Sep 9, 2008 05:00 PM
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Tue Feb 9
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With so much mass-media science fiction featuring anti-science heroes who battle to stop science from "going too far," it's great to read a really smart novel about a hero who's fighting to save scientific progress from being suppressed. David Louis Edelman's Multireal, the second volume in the trilogy that begins with Infoquake, is a welcome cure to the Fringe/Eleventh Hour science-bashing, even though it presents both the pro- and con- arguments about radical progress. But Multireal is also way more entertaining than the science bashers. Spoilers below.
I've seen Edelman's Infoquake/Multireal/GeoSynchron trilogy described as a business story set in the future, which is true but does it a bit of a disservice. Certainly, there's a lot of business wrangling, including cut-throat competition and product launches and all the rest, and at its best it reminds me of my favorite biz books, like Skin Tight: The Bizarre Story Of Guess vs. Jordache.
But the more the story progresses, especially in the new second volume, the less it's about licensing deals and the more it's about the nature of technological progress.
In the world of the "Jump 225 trilogy" (I've read the first two books, and still have no clue what "Jump 225" refers to), there's been a robot uprising that nearly killed humanity. Humans finally bounced back and lived through a dark ages of technological fallowness. (I feel as though I read another book recently that took place after an A.I. uprising, where A.I.s were banned but biotech was allowed. Am I on crack, or is this a theme?) So in Edelman's future world, there's no A.I., but a new science has developed instead. The science of bio/logics enables humans to install nano-powered subroutines into their own bodies, enhancing their own capabilities. So it's basically a post-human world: the Singularity without A.I.
Into this heavily (but sloppily) regulated world comes a huge new breakthrough, "Multireal." Its nature and mechanisms remain a bit obscure even after two volumes, but in a nutshell, it extends your personal potential into the realm of choosing between alternate versions of the same future event. So if you throw a ball, you can choose among every possible trajectory the ball could go on, and pick the one that pleases you most. If you're in a business negotiation, you can choose the negotiating tack that gets the best result. (And that's one of the things that confuses me about the technology, since it can apparently predict other people's actions with a surprising degree of confidence.)
Whoever possesses this technology can become virtually unstoppable, so the Defense and Wellness Council will go to any lengths to suppress it, including murder and dirty tricks. The champion of the new technology winds up being an entrepreneur named Natch, who has a shady past and a willingness to step on anyone who gets in his way, including his own friends. Despite being a crafty operator, and possessing unique access to the MultiReal program which allows him to see all the angles, Natch still winds up being manipulated by a lot of other players behind the scenes, and a lot of the second book involves Natch trying to untangle all of the many puppet strings jutting from his back. What was a story about business dealings in the first book becomes much more of a spy thriller about different factions in the government and secret organizations all fighting for control over MultiReal.
Where MultiReal really shines, however, is in the debates over the ethics of this reality-twisting software. There really is no right answer to the question of how society should deal with software that "liberates you from cause and effect," and the sequence where Natch's mentor debates the government's attorneys is easily my favorite part of both books. It's a complex issue, and Edelman draws it out enough that you can see how it applies to today's real-life challenges: should we try to suppress new technologies, should we regulate them heavily? Is it possible to suppress new knowledge after all? Does information really want to be free? It's a lot more nuanced than the "science iz scary OMG" idea that seems to be popular in media SF right now.
The other thing that makes the trilogy (so far) a really addictive read is the depth of Edelman's world-building and characterization. He has the OCD necessary to create a whole complex set of government institutions, religious organizations, and different types of MemeCorps and FiefCorps, among other things. It never quite feels like the needless world-buildy lecturing of some other massive SF epics I've read recently. Instead, it feels like a lived-in world, and the fact that the backdrop stretches out so expansively behind the characters makes them feel a lot more fleshed out and makes their obsessions seem a lot more believable.
After reading the first two volumes in the trilogy, I'm pretty eager to get to the third, partly because I'm invested in the characters and their world, and partly because dying to see exactly what kind of solution to the MultiReal dilemma could possibly make sense. (And also partly because there were a few things in the first two books that felt contrived or came out of nowhere, and I'm hoping they'll be explained in the third book.) Mostly, I'm in it for the long haul, because it feels like Edelman is writing about real people and real issues, in a thrilling, engaging way. And that's rarer than it should be.
Send an email to Charlie Jane Anders, the author of this post, at charliejane@io9.com.
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