he opening 40-plus pages of this ambitious and rambunctious debut novel were originally published separately under the title "We Were Out of Our Minds With Joy" and now serves as the launching platform from which the rest of the story takes off.
In this prelude, we are introduced to the world of the 2090s, and a strange milieu it is. Previously, a massive terrorist assault known as the Outrage has contaminated Earth's entire biosphere with NASTIES, nanotech assailants, leaving mankind to huddle within protected cities. But this forced retreat has really amounted to less than a tiny speed bump in the advance of technology and a go-go culture. The human lifespan is now practically infinite—if you can afford the rejuves. Everyone possesses a "mentar" of varying capabilities, mentars being AI "paste-brains" that help humans navigate the world virtually and in "realbody." Synthetic crops feed the world's billions. Beamed power from satellites in orbit around the sun offers endless energy. And mankind stands on the threshold of colonizing the stars in vast Oships.
Our protagonists in this first section are Sam Harger and Eleanor Starke. Sam's an artist, and Eleanor's a businesswoman-cum-politician. They fall in love in bizarre 21st-century style and later are awarded a baby in the baby lottery. Their life seems ideal. But then Eleanor's political rivals strike at her through Sam. He is mistakenly branded a terrorist and stripped of his immortality and other health benefits by Homeland Command. His very cells are booby-trapped, turning him into a literally stinking pariah, one of the "seared." Section One ends with him reluctantly leaving his wife and child, Ellen.
Cut to 40 years later. The world has grown even stranger. Legions of clones—identified generically by the first names of their original donors, such as jerrys, evangelines, russes and jeromes—do society's scutwork, while the "affs" lord it over them. In the middle are the average joes and janes who must struggle to pay for their rejuves while eating the plainest fare from their NanoJiffys. The Outrage has just been declared officially over, and the city of Chicago—where our story occurs—is ready to lower its shields.
Eleanor and Ellen Starke are still alive and in power. Until they are both assassinated. Eleanor dies permanently, but Ellen's head is cryostatically preserved. Much of the plot revolves around attempts to get her reborn in the face of continued enemy action. But we also learn what happened to Sam Harger: He's now known as Samson Kodiak, member of an extended "charter" family. We follow him through his dying days, as well as observing the twisty destinies of: young Bogdan Kodiak—a 29-year-old permanently stuck in adolescence; Fred and Mary, two clones; and Eleanor's political ally, the ineffectual Merrill Meewee. Additionally, mentars such as Wee Hunk, Cabinet, Hubert, Concierge and Arrow play their parts, as one era closes and a new one opens.
Fiction ripped from the future
Anyone who revels in the heady (sorry for the pun), gonzo, densely recomplicated SF of John Wright, Charles Stross, Rudy Rucker, Cory Doctorow or Karl Schroeder will find this novel by Marusek to be a sterling addition to their ranks. Marusek is unstintingly generous in his speculations, which are all entertainingly wild yet convincingly realistic. He builds characters who are far from the cliches of the field. (No brave female spaceship pilots, cowboy data hackers, mirror-shaded ninjas or other faded types.) And he balances his plot perfectly between mega-scale and micro-scale events.
With regard to his speculations, Marusek obviously focuses much of his intellectual weight on the repercussions of biological advancements. His future is one where bodies can be regenerated from nothing more than a preserved head and neck, leading to the truly Boschian image of a tiny embryonic form dependent from the terminus of an adult spinal cord. But of course he doesn't ignore other developments in robotics and nanotech, integrating these areas beautifully as well. Likewise, he examines how culture and society remake themselves to accommodate new technologies. His portrait of the weird clone society is startling and novel. The big clone party—a magnificent literary set piece—that sprawls across the middle of the book will knock your socks off.
Marusek's characters grab you because they are, underneath their transhumanity, so ordinary and pitiable. The up-and-down married relationship between clones Fred and Mary and how their characters strive to grow is truly affecting. Additionally, Marusek cranks up that Philip K. Dick vibe of mankind struggling to maintain the borders between what's real and what's artificial, human and android. When Samson has to argue with his life-support chair, for instance, one hears echoes of Dick, as we do in the struggle of the russ named Fred to assert his individuality.
Perhaps the major weapon in Marusek's arsenal is his zesty language, reflecting a basically optimistic view of his future—and copious dead-on neologisms. These tools make the story shimmer and glow, hypnotizing the reader into true belief in the substantiality of his marvelous, alternately hilarious and melancholy new world.
