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(Mark and Gerry's Sci-Fi Reviews...continued)
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I'm Too Sexy for My IQ......
Brain Child by George Turner
review by Mark
Brain Child is a wonderful science fiction book and I want you to read it. The reason
I want you to read Brain Child is because it reinforces a thesis that I believe in, and I
want you to consider. That thesis is that the power of the human mind is potentially
much greater than that of machine minds and we have tremendous things to look
forward to and to worry about in the relatively near future. We have already reviewed
several books in these pages (I, Robot, The Humanoids, Society of the Mind,
Neuromancer) that illustrate the potential danger in machine minds run amok, but
Brain Child asks us to consider the results of genetic manipulation of man resulting
in super intelligent and gifted humans. What is a human with an IQ of 400? How
about 1000? Is this person still a human? Will they think or reason like we normals
do? Will they have powers like telepathy? Will they be malevolent, benign, or simply
indifferent?
In the near future in Australia (Australia?), 12 identical embryos are divided into three
groups of two boys and two girls. Each group of four is genetically modified, one for
outstanding engineering capabilities, one for outstanding artistic abilities, and one for
outstanding IQ. Their story is recounted by a young reporter in a quest for the story of
the "nursery children" as the 12 are called. It so happens that the young reporter is a
child of one of the 12 and is thus even more highly motivated to understand their
origins and fate.
In the reporter's travels and interviews he comes upon a cast of characters who were
touched and affected by the twelve, leaving them with guilt, shame, and confusion.
Interestingly, these nursery chilldren as they grew up increasingly turned their talents
towards understanding genetic manipulation and psychology. They use their
knowledge to continually increase their advantage over the normals. As we read about
them we must wonder is our lack of understanding of their motives because they are
fundamentally amoral, or is it as impossible to understand the motives of supermen
as it is for an chimp to understand ours?
Brain Child is not only a very entertaining story it is written with an excellent flair. I
wish I could write a novel as well as Turner wrote Brain Child. Pick it up and try it out.
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No Hope for.........MIR a novel by Alexander Besher
Life is too short to read bad sci-fi and I couldn't finish MIR. It's not unreadable; I did read over 220 pages, but I just finally got fed up with a cast of characters I didn't like and poor science in the fiction. This is basically another novel in the theme of run away artifical intelligence, but the twist here is that the artificial intelligence is carried by tatoos. From the science point of view I prefer that intelligence have input/output capability and some capability of processing information in some very rapid manner. How does a tatoo do this? These fictions of Besher's can move, and think and communicate in a variety of languages, and do all this cool (even sexual) stuff. But how? Viruses are a kind of very efficient computer program, but they have very a limited and simple functions. I can go along with virus/tatoos but not sentient tatoos. Maybe it just shows my lack of imagination, but I like to think that I am willing to entertain new concepts that have at least potential basis, but Besher offers me none, and I can't seem to insert my own. Read only if stranded on a desert island with nothing else to do.
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