Transcension

by Damien Broderick

Book Overview

Damien Broderick has been a leading Australian SF writer since the '70s. His novel The "Dreaming Dragons" was listed in SF: the 100 best novels. His recent nonfiction book, "The Spike," is a mind-stretching look at the wonders of the high-tech future. Now in "Transcension "he brings to life one of the futures he imagined in "The Spike," a world pervaded by nanotechnology and governed by artificial intelligence. "Transcension "may be Broderick's best...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765303698
• ISBN13: 9780765303691
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

intriguing love story as the world is transformed

In the not terribly near future, mall-rat Amanda seeks thrills and the admiration of her fellows. When the game takes her to a part of the world that has given up science to live under the rules of the 'god of one's choice,' Amanda is forced to confront her responsibilities and the end of her extended adolescence. Mathewmark lives in the anti-technology enclave, yet he doesn't quite fit. Amanda and her adventures appeals to him at the same time as it repels him. The two flirt with danger and each other, while the world itself is being driven toward a new age.The evolving attraction/repulsion between Amanda and Mathewmark serves as backdrop to the plans of an artificial intelligence, Aleph. Aleph is the fast-evolved descendent of early artificial intelligence work (partly conducted by resurrected character Abdel-Malek) which serves as an invisible but dominant character through much of the novel. Human decisions to renunciate higher technology, both in Mathewmark's enclave and in the larger society of the Metro has clearly done little to constrain the power of this over-intelligence. Indeed, reality itself becomes questionable as neither characters nor the reader can always determine what exists, and what exists only in the mind of Aleph.Author Damien Broderick begins his work with quotes from unibomber Theodore Kaczynski and Sun technologist Bill Joy and uses the novel to address the question of whether humans can renunciate the future and draw a line in the sand. For the most part, though, the novel is the story of two people from two different societies who must strive to determine whether they can create a relationship--or whether they even want such a strange relationship. The parallel to the relationship between machine and man is implicit but largely unexplored.Broderick's fine writing keeps the reader focussed on the page although the future-speak by the mall rats is occasionally distracting.

Very Readable Hard Science Fiction

Damien Broderick must be loaded with lots of witticisms and just plain tons of good old common sense because this novel is loaded with these things. And when I say 'common sense', this is not the type your typical good ole boy down the street has, but is instead a 'sense' of what is intrinsically true or false, not what the average person believes. Yeah, of course someday, perhaps 100-200 years from now, the ideas portrayed in this book will be widely accepted, but not yet, but this, to many people, is what science fiction is all about, to allow gifted and intelligent writers to let us see some of the possibilities in store for our future, good and bad, in an entertaining format. This novel does very well in terms of the above, giving us a glimpse of the future, perhaps unsettling to some with their conservative world-views. Broderick writes here of a medium term future where an enclave of religious believers (who live in a primitive state and distrust technology) exist in a world that is largely secular. Science has indefinitely extended life spans and for the most part eliminated the barbarity of death, and mind uploading and biostasis has been used succesfully, along with many other things. Amanda of the modern world, who is just becoming an adult, Mathewmark of the religious encalve, and Abdel-Malek, a magistrate in the modern world, are the principle characters. How they interact with each other, considering their backgrounds, makes excellent reading, as plot and character development are first rate. In this novel Broderick shows us how a very advanced artificial intelligence could manipulate us, possibly for our own good, and he also includes a paradigm shift brought about by the advent of a 'singularity' of rapid technological advancement, and parts of a culture transformed almost totally, but with others clinging to the old ways. TRANSCENSION is full of future possibilities, with an abundance of rational imagination and humor, had me laughing many times, it is worth 10 stars. Check out THE SPIKE by this same writer if you are interested in non-fiction speculation of a technological 'singularity'.

The quite bearable lightness of the Singularity

Many readers with an interest in transhumanist ideas such as the technological Singularity will already be familiar with Mr. Broderick's non-fiction book, The Spike. That was a book of big ideas about our possible future aimed at a general audience willing to do some serious reading. Unfortunately, the audience for serious reading is much smaller than the audience for "fun" reading, which is to say for fiction reading, where a good story with interesting characters will hold the reader's attention. Those characters and their story can then carry a large load of big ideas, which the fiction audience might otherwise refuse to read. I am happy to report that Broderick's novel Transcension succeeds in carrying lightly some very heavy ideas, indeed.At its core, Transcension is a love story. Employing the classic model-boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl (and vice versa, of course)-Broderick tells his tale with humor, excitement and poignancy. Some really big ideas underlie the action: ubiquitous computing, cryonics, extreme life extension, microchip implants, Artificial Intelligence, and mind uploading, as well as the social idea of enclaves in which various levels of technology are either allowed or forbidden. But these ideas seem, for the most part, to be simply a background that many readers may ignore until very late in the book. Charmed by the story and having grown attached to the main characters, these readers will simply keeping turning pages to find out what happens next.Astute readers, however, will not ignore the subtle signs dropped along the way like breadcrumbs leading through a forest of distracting events to a most wonderful conclusion.Three-Body ProblemIgnoring those breadcrumbs for the moment, we turn to the three major characters in this novel: Amanda Kolby-McAlister, a bright, bored "pender," (that is, a neotonous pre-adult, eagerly anticipating her coming legal maturity at age 30 in the high-tech metropolis of Van Gogh); Mathewmark Fischer, a curious but stifled young man who hauls goods by mule-drawn cart in the anti-tech enclave of the Valley of the God of your Choice; and finally, Magistrate Mohammed Kasim Abdel-Malek, a computer scientist turned lawyer and then judge in Van Gogh, whose background contains more than a little mystery.Fine Structure ConstantThe structure of the book consists of individual chapters titled with 1) a number and 2) the name of the character speaking in the first person in that chapter. The chapters are grouped into several sections. Each section begins with an epigraph from such notables as Bill Joy (whose epigraph includes an internal quotation from Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber), Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Eugen Leitl.The three major characters do most of the talking. For the most part, we see the story unfold through their eyes. Late in the book, we begin to see some of the story through the eyes of a host of minor characters. But there is one big exception: the very first chapter is wri

Teenage Hijinks, Tragedy and the AI

This book started out with Broderick's usual zest and wit. His adolescent heroine, Amanda, is bored, and obsessed with train-surfing -except that by the 22nd century time of the novel, she wants to surf underground speed-of-sound maglevs! Broderick here writes with great empathy about his female teenage heroine, just as he did with his earlier "Zones." And for the first third of the book, it's a fascinating, high-spirited look at a future society bifurcated into technological and non-technological areas, all viewed thru the mile-a-minute brain of the hyperactive, hypersmart Amanda. Then, tragedy strikes. The prank goes awry, Amanda's best friend is killed, and her new friend Matthewmark has half his brain smeared away on the side of a Maglev. Nothing can bring her friend back, but 22nd century science, in a bit of a breakthrough, is able to replace the missing parts of Matthewmark's brain with technology. This part of the book is sombre - at times, when Amanda is on trial, I was almost in tears. Nice change of pace - from hilarity to mourning - and really meaning it. Amanda is from the high tech area of the future society. Mathewmark is from the non-technological, religious fanatic area of the society. The final third of the book, in other hands, would have only been about their resolving of thier differences. But all is not what it seems to be. Behind the scenes, the Aleph, an artificial intelligence, is working away. It seems humanity at some point, even the technological areas, decided that enough was enough with technology and practiced "The Great Relinquishment", where certain areas of research were proscribed because they were too dangerous. Saving what was left of Matthewmark's brain was on the very edge of what was legal - in fact, it strayed slightly over the line. The Aleph, meanwhile, keeps developing, while letting humans do their thing, and eventually, springs quite a surprise on an unsuspecting humanity. In an ending that I found delightfully ambiguous and open ended, the Aleph, and all of humanity, experience some kind of apotheosis - and how you view that transformation may well depend on your worldview. What I really dug was the (at least) two-leveled nature of the book - on one level, it's a really good book about its main characters, Amanda, Matthewmark, Abdel-Malek, etc. On another level, it's a quite serious speculation about artificial intelligence beginning to direct its own evolution, and how that may very well affect humanity. That Broderick has interwoven the two threads, which could easily have been two separate books, and done it so adroitly, is cause for three cheers.

exciting futuristic science fiction

In 2004, Lebanese born Judge Mohammed Abdel-Malek is murdered. Seven decades later, Abdel is brought back to life. The world he died in is not the same as the world he is reborn in as the artificial intelligence Aleph now controls mankind's destiny. Not long after his reanimation, Abdel serves as a judge again. Amanda Kolby-McAllister and her boyfriend are caught breaking into a mag-lev freighter terminal while hoping to hobo a ride on these super speed underground trains. Mohammed confines her to her home while taking away her communication privileges. However, the brilliant Amanda manages to hack through her confines. Mathewmark Fisher learns of Amanda through her hacking and decides to help Amanda sneak into a mag-lev compound, but he nearly dies in the attempt. Mohammed assigns Amanda to care for Mathewmark, whose brain now consists of computer circuitry. His new "brain" enables him to learn of Aleph's apoplectic plan to attain the next evolutionary level in relatively moments rather than millenniums. With no hope for the future, they must stop the all-powerful God-like Aleph. TRANSCENSION is an exciting futuristic science fiction novel that is based on machines intelligently growing in brain power without human support. The story line is engaging as Damien Broderick adds several layers of depth to the typical super AI tale. Though the numerous major subplots at times overwhelms the more casual follower, Mr. Broderick has created a powerful science fiction entry that fans will fully enjoy and want more AI tales from this free thinker.Harriet Klausner