventually link together. Maybe Odd Singsaker fans would want to see more of Odd, who plays almost a collateral role in the novel, but this is the first one in the series that I’ve read so I have no emotional investment in the character. All of the characters are portrayed with enough depth to give them substance, and the linked stories are engaging. Their eventual connection is clever, as later stories explain events that took place in earlier stories. Jorgen Brekke deserves credit for constructing the novel so carefully.

The ending is a little hokey, and the novel’s reliance on coincidence stretches the boundaries of plausibility, but those are minor flaws. On the whole, The Fifth Element tells an entertaining story that is enriched by interesting characters — although I generally found the crooks to be more interesting than the good guys.

RECOMMENDED

Desperation Road by Michael Farris Smith

Published by Little, Brown & Co. on Feb. 7, 2017

Newly released from a Mississippi prison, Russell returns to the town where his father is waiting for him. Russell’s mother died while he was in prison and his father filled the unbearable silence by bringing a woman, an undocumented immigrant, into his home. In addition to his father, trouble is waiting for Russell, old scores that people feel a need to settle. Russell did something stupid but not malicious. He can’t put the crime behind him and neither can the malicious people who think he was not sufficiently punished for it. His former fiancé called off his marriage after he went to prison and now has three kids and a life she regrets. Russell isn’t searching for forgiveness or redemption, nor does he believe he deserves any.

Larry and his brother Walt are the key antagonists who trouble Russell during the novel. Larry isn’t allowed to see the son from his first marriage and his second wife is publicly and repeatedly unfaithful to him. Seeking revenge against Russell may be a way or restoring his sense of manhood.

The other desperate character in Desperation Road is Maben. Broke and homeless, she’s taking her daughter Annalee back to Mississippi because she has nowhere else to go. Desperate circumstances motivate her to take a desperate action. Soon enough, she needs to leave, but again has nowhere to go, no plan, no help, and no hope. Her road intersects with Russell’s a bit beyond the novel’s midway point. That part of the novel hinges on a large coincidence but coincidences happen. This one isn’t so outrageous as to damage the story’s credibility.

Some of the supporting characters are drunks and scoundrels, or just drunks, but other characters are living a responsible life, doing their best with what they have, which isn’t much. Michael Farris Smith’s muscular prose captures the rural southern characters who inhabit his novel (“Russell came across the pond bank and said how you doing old man and the old man grinned with his lips held tight to keep it from getting away from him and he gave Russell a solid handshake as if he’d just sold him a calf”).

I’m impressed with the humanity and understanding that shines through in this novel, the recognition that people are defined by more than their mistakes. Russell believes that rough lives get rougher and he doesn’t believe in fairy tale endings, but the reader hopes that he will manage to find a way out of his various predicaments.

In that regard, I’m also impressed with the suspense that Smith builds. Whether things will end well for Russell and Mabel is the question that hovers over the story. These are people for whom nothing ever seems to end well, so the sense of foreboding is palpable even as the reader roots for their survival. If they stay alive and stay out of prison, that’s the best they can expect. They are, in the novel’s words, “holding on,” and whether they can hold on a while longer is the question that keeps the reader involved with this quietly intense story.

RECOMMENDED

Sandstorm by Laurence Gough

First published in Canada in 1990; published digitally by Endeavour Press on November 28, 2016

Sandstorm takes place well before Arab Spring and the death of Mu’ammar al-Gadaffi, but it does not feel dated. The story is true to the time and place in which it is set and the atmosphere is convincing.

Charlie McPhee lives in a sketchy part of Cairo where the police rarely venture. His passport is expired. Two years earlier, the woman Charlie was planning to take to Cairo left him. Charlie decided to go on their planned vacation anyway, and couldn’t think of a reason to return.

Charlie has some skills, one of which is the ability to defeat security systems and break into safes. When a safecracker dies and needs to be replaced, Charlie is a convenient, albeit unwilling, replacement.

Charlie’s storyline soon intersects with that Jack Downey, who works for Richard Foster, the CIA’s chief of station in Cairo. Downey’s current assignment involves Gadaffi. To pursue his ends, Downey brings Hubie Sweets and Mungo Martin to Cairo from Columbia, where they were busy fulfilling a CIA contract by killing coca harvesters. Downey also has need of a security system specialist and Charlie fits the bill.

Downey is ruthless and manipulative, as he demonstrates when he recruits a young woman in London whose father was killed in Libya. Downey needs Jennifer Forsyth to get Gadaffi’s attention. I won’t reveal anything else about the plot, because its impact comes from various surprises that are revealed as it unfolds.

The story moves quickly, enlivened by occasional shootouts and fights and chases as Downey’s gang of rogues get into a number of scrapes. The action scenes are more-or-less credible, or at least no more improbable than those in most modern thrillers.

As B-list spy novels go, Sandstorm is a decent read. Readers who want their heroes to be heroic and for the good guys to prevail against all odds should look for other escapist avenues. Sandstorm serves up some of that, but none of the characters are icons of virtue. I appreciated that. The characters tend to be stereotypes but they are interesting stereotypes, unlike the stale Special Forces action-figure superheroes who dominate more recent thrillers. Sandstorm isn’t a first tier spy novel, but I would place it high on my list of second tier action-oriented novels with an espionage theme.

RECOMMENDED