A Considerable Speck

WWW: Wake is the first book in a new trilogy by Canadian SF author, Robert Sawyer. He wrote such books as Calculating God, Flashforward and Hominids. WWW:Wake, like most of Sawyer’s books, is a thought-provoking and entertaining read.

Before going on here is a brief summary of the book:

Fifteen year old Caitlin has been blind from birth thanks to  a very rare medical condition that affects the link between her eyes and the part of her brain that interprets visual signals. Her condition has been untreatable until now.  A Japanese doctor contacts her with a proposal for an experimental treatment which involves an implant that will restore the connection between her brain and eyes electronically and hopefully give her the gift of sight . It seems like the procedure is a failure but before too long  Caitlin notices some very  interesting side effects. She is able to visualize the World Wide Web – each and every link and connection within the web.

In the mean time some seemingly unrelated events take place around the world. In China an outbreak of the bird flu is handled by the Chinese government by shutting the country off from the outside word completely and taking some very rigorous containment measures. In a research facility in southern California a Bonobo/Chimpanzee hybrid, Hobo, which is taught to communicate with it’s caretakers  using American Sign Language, produces representational art.

All of these events are witnessed at some level, by a newborn, growing intelligence/consciousness on the world wide web and Caitlin becomes its eyes and ears and its teacher.

The central theme of the novel is the development of self-awareness and consciousness and more specifically the World Wide Web developing and gaining self-awareness and consciousness. Since it is the first in a series, it does seem a little disjointed in places. The narrative contains a series of subplots which aren’t necessarily woven together at this early stage of the story. At times, Sawyer does get a little bogged down in detail  he goes into some of the theory behind internet protocols and mathematics and the like.  But that is classic Sawyer and it does help with understanding the plot a little better. As usual, Sawyer begins to raise some interesting questions about whether consciousness is a cultural construct (a la the theories of Julian Jaynes).

Overall, WWW:Wake is well worth the read and I am looking forward to the rest of the series.

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I’ve just finished reading Robert Sawyer’s Mindscan.

Mindscan is one of those rare novels which are both brilliant and innovative. Brilliant in that it challenges us to question both the world around us as well as, more importantly, ourselves. Good science fiction is more than an exploration of technology, alien civilizations and the future. At its center, all good science fiction explores the nature of humanity. Robert Sawyer excels in challenging us to think about what it means to be human. As one article I read about Sawyer said,

…Sawyer is one of a handful of Science Fiction authors working in the field today who is able to blend together a myriad of philosophical, moral, and even legal concepts, with futuristic extrapolations based on real scientific principles. In essence Sawyer’s writing does what the very best Hard Science Fiction should do: it uses complex technological concepts to show us what it means to be human.

The story is about Jake Sullivan, an extremely wealthy individual, who is afflicted with a fatal neurological disease known as Katerinsky’s syndrome, Jake is in his early 40s but could drop dead at any moment.
continue reading…

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