Genesis

by Poul Anderson

Book Overview

Astronaut Christian Brannock has lived to see artificial intelligence develop to a point where a human personality can be uploaded into a computer, achieving a sort of hybrid immortality. A billion... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812580281
• ISBN13: 9780812580280
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

A True Tragedy of the Future

In the far future, humans only inhabit the stars as personality simulations, subroutines in vast, powerful artificial intelligencies that form a "galactic brain". One such uploaded mind is Christian Brannock. As an engineer, he helped build the first great works in space and was one of the first to work in intimate symbiosis with the AIs who, rather than man, colonized the stars. On Earth, the reigning intelligence is Gaia, a computer that rules human affairs and also posseses, in its libraries, presevered human minds it uses to ruin elaborate simulations of real and alternate histories.Millions of years pass in this novel's almost Stapledonian sweep, and the galactic brain becomes concerned about the seeming obsession of Gaia with Earth history, her secretiveness, and her unresponsiveness to their proposal on whether the now geologically ancient Earth should be saved from a bloated sun, a test run for greater galactic engineering to come. A version of the Brannock mind is copied and sent on his way to Earth.There he, and a slightly different copy, attempt to figure out what Gaia's up to. One version, inhabiting a robot's body, explores the dying Earth. The other engages in talk and travel with Lucinda Ashcroft, a personality inhabiting Gaia.This novel puts together, in a surprisingly successful way, just about all the strains of Anderson's previous works from the epic sweep of TAU ZERO to his heroic fantasy to the uploaded minds of some of his most recent science fiction to alternate histories and time travel. The novel's sense of true tragedy is not new to Anderson, but, as the title hints, there is an unexpected theological flavor that is rare, but not unknown, in his work. This novel should not only satisfy any fan of Anderson's but also serve as a good introduction to the rest of his work.

A billion year future history

Poul Anderson, one of our great science fiction writers, takes us on a journey of a billion years with this yarn. It begins with astronaut Christian Brannock in the near term future and ends about a billion years later, with humanity scattered across the galaxy and for the most part uploaded into the computers that span the galaxy and control everything. A few humans have been re-instated on earth for an experiment run by a perhaps slightly deranged computer called Gaia. This novel did keep my interest, although it may be too far 'off the wall' for some tastes.

A thought provoking dystopia.

This book follows the future human interaction with artificial intelligence. The two main characters, Christian Brannock and Laurinda Ashcroft, go as far as to have their personalities "up-loaded" into this expanding intelligent computer network. As the artificial intelligence grows and spreads, humanity finds it convenient to leave more and more control in the hands of the computers. Finally, once the _computers_ have conquered the stars, Earth is remembered. However, the intelligence in charge of the Sol system has grown more and more evasive and secretive, so Christian Brannock is called upon to investigate and find out what secret the computer of Earth is hiding.This is a story of the near and far future. It is a dystopia, where humanity, in search of comfort and ease, surrenders its future to technology. But, with the disappearance of striving and overcoming, the flame of humanity is snuffed out. Do the computers care about the love of one couple? No. But do the computers care about the striving and advancement of life? Perhaps...This book will challenge you to think about the future, and our direction. I found this book highly thought provoking, and more than a little disturbing. Well-written, and reasonably short, you should consider reading it.

CREATURES OF CHAOS IN VIRTUAL REALITY

I think Author pushed his own brain to the limit to create these human-like avatars of quantum chaotic celestial gods. Author says most of life processes proceed on a quantum level beyond human comprehension.. The story reminds me of Herman Hesse's GLASS BEAD GAME with the change that Galactic Brain Nodes are the players and poor human consciousness gets to be the glass beads. Poul Anderson realizes this when he says some games are beyond human words and some works beyond music. To make the incomprehensible less so the Author resorts to myth and metaphor. This doesn't work for me but Author had no other option given the outer space he was shooting for. Few writers attempt or succeed so well in finding patterns of comprehension in the swirling chaos of modern day linguistic strange attractors.The bright human characters in this story have become too dissipated for the normal reader to relate to. The characters are all humming "is that all there is?" Who can sit shadow watching, star gazing and waiting to be uploaded or assimilated into a galactic brain? It seems a stretch that God Gaia, God Wayfarer or Alpha would get teary eyed about a human love couple but then viewers still do choke up at these Hollywood endings. Still the conflicts are excellent and the mythical metaphors exceptional. I especially appreciated that an uploaded human mind is likened to a gene in the chromosome of a galactic god. If you really enjoy far out Sci-fi, like "modulated neutrino beams" and Star Trek holodeck drama played out on the mental screens of galactic gods, don't miss GENESIS.

Interesting Ideas In A Loosely Formed Story

Although I enjoyed the book, I did get the strong impression that the plot was very much secondary to the ideas that Poul Anderson is interested in: human nature and evolution, artificial intelligence and its evolution, free will, destiny, etc. The fate of carbon-based intelligence vs. silicon-based intelligence is a theme in many books, fiction and nonfiction, and Mr. Anderson's contribution is very readable. You might try Hans Moravec's nonfiction speculations, or Dan Simmons' Endymion Series, or Robert Jastrow's now classic "The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe" to name a few.