“’That’s the heart of the problem. I haven’t lived enough. My character is just the combination of my intellect and my faults. I haven’t had time to become more complex, more interesting. […] I’m not sure if you realize this but without my flaws I’d be pretty dull. You should know that.’”

In “A Calculated Life” by Anne Charnock

For the sake of argument let me be devil’s advocate.

The scientific materialist assumption is that the body is the primary organ and consciousness is secondary. This is not so; consciousness is the primary experience and the body and all other experiences are secondary. The body is a construct of consciousness. Forward thinking scientists are just beginning to realise this. Man might be able to prolong life but a 'machine' existence will never happen because the 'reality' of phenomenal existence is simultaneously 'real' and 'not real'. People, including scientists tend to see everything in terms of being a binary system. Yes/no, off/on, is/isn't, 0/1, true /untrue. Reality is not that simplistic. Mm, that's some good pseudo bullshit. Preventing aging is almost certainly more achievable soon than consciousness transfer, but ultimately the latter offers greater security and opportunity. Immortal DNA is all very well, until you suffer catastrophic injury or brain damage. With transferable consciousness, you get the immortality, along with the option to backup and restore in the event of a fatal accident, as well as the ability to travel at light-speed as a digital signal to be reawakened on arrival. And that's before we even get into the idea of truly inhabiting the virtual world as digital consciousness. With an infinitesimal fraction of the earth's current energy use, you could have untold trillions living in a virtual utopia, with a near infinite diversity of cultures, worlds and lifestyles. Nevertheless, is it misleading to talk about 'transferable' consciousness? What would be uploaded would be a facsimile of your consciousness. As far as the exterior world, interacting with the facsimile, would be concerned it would be you. However, it would actually be a totally new instance of you, with no continuity of your original consciousness. It's what's always troubled me about the idea of Star Trek-type teleportation - the thought that disintegrating someone in one place and then reassembling them in another, would effectively mean the death of the original, internally-experienced consciousness (although nobody else would notice or care!). 

If you're into SF, read on.

This is a slow starting but ultimately moving  “wow!” of a story, set in a dystopian future Manchester with three types of “humans”: humans with a moderate amount of genetic engineering to help them resist social evils like addiction, genetically engineered humans who have been enhanced with implants to make them smarter, and simulants or “created” humans who have been completely bio-engineered to have beyond genius level brains that can process huge amounts of data for their employers. Simulants, of course, have never been children and they have no families, so they live in regulated dorm-like residences. There has been some tinkering with the simulant models to make them more personable, but giving them a larger emotional scope could backfire by decreasing their functionality, so they are carefully monitored for any deviations.

Jayna, one of these newer simulants, uses her stellar data crunching skills to forecast social and economic trends at the offices of Mayhew and McCline where she tries to interact smoothly with both types of more normal humans.These humans interest her greatly in spite, or maybe because, of the fact that she often has to correct their faulty work, and the slow start I mentioned is no criticism because it’s fascinating to be inside her head as she interprets the world around her.

Jayna starts to believe that both her personal life and work-related predictive skills would be enhanced by experiencing more variety and  texture, which draws her slowly into an increasingly dangerous relationship with Dave, an un-implant-enhanced human who works in the company archives but has a side business selling honey. Dave’s grandfather had been a rebellious, freethinking college professor, placing Dave very low in the social hierarchy, so he lives in the high-rise, slum-like outskirts of town, past the comfortable upper middle class houses of humans with implants, and beyond the citrus groves that must be part of the English landscape as a result of climate change.

As new understandings and sensations open to Jayna--some as simple as the smell of a fresh brewed cup of coffee--she feels compelled to continue her risky encounters with Dave, but if she’s caught she could be wiped clean and reprogrammed by “the constructor”, the entity who supplies the simulant workers to businesses.

The author creates a strong connection between hyper-intelligent but naive Jayna and the reader--though anxious about the possible consequences of Jayna’s actions I was cheering her on--and the world building of this chilling, socially stratified future Manchester is excellent, and introduced naturally through Jayna’s interactions with the people who work at her office and the simulants who share her housing compound. The building tension of the story kept me hooked, and the ending left me a lot to think about. I listened to the well done audio version of this unusual but compelling book.

Jayna is a super-intelligent kind-of computer-like person who works for a big company trying to see trends in everything. As she's always analysing stuff she might just find some data that could turn her life (and the world like she knows it) around.

In the beginning I liked her mathematical way of analysing everything. It was almost as if I was reading a computer or robot file (I do know that's in binary code, but just the general feeling). There were a lot of details people normally don't care about. Although this really created a feeling of Jayna being different, some kind of human computer, I was also thinking 'I'm not sure I can take this for a whole novel'. And that's exactly what happened. Around the halfway mark I was already hoping it would be over soon.

My other problem with this novel was that it for me lacked a true story. Nothing really happens in the first part of the book, and even after that it's still not a real story. Perhaps it's just her methodical mind that prevents the plot from really progressing, I'm not sure about that, but it felt a bit frustrating.

It was like a more classical Dystopian novel and it reminded me a bit of Brave New World, especially with the human engineering part. I however, didn't like it as much and was quite frankly a little bit disappointed. I'd expected to enjoy it more than I did.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Moonlight Reader started the TBR Thursday, and I think it's a good way to a) show what new books I've got and b) confront myself with my inability to lower my TBR. In fact, since I started recording it, it has risen significantly. I get the feeling I'm doing something wrong here...

Not all my new books fitted into one post, so here's part two. Double the fun!

A Calculated Life and California are both Dystopian novels that seemed really interesting. I'm always on the look out for more good Dystopian novels (also outside the YA genre).

Magisterium: The Iron Trial I had seen on my Dashboard quite some times. Also, I was curious to try something from Cassandra Clare as some of my friends really like her other series.

Rust is a non-fiction about, ehm, rust. It seemed quite interesting when I requested it and it might turn out to be a really nice book I think.

The Palace Job is YA Fantasy. I actually quite liked the colour, and I was looking to expand more into the genre, so I was glad I found this book.

Last but not least, and not officially a part of this list is Downton Abbey: Rules for Household Staff. I was so excited because I was approved for this particular book, as I'm a great fan of the series, that I already started reading it even though I can't publish my review for another month. I just wanted to let you know that so far I'm really enjoying myself with it, despite the quite long chapter on wine.