Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful by Arwen Elys Dayton

read by Michael Crouch, Karissa Vacker, Brittany Pressley, Christopher Gebauer, Ari Fliakos, and Rebecca Lowman

This is a gorgeous, gorgeous book. (And I’m not talking about the inhumanly lovely face on the cover.) Westworld, HUM∀NS, Black Mirror—if you’re a fan of any of those, this universe will feel familiar to you. Then again, it will feel familiar to you if you live in the western world (and probably most other places) at all right now.

So then, what’s it about? Well, let’s try a little philosophical exercise. 

I don’t think that most people would argue too much with the proposition that if you lose, say, a foot, and it’s replaced with a prosthetic foot, you’re still you, and still human. Still true if you lose both feet, or both feet and both legs. And the recipient of a donor heart or liver is obviously still human and still themselves. Got a tattoo? Still you. Skin completely covered in tattoos, 27 piercings, and no appendix or tonsils? Possibly an unusual specimen, but definitely still human.

All right, but where does the line begin to blur? 

Let’s say a pair of twins were both born with numerous potentially fatal birth defects, and at a certain point in their lives, when they’re in their teens, one of them begins to suffer from cascading organ failure. There’s no question that this twin is going to die; only massively invasive medical technology is keeping her body even minimally functioning. Meanwhile, her twin continues to suffer from numerous major disabilities and it’s medically certain that he won’t live past his twenties. At best.

Unless. Unless his twin’s organs are harvested—the ones that are still functioning—and used to replace or repair his. This has to be done while they’re still in some kind of condition to do him some good, of course. And it has to be done using new technology that allows her organs to be grafted to his—stem cells, 3D-printed artificial tissue, CRISPR gene editing, what have you. And this is truly major surgery. A really significant percentage of this teenager’s body, going forward, will have once been part of his twin.

So… is he still himself? Unless his brain were being replaced, most people would still say yes. Likewise to his still being human… though some people might call him a monster. But they would probably mean that metaphorically. Mostly.

All right, then. What if, a couple of decades later, a teenager is in a terrible car accident, and half her body is completely destroyed, and she doesn’t have a dying twin to provide her with donor parts… but she has really top-notch health insurance and access to the world’s best medical technology. Which can replace literally everything that’s been damaged or destroyed with synthetic and/or mechanical parts. Is she still human? Is she a cyborg? What does that even mean? And how will that affect her social life when she goes back to high school?

It goes on from there. What happens when we start deliberately modifying ourselves with parts of other people, or even animals? What is it that makes us human, what makes us other, and where does morality lie in all of this? Where does it end? Centuries, millennia from now, where will we be? Will we even be "we" anymore?

If any of this is even a little interesting to you, you should read this book. It’s written with such clarity and curiosity and understanding of what makes people tick that you will find yourself empathizing with points of view that are deeply inimical to yours.

The Martian by Andy Weir: #tbt review

(Finished January 30, 2015—before the movie came out!)

I was worried that this book would be too intense—too Apollo 13—and indeed there is a strong element of that, of course, and of course those events are referenced here. Don't get me wrong: this book is definitely intense. But it's not *gratuiutously* intense. I didn't feel I was being played as I read it. And the protagonist's optimism and sense of humor kept things light enough that I never felt weighed down by the intensity. Not more weighed down than I could stand, anyhow.

For anyone who isn't aware of the plot yet, our protagonist and his colleagues are all early explorers on Mars. After a horrific accident, he is left for dead—only he isn't dead; he's the only human being on an entire planet that's extremely hostile to life. You'd be tempted to think that he may as well be dead, but you'd be wrong; he's too determined to live, no matter what the odds are.

What follows is several harrowing months of an extremely intelligent and resourceful man doing everything it takes to survive on an alien world—literally everything, right down to creating a biome in which food can grow, because of course the soil is completely sterile—includeing, not least, the herculean task of keeping despair at bay. Meanwhile, his fellow astronauts do everything they can to figure out how to rescue him.

This would be a fantastic book, not only for lovers of old-school hard SF, but also for anybody who likes a good, bare-knuckled but very realistic adventure. This is science fiction purely because it hasn't happened yet, not because it couldn't happen or takes place in some fantastical far future. This could take place... well, with NASA's current funding, not next year, but certainly in the next decade.

Verdict: I loved this and I highly recommend it to nearly anybody.