Genetopia
Keith Brooke
Pyr (303 p)
$25. ISBN: 1591023335
(October 2005)
Genetopia's "big question" is: "What does it mean to be human?" And it presents
two morals: true humanity lies with change rather than stagnation; members of
the human race who consider themselves superior and base a society on the
ingrained devotion of those they consider "less-than-human" will eventually fall
at the hands of their slaves. Genetopia's far-future world is the product of no
longer understood nano- and biotechnology gone wild. Evolutionary change is
rapid, prevalent, and feared as a force that corrupts "true" humanity. "True"
humans live in a brutal agriculture-based society where semi-human "mutts," are
both slaves and work-animals. Even the offspring of humans are not accepted as
"True" until they have reached age three free of taints that would prove them to
be "Lost". If tainted, they are exposed and left to die. Other forms of
"corruption" emerge later in life or are contracted as illnesses. These Lost are
cast out to fend for themselves or sold into the mutt trade. There is no
mechanical transportation or communication, yet the Trues use high-level genetic
engineering via vats of something-or-other. Mutts are dunked into the vats and
the Trues believe shamanistic mumbo-jumbo accounts for the success of the
resulting change. Failure is as common as success. Protagonist Flint, a
truebred, fears his missing sister, Amber, has been sold into the mutt trade and
goes off to find her. As Flint ranges further from this home turf in search of
his sister, he pieces together clues to his family's history, himself, and his
world. An encounter with the God-fearing Riverwalkers allows him to see the
part-machine, part-plant, part-animal nature of much of his world. The reader
may become frustrated by Flint's series of near-encounters with Amber, annoyed
that her portion of the story disappears at times, and, ultimately disappointed
at the too-tidy chain of coincidences that constitute the plot. The better story
might have been told primarily through Amber's point of view as it is she who is
directly experiencing the world Flint is awkwardly stumbling through. Brooke's
clear, crisp prose, however, cannot be denied even if Genetopia may prove more
parable than novel.
-- (CFQ Jan/Feb 2006)