Man Plus (SF Masterworks)

All in all this was a very good novel. I felt that Frederick Pohl had a brilliant vision for this book, and caried it out in full detail. The story revolves around Roger Torroway, a typical astronaut married to a typical wife living a typical lifestyle. However, Roger is involved in a project which isn't typical at all. This project is called Man Plus, and is devoted to saving the human race, (wihch is, the latest simulation says, a ninety nine percent chance of destroying itself within the next ten years.) Man Plus is devoted to turning a man into more than a man. by ripping out most of his biological components and replacing them with mechanical body parts, thus enabling him to live on Mars. The result would make a super being to start a colony on Mars, thus saving the human race. When William Hartnett, the original Man Plus dies, Roger Torroway has to take his place.
This novel is full of surprises, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Earth is in a cold war and computer predictions show high probability of complete destruction of Earth in nuclear war in near future. The president of US must save the mankind. The "plusman" project is initiated. It must succeed before the destruction erupts. The initial transformee, cyborg man, whose organs have been removed bit by bit and replaced with machine equivalents suffers a severe stimulus overload. The main character, Roger, becomes reluctantly steps into the program's guinea pig. The book is about his experience of becoming a cyborg: both mentally, emotionally and distanting himself from mankind. Nobody had the courtesy to mention "sligh operation" where his genitals were removed as unnecessary for the awaiting Mars. The bat wings, solar panels, and receptory vision tuned to artificial inhuman wavelengths leave no doubts how extensive an irreversable the changes are.

Pohl writes with a distinctive blend of hard science fiction and psychologically complex characters. The reader can feel for Roger, becoming a monster for the sake of visiting Mars. He's taken further and further away from the human norm.

Four (4) stars. Written in 1975, Man Plus must be one of the best hard science fiction novels of the seventies. The treatment of human lab rat is very well put and Roger's emotional state distorted by supplementary computer that filters his perceptions is remarkable confidently scripted. No wonder this 1976 book won the Nebula.

I read Man Plus as part of a compilation that combined Man Plus and Jem in one book, so this review may be affected by the contrast created between the two stories. I found Man Plus to be far superior to Jem, though Pohl makes use of many of the same devices and themes in both books. Pohl's adept handling of the scientific end of the story was reason enough to read this book. Unfortunately, he spends far too much time with the political situation on Earth and some of the more superfluous details of the scientists' sex lives. This angle succeeds because it grants the characters a personality that extends beyond vague political goals and imparts a sense of urgency to the project. And it is obvious that Pohl is comfortable with the characters, as they surpass the stereotypes of ivory tower scientists too involved with their work to show any real emotion. Some believe the ending was too abrupt and ambigiuous, but I think Pohl did an incredible job concluding the story. The ending provides a new dimension to the proceedings of the project, a goal higher than human self-preservation. The thing that keeps Man Plus from getting a five star rating is its length. The book is too short to have anything less than a totally focused vision for the characters and the plot. Despite Pohl's efforts, we don't get to see enough of the characters to truly relate to them, though Pohl's limited description does wonders with the pages he devotes to them. Man Plus is a great book, but the story is too hurried and the plot too unfocused to be considered epic.

Man Plus is a decent story about creating a cyborg to live on Mars. Presumably, the world is going to crumble unless we can begin to colonize Mars (according to computer projections), and so a cyborg is built and sent. Although a little less time might have been spent on Earth, and a little more on Mars, this is still a compelling tale. In particular the science of turning man into machine was page turning. Some of the subplots though were a little weak.