Clones in Science Fiction

If you’re a writer and you haven’t seen this link yet, you should. It takes a look at the current trend for author dollars, showing with hard data that traditional publisher ebook sales are declining while self-publishing and small publishers are increasing. Even more interesting is where the data comes from and how sometimes the media gets it wrong.

If you like colorful graphs, lots of numbers, and care about the money flow for authors, check it out.

http://authorearnings.com/report/september-2015-author-earnings-report/

Another link I want to mention is to an article on nano advances at the molecular level. This is current hard science, that I consider back up data, which says nanobots in the bloodstream that can target viruses or cancers is a total possibility for the future.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/dna-based-nanodevices-for-molecular-medicine-an-overview

And since I’m currently writing about this as a medical approach, I wanted to mention it. Sometimes while I’m writing, real life jumps out and highlights what I’m writing. It happened with the meteor striking Russia practically to the day I wrote the beginning of Touching Crystal.

A bit scary.

No one has created a time gate, but as I pointed out in a previous blog, I have had dinner next to a physicist who is working on time reversal at the sub atomic level.

And…recently, Kurzweil’s newsletter came out with an article on creating wormholes. I think I’ll suggest a wormhole that lets my lost fleet jump several light years across the universe. However, I’m not the only science fiction writer to do this. It’s been used often enough in fiction that it seems it should be a forgone conclusion by now.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/first-known-magnetic-wormhole-created?

I’m also writing about clones. Or will be again. The main character in my very first book, Caught in Time, Rowyna, is a clone. Did you notice the name Rowyna is a rearrangement of Arwoyn? Then, my novel Someone’s Clone also tells the story from a clone’s perspective.

I found there aren’t many books that use this viewpoint. The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe comes to mind as a favorite, and recently on a must read list was Pamela Sergeant’s Cloned Lives. I attempted to read two others books on clones, but because of various flaws in the books, I abandoned them.

I am reviewing Sargent’s book because it follows the lives of the main character’s five clones in an effort to show how environment affects personality and how different aspects of Paul Swenson’s personality emerge differently in each clone. Sargent also addresses the prejudice that society might harbor towards such an act, asking the question of how far should government let science progress when it could threaten society.

While all this was interesting, the part I enjoyed most was Sargent’s portrayal of the world of 2000 to 2037 because I could compare reality with her fiction. Published in 1976, Sargent sees the world of 2000 with automatic highways. The book drags, however as she goes into too much detail about why things are the way they are, almost delighting in her predictions.

She has high speed trains, which the government subsidizes, competing with airlines While airplane travel supposedly is more economical and efficient, Paul and his traveling companion wait an hour due to a mechanical breakdown in the airline’s luggage conveyor. Then the train from the airport is halted because of a riot by a group who claims the end of the world is near and clogs the track.

Such are her pointed comments on the far future, now our present.

In Cloned Lives, a moratorium on genetic research, legislated in 1980, has recently expired. Paul’s best friend, Hidey Takamura, is a genetic scientist who moves swiftly to make his mark at the university where both men work by convincing Paul he should be cloned. When a nosy reporter discovers the clones, all hell breaks loose and Paul and the new clones are hounded by the media. Government quickly slaps on another moratorium, and Paul hires a couple to raise the five kids.

The book leaps to 2016 and Paul is offered a research position on the moon where scientists have established a presence. Also mentioned are microfiche readers taking over physical books. That part she was close to the mark; the colonization of the moon, not at all.

The clones are sixteen years old now and painfully teenage. Unexpectedly, Paul is involved in a crash on the moon and the clones are informed that he has died. For the next five sections of the book, Sargent takes a point of view of each clone, analyzing similarities and differences of personality as their lives progress. Here is where the book breaks down into too much internal dialogue of teenage and young adult angst. Each clone has difficulty making social connections, and after a while, I got tired of the whining.

As the book winds up to a surprising ending, the clones eventually get married, find new relationships, and embark on their separate tortured lives.

I struggled to finish, but Pamela Sargent is a well-respected author and the subject matter was interesting. The storyline is strong, but Sargent bogs down in too much internal emotion and characters who should have been so much more than they were portrayed.

Cutting edge science in science fiction

I have now reached a timeline in my Alysian series where I have to peer into the future for what tech might be current in my stories.

This is fun.

At best, it’s a guess…but an informed guess, as I investigate a lot of the interesting science research going on currently.

Check out Ray Kurzweil’s newsletter for what scientists and researcher are now working on. http://www.kurzweilai.net

In my current novel, Touching Crystal, out in November, (fingers crossed),  I use micro robotics to enable a rescue of two kidnap victims that are being held on one of Alysia’s moons.

This was a fun scene to write. So, imagine my delight when last week the newsletter came out with an article on current research in this field.

http://bit.ly/17K5epK  Check it out.

There’s also been a lot of talk about discovering Earth-like planets with the recent Kepler Mission that wants to find “Goldilock” planets habitable for humans.

This was a theme in the most recent novel by Ben Bova called Farside.  I had not read much Ben Bova, and especially not recently, so this struck my fancy.

Ben Bova is a six time Hugo award winner, former editor of analog, editorial director of Omni and past president of Science Fiction Writers of America.

So, worth a mention.

How could I lose?

Farside is located on the side of the moon that never faces Earth and therefore is an ideal location for building an astronomical observatory. Telescopes on Earth have detected an Earth sized planet circling a star that is less than ten light years away…but is it habitable? Is there an atmosphere? Can it support life?

But building on Farside is a dangerous undertaking. An airless surface, constant bombardment by radiation, 270 degree temperatures, incoming micrometers…

And those are the easy challenges…

Competing jealousy, a chief researcher who is hell bent on winning a Nobel prize, tangled politics, love and murder all up the ante.

Someone lets loose dangerous nanomachines that used in the body can make one immortal and protect against radiation and disease, but if configured another way they eat through certain metal.

And on the moon that can be extremely dangerous.

Say murder.

I found this particular story one that I really wanted to enjoy. It had all the elements in it, but I had a hard time believing some of the characters or getting involved. I did find myself rooting for the plodding Grant Simpson, the construction engineer who does most of the work, but is considered just another “grunt” by those he serves.

I found it hard to believe the chief of research and leader of the project could be so obsessed with winning a Nobel prize that he was willing to jeopardize his project.

And I found the writer and editor in me trying to analyze the writing. Bova writes smoothly, describes adequately, but somehow the characters felt like they were being moved around on a game board that had an obvious ending.

Still, I do want to introduce Ben Bova because he is so prolific and has won numerous awards for his writing.

Two other novels that got higher reviews were The Exiles Trilogy and Star Conquerors.

I might give him another chance and read one of these…and report back. Anyone else out there have an opinion here?

Science Fiction Becomes Reality

Science that seems like science fiction

Recently, scientists have succeeded in implanting false memories…

Into mice.

Wow!  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jul/25/false-memory-implanted-mouse-brain

But how far away are we from doing this to humans?

I swear this phenomena has already happened between my mother and me. We both can be at the same moment in time and both carry away totally different memories of what happened or what was said.

“You remember, you said…”

“I never said that!”

“Oh yes, you said…”

Insert discussion here that is totally different from how you remembered it.

Human memory at best is faulty and subject to personal viewpoint interpretation.

But deliberately implanting totally false memories?

That’s scary.

The Bourne Identity movies may not be too far off in the future. And the opportunity for implanting false memories to use as a coverup to hide government programs is frightening.

Or what about implanting memories that could be used in the entertainment industry a la Total Recall. The lines of reality and fantasy might become blurred as we experience totally false memories that we can purchase from, ah say, Amazon Online.

Hmmm…I have a few in mind already.

Now there’s a science fiction story for you.

Still with a horde of baby boomers getting older and older, the hovering threat of memory loss, Alzheimer’s and Dementia has pushed exploration of how memory functions to the forefront of science. We are trying to find out what memory is, and how we can protect our ability to remember.

A Dr. Blaylock is doing a lot of research on memory loss and is discovering surprising facts about the role diet plays in accelerating or preventing it. According to his research, absorbing certain metals plays a role in memory loss. Cast iron skillets, lead, aluminum cookware, eating certain fish and getting flu shots all contribute to a build up of various metals in the body, and may contribute to memory malfunction. Other villains are MSG, soy, and aspartame often found in prepared foods.

Health science is focusing on how we can prevent disease rather than having to find cures, or rely on medications so heavily.

Thank you, Dr. Oz. No wonder your program is popular.

Extending memory through computers and cloud storage for all the events and people we want to remember is exploding. We’re no longer keeping photos on dusty bookshelves, but are storing our pictures in the computer or in the cloud.

More than memory loss, what about a total loss of identity?

This week I read The Disappeared by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The story is not only about people who erase their memory, but who completely erase their identity and assume new ones. They need to disappear for one reason or another.

This is the first book in her popular Retrieval Series and touches on how the law has to provide a framework for various alien cultures to get along together. Unfortunately, these laws are not always just or fair to humans.

The story’s main character is recently promoted cop Miles Flint who is glad to leave the spaceport beat and move into covering the Dome. However, because of his spaceport experience, he has the bad luck to be called in for a crime on a space cruiser containing ritually disemboweled bodies that reflect a Disty vengeance killing. Next a ship of two human children abducted by Wygnin leaving moon orbit for their home planet is detained. Finally, a civilian calling herself Greta Palmer sends out a MayDay from a space yacht, reporting that she is being hunted by the Rev. To make things interesting, he is paired with an abrasive female detective whose record at headquarters describes someone with behavior problems.

Miles Flint has his hands full figuring out what is going on, and things are only going to get worse when he realizes that the largest service, Disappearance Inc., that helps humans hide and find new identities to escape alien forms of justice has just sold out its extensive list of clients.

Cases years old are resurfacing and humans are being sold, abducted or killed in the process.

I found this a fascinating exploration of alien jurisprudence wrapped in an absorbing, emotional story of three varying tales of desperate human groups, trying to deal with the horror their lives have become because they unintentionally broke or violated an alien law.

If you like detective stories with a science fiction framework, you’ll enjoy The Disappeared. And you may enjoy the others in her series too.

Next week I’ll talk about the fascinating subject of…ah….hmm…, er…how about I get back to you on that later?

Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction

Artificial intelligence…dangerous enemy or friendly helper?

Science fiction has been debating this question for years. As early as 1968, Robert Heinlein wrote The Moon is a Harsh Mistress where a High Optical, Logical Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, or Holmes IV, is installed on Luna base to compute ballistics for pilotless freighters and control their catapult. This used only 10% of the computer’s capacity, so Luna Authority keep adding on  hardware and decision boxes and additional duties until by year three, it controlled all the phone systems, other computers, air, water, sewage, temperature systems for all of Luna. It had voder-vocoder circuits that supplemented all read-outs, print-outs and decision making boxes.

Then it woke up.

Became self aware and took an interest in good jokes and pranks.

One which was issuing a paycheck to a janitor in Authority’s office in Luna City for $10,000,000,000,000,185.15. (the last five digits being the correct amount) So Luna Authority privately contracts a Manuel Garcia O’Kelly to figure out what went wrong and he discovers that the computer has become self aware. Rather than tell anyone, he starts to converse with the computer and names it Mike, after a Mycroft Holmes character.

The story is about the friendship between an incredibly powerful, but lonely computer and Manuel O’Kelly, or Man as everyone calls him

And how they engineered a rebellion on the Moon to gain freedom over Earth’s totalitarian control.

There is some magnificent politics in the story. To date, Luna has been a dumping ground for criminals, reminiscent of Australia. They are under the boot of Earth Authority like all good colonies, and are tired of the treatment. Problem is that they cannot transition back to Earth because of the long term effect of Luna’s light gravity and Earth’s heavier gravity. After living on Luna, their bodies cannot handle Earth’s heavier gravity and consequently once stranded on the moon, they cannot return to Earth.

Unfortunately, it’s a hard story to get into because of the dialect. Manuel tells the story in first person narration with a heavy Russian accent that throws the reader out of the story time and again. Maybe it’s Heinlein’s joke to have a Russian engineer the rebellion. Remember back then (1968) Russia and the U.S. were racing to be the first on the moon. Also, “Mike” (the computer) constantly refers to Manuel as Man.

You think you’re on an L.A. beach.

Hey, Man. What’re you doing, Man.

It took me a while to warm up to this classic story of computer and man (Man), but eventually after swimming through all the dialect and political theory, I ended up liking it.

Heinlein has a radical life philosophy, so be ready to read with an open mind and enjoy the intricacies of orchestrating a Lunar rebellion, complete with a Russian accented computer contractor that shouts slogans such as, “Give me Liberty or give me death.”

The other book that I read recently from the 2013 list is Dragon Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. It made an interesting contrast to Heinlein’s story. Both are about self aware, super powerful  computers that interact and become “friends” with a particular human.

For those of you who have criticized the Liaden stories as “romance science fiction,” this isn’t the case here. The protagonist is Theo Waitley who is now grown up and captaining her first starship. This ship is from “old tech’ that is forbidden and dangerous. The ship’s original design was to service a now dead trader. The self aware computer that runs the ship has been out in the deep waiting for its captain for centuries. It wants a reason to exist. The captaincy key makes it way to Theo’s hand and she takes on a trading route with the ship for the Korval clan that is fraught with danger.  She also takes on an ex-lover who is being eaten alive by a nano-virus and is secured in the ship’s medical unit fighting for his life.

The computer not only acts very human, but creates a second persona when Theo needs more crew. This second self aware entity has feelings, a job description and to all intents and purposes the rest of the universe thinks it’s another human on the ship.

This is fifth in the series and I recommend you read the earlier ones. I love the Liaden stories and always look forward to the newest one. I love the strong family ties in their story, the emotional hook and the interesting tech. This one has all three…

So enjoy.

Veronica Sicoe posited the question on her blog  What if the Internet became self aware?

This was interesting because it appears that the fear of an aware internet lies in the elusiveness of its existence. A supercomputer that has boundaries can be overcome.

“I can’t do that, Dave.”

And next you know Hal is singing “Daisy, Daisy.”

“War Games” was an interesting movie that had an aware computer using real missiles for his “game.” That was frightening, but checkers proved the solution.

But an aware internet has no central core, no rack to unload, no central hub to disengage, no trick game to occupy it and consequently, is unassailable. There may be no solution if a self aware internet goes rogue.

And who wouldn’t with the crap that humans often put on it?

You can start with the porn.

Do you think that we will, sometime in the future, have an aware supercomputer, and will it be friend or foe?