The whole planet hosts only 500 million people. They constitute the baseline humans who were left behind when the other billions of their compatriots, linked into a group mind called the Community, vanished down the rabbit-hole of the Singularity, an event called the Exodus. The Community left behind the Ring—a huge artificial habitat that girdles the planet, attached by a number of equatorial space elevators—and the Rift, a kind of mysterious wormhole portal in the distant reaches of the solar system.

Did I say that baseline humans—the "singletons"—were the only survivors? Not exactly. Because before the Community vanished, they created "pods." Pods are gestalt intelligences composed of two, three, four or five people, each specializing in a certain quality of mind or body. Pods seem to be the next step in the evolution of the species, although they are delicate constructs. Although each pod member has a unique personality when alone, both the incomplete pod and the separate individual are always less than optimal under these conditions. They need to be close, to exchange rich chemical data through their special organs.

Oh, and let us not forget Malcolm Leto, the last member of the Community, who was left behind in cryonic suspension when his brethren evaporated.

Our hero is a five-person pod called, collectively, Apollo Papadopulos: Meda, Moira, Quant, Strom and Manuel. They are in competitive training to captain a starship to the Rift. But once they're in the orbital segment of their competition, things begin to go very wrong, and the pod is forced to flee for its life—into the long-uninhabited Ring itself!

And baby makes five

Despite dealing with the hot topic known as the Singularity, Paul Melko's very nicely crafted and intelligent novel has a bit of an old-fashioned feel to it. I think this stems from two factors.

First, Melko—unlike Rudy Rucker or Charles Stross—really doesn't deal with the most mind-boggling issues of the Singularity. He takes the quite defensible course of focusing on those "normals" left behind, on the assumption that everything on the far side of the Singularity is unintelligible to us mere mortals. So even the token spokesperson of the Nerd Rapture, Leto, is hardly onstage.

The second reason Melko's book reads a bit old-school is his major trope: the gestalt personality. This is a venerable SF "power chord," with, arguably, many ramifications left to explore. But for some reason it's just not used much anymore. The Sturgeon novel More Than Human (1953) did such a landmark, seminal job of handling this concept that I think writers ever after have been a little daunted. Even Le Guin's "Nine Lives," which shares some atmosphere with Melko's book, is no more recent than 1969.

Finally, there's a vaguely Simakian feel to Melko's milieu: The vanished majority of the human race, an uplifted species (dogs in City [1952]; bears here). ... Simak is one of my all-time favorite authors, but his quiet bucolic wisdom is not the razzle-dazzle flavor of the month.

But enough of these comparisons to older works. Melko does some fine new things. He shows admirable daring in switching his narration during the first five chapters among the five different pod members. He conveys action well—although the formula of "one major crisis per chapter" gets a bit predictable. His dialogue is very believable, whether spoken or transmitted among the pod. He conjures up a weird cultural vibe a little similar to what John Crowley created in his dystopic tale "In Blue" (1989). But on the deficit side, Melko does throw away any exploration of the Ring. And Leto as villain is offstage too much.

Still, it's no mean feat to build a five-sided hero and put "him" through some thrilling adventures, as Melko cleverly does here.