Genesis

Amazon Best of the Month, April 2009 : If robots began to self-evolve, learning to feel and create as we do, what traits would set humans apart--and help us survive? Beckett isn't the first to dramatize this question, and his Genesis pays subtle homage to his predecessors (including Isaac Asimov , Arthur C. Clarke , and Philip K. Dick ). But his near-future tale feels unique, and oddly credible. As the young historian Anax endures an examination by the Academy--an order of philosopher-rulers as imagined in Plato's Republic --we're brought up quickly on a catastrophic backstory: accelerating climate change, dust storms, rising fear and fundamentalism, the Last War, and the rise of a new Plato, who builds an island republic and seals it behind a Great Sea Fence. Plagues decimate human populations outside, while the Republic's surveillance society (thick with shadows of Huxley , Atwood , and Moore ) flourishes under the Orwellian motto "Forward towards the past"--until it falls to forces led by the young rebel Adam Forde. The Academy interrogates Anax on Adam's period of imprisonment with the most advanced android of his time, and we witness their vicious sparring on the virtues of men and machines, the nature of consciousness, and what gives any life worth. It may not sound gripping, but Genesis reads like a thriller to the last word, propelled by the power of ideas longing to be unleashed. -- Mari Malcolm Amazon Exclusive: An Essay by Bernard Beckett, Author of Genesis When I tire of my computer it's considered quite acceptable, environmental issues aside, for me to bin it, bury it, or rip out its innards and convert the shell into a fish bowl. It is considered less acceptable for me to do any of these things to my still functioning cat. And that feels much as it should be. Yet my computer routinely beats me at chess, while my cat struggles to use a cat door. Whatever we believe sets the animal apart from the machine, with each passing year it becomes harder to believe that processing power is the defining factor. And that's the apparently harmless thought at the heart of Genesis . Our instincts cling to the mysticism of the life force, the élan vital that appears to animate the world of creatures and separate them from our machines. Instincts though are rarely enough. The modern understanding of evolution makes it easy to view life as little more (or less) than a trick of chemistry, and the harmless question takes on an edge. The novelist though mustn't be content with simply exposing the edge. I am drawn to stories that tear at me. I like my reading to leave a little scar tissue and I aspire to create stories that might do the same. Just as we are sure that cats and computers are not just different things, but different kinds of things, so we quite naturally draw a line between a cat and human that feels inviolable. The life force may no longer be so puzzling, but surely the mystery of consciousness remains secure. Not everybody thinks so, and that provides the gap into which a story can be wedged. This thought spent a good few years trapped inside my own consciousness. I knew that at the heart of the novel would sit a confrontation between a man and a machine. I knew humanity would be represented by a criminal, imprisoned both by the justice system and his own inflexible beliefs. I also knew the machine would be charming, irascible and provocative. What I didn't know was anything about the story in which this central conceit would be wrapped. I wrote a short play in which the prisoner was a psychopath and spent a couple of years trying on and off to develop that into a novel but it never worked. I needed a trick that would position the audience first with the human and then somehow twist that loyalty, ideally without them realising it was happening. As is so often the case I didn't get to the final product small step at a time. Rather I tried, failed and turned away. And then, a couple of years later while distracting myself from another task I found the problem had solved itself offstage. Such are the strange workings of the mind. (Photo © Bruce Foster) From Publishers Weekly Anax, the dedicated student historian at the center of Beckett's brutal dystopian novel, lives far in the future—the distant past events of the 21st century are taught in classrooms. The world of that era, we learn, was ravaged by plague and decay, the legacy of the Last War. Only the island Republic, situated near the bottom of the globe, remained stable and ordered, but at the cost of personal freedom. Anax, hoping her scholarly achievements will gain her entrance to the Academy, which rules her society, has extensively studied Adam Forde, a brilliant and rebellious citizen of the Republic who fought for human dignity in the midst of a regimented, sterile society. To join the Academy's ranks, Anax undergoes a test before three examiners, and as the examination progresses, it becomes clear that her interpretations of Adam's life defy conventional thought and there may be more to Adam—and the Academy—than she had imagined. Though the trappings of Beckett's dystopian society feel perhaps too Brave New World , the rigorous narrative and crushing final twist bring a welcome freshness to a familiar setup. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Anaximander, Anax for short, lives in an island nation that has survived an apocalyptic plague by constructing a great sea fence and destroying all who approach. The tightly closed society has evolved into a rigid but seemingly benign hierarchy. Anax, hoping to join the Academy—the ruling class of thinkers—must submit to an oral examination regarding her chosen subject, Adam Forde, a hero from the island’s past. It’s tempting to dismiss this novel at first as a fictionalized philosophy dissertation—it unfolds as a transcript of the examination itself, complete with visual aids, and offers us limited access into the minds of the characters. Moreover, there are references to a period when the society called itself Plato’s Republic; characters have philosopher’s names; and some dialoguexa0mimics the Socratic method. But appearances can be deceiving: this slim novel of big ideas (its subject is nothing less than the nature of consciousness) overcomes a slow start to grip the reader in a thrilling combination of action and ideas. And the ending is an absolute mind-blower worthy of sf’s classic texts. --Keir Graff More successfully than any other novel I've read recently, Bernard Beckett's Genesis epitomises the investigative ideal of science fiction. By any standards it's a short novel and at 150 pages is perhaps more truly a novella, but in a genre given to overinflated, ponderous tomes screaming out for an editor wielding a samurai sword, there's a refreshing efficiency to Becketts writing. Nothing is superfluous, nothing wasted. Genesis is Beckett's eighth novel and was inspired, we're told, while the author was studying DNA at the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Evolution on a Royal Society Fellowship. Previously published in New Zealand in 2006, it won the 2007 Esther Glen Award and the Young Adult Fiction Category at the 2007 New Zealand Post Book Awards, and went on to ignite a bidding war in 22 countries. The novel is due to get a global release this month, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and in the UK at least will be published as two separate editions: adult and young adult. The themes in Beckett's novel encourage comparison with the work of SF's most successful fictionalising philosopher, Philip K. Dick. Both authors are interested in what it is to be human but their focus is very different. Dick asks what it is to be authentically human and tended to push an ethical agenda; Beckett's concern is the nature of consciousness and that takes him beyond the human to questions of artificial intelligence. And from this perspective ethics are little more than an affectation of human ego. It's interesting and a little disturbing that Adam Forde, the character in Beckett's novel who best epitomises what Dick would classify as authentically human, is not the end-point of Beckett's philosophical investigation but the flawed and misguided genesis of the next stage of evolution. Beckett crafts his story around an interview, or more accurately the academic examination of Anaximander, a young student of history who seeks to join The Academy, the highest authority in her society. Three examiners pose questions intended to draw out the implications of her thesis - and something more - and in defending her thesis she gives us the story of her world and presents the philosophical issues. It's a neat trick for giving us the back-story. The setting is a post-apocalyptic society born from the ashes of The Republic. This was a short-lived social experiment that flowered briefly in the mid 21st Century in the southern islands of Aotearoa following a global conflict that looks to have destroyed the vast majority of humanity. The Republic was established by a wealthy entrepreneur called Plato (of course) who with foresight and incredible wealth bought in to the island economy in the decades before the war until his influence enabled him to move the nation toward a state of technology rich self-sufficiency. With little time to spare he convinced the locals to build a defense system that turned the islands into an impregnable fortress. When genetically manipulated plagues were released in 2052, The Republic was sealed off from the world and the integrity of its borders was maintained from threats without and within with extreme prejudice. Emerging as it did in a period of fear, Plato's Republic was easily imposed on a people simply grateful to be alive. Its motto was "Forward towards the past and it was founded on the principle that change equals decay. The result was a stratified and rigid society in which a person's social class was determined by a genomic reading, and individuality was suppressed in favour of subservience to the state. Where mankind had fallen in the past through embracing change uncritically, The Republic would attempt to control everything, including the ideas in people's heads, in a bid to keep decay at bay. Pure fascism. Anaximander's historical subject is Adam Forde, a long-dead child of The Republic who was key to the collapse of the first Republic and the rise of the society in which she lives. He was a rebel of the leading Philosopher class who fell from grace through an innate anti-social (rebellious) nature; demoted to the Soldier class he murdered a colleague in order to save a female refugee, risking the lives of all as she could have been a plague carrier. The motivation behind his decision is complex and by P.K. Dick's judgement authentically human: empathy for the unknown girl compels him to rebel against his conditioning. But while this would be the end game for Dick, Adam Forde is just a piece on the playing board in Beckett's investigation into the nature of consciousness and from this perspective the game is far from over. The game is evolution, the dice have been rolled and at stake is humanity's continued existence. This is intelligent and thought-provoking SF at its best. Genesis is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and will be available in April - SFF Media More successfully than any other novel I've read recently, Bernard Beckett's Genesis epitomises the investigative ideal of science fiction. By any standards it's a short novel and at 150 pages is perhaps more truly a novella, but in a genre given to overinflated, ponderous tomes screaming out for an editor wielding a samurai sword, there's a refreshing efficiency to Becketts writing. Nothing is superfluous, nothing wasted. Genesis is Beckett's eighth novel and was inspired, we're told, while the author was studying DNA at the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Evolution on a Royal Society Fellowship. Previously published in New Zealand in 2006, it won the 2007 Esther Glen Award and the Young Adult Fiction Category at the 2007 New Zealand Post Book Awards, and went on to ignite a bidding war in 22 countries. The novel is due to get a global release this month, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and in the UK at least will be published as two separate editions: adult and young adult. The themes in Beckett's novel encourage comparison with the work of SF's most successful fictionalising philosopher, Philip K. Dick. Both authors are interested in what it is to be human but their focus is very different. Dick asks what it is to be authentically human and tended to push an ethical agenda; Beckett's concern is the nature of consciousness and that takes him beyond the human to questions of artificial intelligence. And from this perspective ethics are little more than an affectation of human ego. It's interesting and a little disturbing that Adam Forde, the character in Beckett's novel who best epitomises what Dick would classify as authentically human, is not the end-point of Beckett's philosophical investigation but the flawed and misguided genesis of the next stage of evolution. Beckett crafts his story around an interview, or more accurately the academic examination of Anaximander, a young student of history who seeks to join The Academy, the highest authority in her society. Three examiners pose questions intended to draw out the implications of her thesis - and something more - and in defending her thesis she gives us the story of her world and presents the philosophical issues. It's a neat trick for giving us the back-story. The setting is a post-apocalyptic society born from the ashes of The Republic. This was a short-lived social experiment that flowered briefly in the mid 21st Century in the southern islands of Aotearoa following a global conflict that looks to have destroyed the vast majority of humanity. The Republic was established by a wealthy entrepreneur called Plato (of course) who with foresight and incredible wealth bought in to the island economy in the decades before the war until his influence enabled him to move the nation toward a state of technology rich self-sufficiency. With little time to spare he convinced the locals to build a defense system that turned the islands into an impregnable fortress. When genetically manipulated plagues were released in 2052, The Republic was sealed off from the world and the integrity of its borders was maintained from threats without and within with extreme prejudice. Emerging as it did in a period of fear, Plato's Republic was easily imposed on a people simply grateful to be alive. Its motto was "Forward towards the past and it was founded on the principle that change equals decay. The result was a stratified and rigid society in which a person's social class was determined by a genomic reading, and individuality was suppressed in favour of subservience to the state. Where mankind had fallen in the past through embracing change uncritically, The Republic would attempt to control everything, including the ideas in people's heads, in a bid to keep decay at bay. Pure fascism. Anaximander's historical subject is Adam Forde, a long-dead child of The Republic who was key to the collapse of the first Republic and the rise of the society in which she lives. He was a rebel of the leading Philosopher class who fell from grace through an innate anti-social (rebellious) nature; demoted to the Soldier class he murdered a colleague in order to save a female refugee, risking the lives of all as she could have been a plague carrier. The motivation behind his decision is complex and by P.K. Dick's judgement authentically human: empathy for the unknown girl compels him to rebel against his conditioning. But while this would be the end game for Dick, Adam Forde is just a piece on the playing board in Beckett's investigation into the nature of consciousness and from this perspective the game is far from over. The game is evolution, the dice have been rolled and at stake is humanity's continued existence. This is intelligent and thought-provoking SF at its best. Genesis is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and will be available in April ( SFF Media 2009-04-21) BERNARD BECKETT, born in 1967, is a high school teacher based in Wellington, New Zealand, where he teaches drama, mathematics, and English. Genesis was written while he was on a Royal Society genetics research fellowship investigating DNA mutations. The book has already received international acclaim, including two literary prizes in Beckett’s native New Zealand. Rights to Genesis have been sold in twenty-one countries. Read more