Just finished reading David Brin’s Existence, a multifaceted story about the prospects for intelligent species’ survival, technological growth, and eventual exploration of the cosmos.
In view of the Fermi Paradox, will mankind find a path to the stars? Brin offers numerous (both currently-relevant and highly imaginative near-future) reasons suggesting that the answer might be "No." These are the book’s true antagonists. The true protagonist, in my view, is humanity (ourselves) and the possibilities of what we might become (assuming we prove capable of sharing our existence with cybernetic sensoria, artificial intelligences/beings, uplifted animal species, resurrected Neanderthals, artificially augmented autistics, and perhaps simulated aliens). The message here is that humanity must eschew intellectual rigidity and fear of the unknown, must embrace complexity and strangeness, and must be prepared to endure profound change.
The tale spans multiple decades and many lives. Many pivotal events are mentioned by historical reference, but not “lived through.” The ending is less a resolution than an encouraging vision. Characters fade in and out of our notice in service to the dramatic focus on humanity’s struggle to avoid “failure modes” and find an almost impossibly difficult path to survival. Some characters stick around long enough for readers to start caring about them, but are then snatched away as the focus moves on. The reader is left intrigued but often unsatisfied. I suspect that this is intentional.
Existence is a deeply-thought-out . . . well, not so much a novel, perhaps, as a fictionalized futurist tour-de-force. Prospective readers be advised: this is not escapist Science Fiction.
Existence by David Brin
Originally posted 5 Nov 2012 on Google+