Imagine Ayn Rand raping Steve Jobs and Ray Kurzweil and then taking the issue of those unclean unions and shitting them out nine months later in the form of a novel. To be sure, the derivative, techno-philosophizing will be familiar to any "Objectivist," but a far worse crime is just how terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE the book is as a novel. Ever watch that episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where the Enterprise is trapped in a lemming-like column of two-dimensional beings? The characters in this book were flatter than those 2D entities and the reader is like the ship, towed along helplessly as the clumsy deus-ex-machina plot plods unimaginatively to its final, completely unbelievable conclusion in which the hero triumphs totally and completely over the entire world. The last several pages are even taken up with a rant worthy of Fidel Castro. Literally, the main character gives a speech in which he expounds upon his philosophy for pages on end, something already done multiple times before in the book. Remember Apple's famous 1984 ad? The ending is like that with the hero talking endlessly on the teevee like a Nietzschean megalomaniac only without that hammer thrower to save us or at least shoot us in the head to put us out of our misery. Unfortunately, if we lived in the story, even if we WERE mercifully shot in the head our transhumanist overlords would revive us from death through some miracle of in-book technology and force us to watch/read the whole damn thing over again in some hellish, unending literary nightmare from which not even the imagination could escape. Surely, you say, it can't be that bad. There must be some redeeming value to this garbage, can't there? Here is a taste, just a taste of how awful a novel this is:"People don't fight love or existence like you do. Are you going to keep me in your life? Or am I too much for you, the lone transhumanist wolf?"That is what passes for pillow talk between the hero and the love interest. I wanted them to kill themselves right there. Unfortunately, the love interest tries that a few pages later and, sadly, does not succeed. Yes, the entire fucking book is that awful--and this is from somebody willing to at least be charitable to the philosophy. So, to conclude, don't read this puerile heap of trash calling itself a book. You're better than that.Oh, and to author Zoltan Istvan, who I see left a comment on the review page of his own novel. Please do not write another one. You are not good at it. You are, in fact, comically bad. If you think this is actually good, you should kill yourself, now, because your transhumanist hero would certainly see no artistic value in this heaving, rotting stench of a shitty story. As someone with a strong interest in transhuman philosophy, I really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, I found little to recommend it. The story itself was fun and interesting, but I found the writing only mediocre, and the TEF philosophy presented by the protagonist, Jethro Knights, consistently repulsive. I simply couldn't identify with the activist\terrorist themes presented as heroic when employed for the "right" cause. Rather than a story of good vs. evil, I kept wondering to myself whether it was really a conflict of evil vs. evil, as Jethro Knights was frequently just as villainous as the actual villain. What's more, the entire scenario of a rabidly religious world outlawing transhuman research just didn't seem very plausible.The book presents a rather extreme view of transumanism. The technological ideas are what you would find in almost any summery of transhumanist thought, but the extremes the characters (and presumably the author) are willing to go to in order to achieve their goals seemed repulsive to me. Maybe I'm just too entrenched in my own moralistic enlightenment paradigm, but I don't know if I would want to live forever if I had to commit "humanicide" to get there. Maybe that just means I'm not a good candidate as an "omnipotender."My biggest frustration was that Jethro and the other scientists never seemed to act consistently with the TEF philosophy. The author spends a significant portion of the book pontificating through his main character about just how far they should be willing to go to achieve their goals, but they conveniently never really have to do any of the things they say they would be willing to. If one were to remove the philosophy from the story, it probably wouldn't seem quite so extreme. I think the author took the easy way out in not requiring of his characters that they test their willingness to go to the lengths TEF requires they be willing to. Perhaps he believed his ideas would be easier to swallow if he allowed his characters to be far more likable than their own philosophy suggests they should be.
What do You think about The Transhumanist Wager (2013)?
Unable to bear Jethro Knights and his vision of life
—makoy
Thought provoking and shocking, one amazing read.
—Cassie
