Mind over Ship

Marusek, David. Mind over Ship. New York: Tor, 2009.

Reviewed by, among others, Pawel Frelik, SFRA Review #288 (Spring 2009): pp. 11-12,[1] who notes that in the world of Mind

Most inter-human relations are conducted through holopresence or proxies. Artificial intelligences, here called mentars, are ubiquitous and some may even pass the test of autonomy, which grants them personhood. While singularity has not happened yet in the world of Mind over Ship, there are some mentars that conspire to merge with the human and surreptitiously enter the public sphere. The international space program designed to seed the galaxy with human presence is also under way. [* * *]

[Frelik finds] the most psychologically interesting and involved sub-plot of the novel is [...] a clone’s, coming to terms with his subjectivity and reconciliation with what it means to be determined by one’s own genes but also probing of where such determination ends. While this may sound like the futuristic rehashing of the naturalist dilemma from a century ago, Fred’s reactions are not always predictable. The fact that they are framed in the world in which human agency is severely exposed to nanotechnological manipulation, including zombie-like susceptibility to suggestions by operators of such viral intrusions, also makes them less unnatural and more “actual.” (Frelik p. 11)

The Publisher's Weekly reviewer notes that we see here a world where "clones and artificial intelligences begin to redefine humanity and sentience,"[2] and the Kirkus Reviews" reviewer tells us that an assassinated major player in the politics and economy of this future society as "downloaded her mind into a pond full of brainy fish and hence is in some sense alive."[3]

So see for motifs of AI (A.I.), nanotech and control, and seeding the universe as in A. C. Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth, C. Simak's "Target Generation," V. Vinge, "Long Shot," and J. Williamson's Manseed.

RDE, finishing, 21Jan21