Evolutions Darling (Tr)

by Scott Westerfeld

Book Overview

Does a clone have a soul? Darling, an astronavigational control unit and personal companion, achieves sentience and wants to know. Now, 200 years and an artificial body later, he is off in search of a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568581491
• ISBN13: 9781568581491
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Erratic, erotic, inventive and intriguing

Evolution's Darling is one of the most interesting science fiction novels I've read in the past year.Evolution's Darling is a 'bootstrap', an AI who has achieved sentience despite frequent downgrades by its last owner. Under the laws of the Expansion, any machine that reaches a Turing Quotient of 1.0 legally becomes a person, rather than legal property - and needing to replace the shipboard computer would wipe out a year's profits for Darling's owner, Isaah. Darling is also the tutor and companion of Isaah's fifteen-year-old daughter, Rathere, and after Isaah disconnects Darling's sensors, Rathere re-connects them to save her friend, who then becomes her lover. He buys himself a humanoid body, then he and Rathere leave Earth together.Two centuries later, Darling has become one of the Expansion's most astute dealers in artworks, collecting originals and ideas and sex-related body modifications. When a new sculpture allegedly done by fellow bootstrap Vaddum comes onto the market, years after Vaddum's disappearance, Darling and many other dealers rush to see it. While some are prepared to murder their rivals to own the piece, Darling is more interested in its origin. Is Vaddum dead? Can robots actually die? Can intelligent software be copied, and if so, is the copy a forgery or the real thing?Evolution's Darling contains some wonderful inventions: as well as the Turing Quotient as a solution to the ethical questions of owning intelligent machines, Westerfield gives us a wide range of very individualistic robots, from the fiercely competitive hyper-intelligent starships writing anonymous academic papers on passenger service when they're not hurling insults at each other ("Number-cruncher!" "Intuitionist!"), to Vaddum, the robotic laborer turned sculptor, to the sub-Turing Wardens, cunning but rigid justice machines. I also loved the lithomorphs, alien statues on a thousand-century-long migration towards their breeding grounds. Along with this sparkling inventiveness comes a beautiful prose style: the only flaw, and that a minor one, is the erratic pacing, with two-hundred-year jump cuts and a fistful of flashbacks disguising a very simple and straightforward plot.Aldiss and Wingrove's Trillion Year Spree defined science fiction (in part) as "the search for a definition of mankind and his status quo in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge". By this definition, Evolution's Darling is uncommonly pure science fiction, because of the questions it raises about the nature of humanity. When machines can score higher than biological humans on Turing tests, which is really human? Are two beings with identical Turing ratings actually the same person, and is the art they produce equally authentic? Is there a difference between justice and aesthetic considerations? What is alive? What is dead? What is original? What is a copy? Will any of these concepts still be relevant in a few centuries? Westerfield

A sexy SF thriller with integrity. Highly recommended.

This is a very impressive book. It combines exceptional writing, a brisk tale of a galaxy-spanning civilization, interesting thoughts on the nature of sentience, and rough sex. With a droid named Darling.In short, a "sexy SF thriller with integrity" (Gary K. Wolfe, Locus 5-00) He liked it, I liked it, and I bet you will too.Westerfeld mentions influences from Delaney, but his closest comparable (IMO) is Iain Banks -- in particular for madcap, manipulative, sentient starships with funny names-- and I'd have to say I enjoyed Darling more than Banks' Feersum, or even Excession. It's clear that Westerfeld has read both the classics and the competition, but his voice is distinctive and remarkably assured. He writes in a "literary" style, but don't let that put you off -- this is rich, buttery prose of the very best quality. Really, he's as good as Banks, and more cheerful, too. Westerfeld is now high on my "new writers to watch" list. And I'll have to check out his two previous books.Happy reading!Cheers -- Pete Tillman

Taking the human out of humane

Evolution's Darling is Scott Westerfeld's third scifi novel. It's written with such poise and mastery that the far future in which it inhabits is clear and believable. If we don't quite understand this future, it's because it is already beyond our ken. The clock is ticking......The prologue provides us with the book's mythology. Told like "The Tempest" - a father-daughter-lover triangle within a setting of sheer otherworldly beauty - the prologue catapults the narrative into a grandly conceived and richly imagined place and time. The eponymous Darling is perfectly realized, an artificial being who is haunted and profoundly affected by love and loss. His development from multi-purpose AI to a sentient being marks the emergence of a truly new generation. The humans in Evolution's Darling are clearly a species at the beginning of irrelevance. Their lives are tawdry, desirous of excesses of greed, lust and power. In comparison, the AIs go about their lot with, at the very least, a knowing, witty irony, if not, more often, a deep, all-encompassing appreciation. A love for life. With respect.Although Westerfeld imagines a world where humans have become stuck in an evolutionary cul-de-sac like the duckbilled platypus, it's world that we'd aspire to. A world where art is not merely another commodity but where it literally transforms souls. A world where a family (built from constructs) can live happily ever after. A world where we'd like to be. We just couldn't muster it. A truly amazing, inspiring book, full of noise and passion, driven by a quiet inevitability that's quite heartbreakingly beautiful to experience.

The nature of an original

There are only a few voices in sci-fi who continuously stun everyone. At least me. Scott Westerfeld is one of those very few who keeps amazing, now with his third novel. Again he draws out a unique universe, pictures simple, yet great characters and unfolds a compelling, yet mystifyingly simple narrative. Imagine a world in which evolution is measured by the progress of being 'sentient', no longer by being 'human'. Imagine a world in which artificial intelligence is no longer artificial at all and constructed intelligences can learn, and grow, and evolve and become recognised for the great minds that they are. Imagine one such mind, lost for love, living off an economy inflating the prize of originals, running into a lovely asassin who does not have all that much human in her any more. If that appeals to you, dive into this world and let Scott's voice point out to you the power of the nature of an original.