Book Review: Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer - Page 2

What would it be like to be yourself, but in a different, non-biological body? One of the more interesting elements of this can be seen in the new Jake's experience of moods. Enraged by a bad day in an ongoing court battle, Jake discovers that none of his old destressors would work:

Everything that affects our feelings, at least in our biological instantiation, is a chemical stimulant: dopamine, acetycholine, serotonin, testosterone. But if you become an electrical machine instead of a chemical one, how do you mimic the effects of those substances? We were the first generation of transferred consciousnesses; there were still bugs to be worked out.

It's hard, in that moment, to imagine that the person is still the same if his own coping mechanisms are no longer valid. And how frustrating an experience that would be!

Sex, too, can be frustrating. It is inevitable that the "fully functional" question is asked, and answered, as Jake and a fellow mindscan pursue a relationship. The questions here are unstated: How would sex work between machine/human hybrids? What would be the purpose? How would the absence of literal chemistry affect sex drive? Sawyer includes these scenes in order to assert the humanity of the scanned characters, but I have to admit that it doesn't quite work for me, particularly the zero-g scene, which fades out on the line "Let's see if we can execute a docking maneuver..." (A real pot/kettle criticism from a woman who just used a Data reference, I know.)

Plus, it's a classic Sawyer line. Referential towards pop and geek culture, with a kind of folksy, punny humour. The book, in fact, is full of references to current pop culture. Harry Potter, Paris Hilton, Will Smith and the Frantics (a comedy troupe that included SF icon Rick "Commander" Green) are among those mentioned, and he contextualizes them in a sneaky way that ensures the references won't get dated: they are already dated in the book, and are designed to highlight generation gaps.

Sawyer's future world is — and again, this is typical for his work — a reflection of the present. It's now, but better. Sawyer's writing always leaves me to believe that he's an optimist; his visions of the future often seem slightly utopian. It's as though he writes about the future he wants us to have, whether it's writing about Toronto's aquarium or acceptance of sexual diversity. There's dope in the corner stores, a Prime Minister with a Chinese last name, a bill for polygamy on the table, and a ban on the vivisection of great apes. Meanwhile, south of the 49th, things are religiously right. By using these vivid, real settings, Sawyer provides access points into the book, but runs the risk of having the moment broken should a speculation be proven wrong (as happens with a mention of Christopher Reeve's recovery, when in fact Reeve succumbed pneumonia, a complication of his injury, while the book was at press).

Article Author: Bonnie

Bonnie writes about books every Thursday at Fourth-Rate Reader, about everything else at Signifying Nothing, and sometimes she resorts to pictures. She lives in Toronto.

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