Book: Brainchild (Nanotech Art/Poetics)

Paul Hughes (planet_p@rocketmail.com)
Wed, 17 Sep 1997 12:56:26 -0700 (PDT)


I came across a very imaginative 'nanotech' science fiction book the
other day in a used bookstore (it was written in 1988!).

Here are some passages:

'My name is Leticia Shafae, and I am an immortal goddess fabricating
this vision aboard my plush private cabin in high orbit. Looking out
my cabin window I can see the great marbled orb from which I emerged
spinning below, and the holographic logos of Nanotech, inc and
MickyBunny Enterprises shimmering in space…I occupy the perfect
vehical…and it is fully equipped with a remarkably exotic and wildly
erotic nervous system, which I have learned to use quite well…With my
new multi-modular fiber optic nervous system, biological immortality,
and the high degree of neurological sophistication that I have
attained, I am (from your perspective) a supernatural being…'

After re-animation from a 100 year cryonic freeze she awakens to a
world of fully mature nanotech:

'When I awoke I looked around and was astonished by what I saw.
Everything at completely changed. It seemed as though I was inside a
computer animation, Escheresque forms grew out of the walls and
transformed into other impossible forms before my eyes. Tiny winged
pixie creatures fluttered through the air. Strange technological
devices, whose function I could not even fathom, grew and squiggled
out of the walls, with a smooth polished supernatural radiance and a
glimmering unreal perfection. I realized the room and everything in
it, was in continual transformation.'

'When Daimon suggested that I have a new, flexible, more powerful,
fiber-optic nervous system installed in my body, I was intrigued. One
merely had a solution of nanomachines injected into ones
bloodstream…the whole process took about 15 minutes…If one wished it
was just as easy to change one's physical charcteristics or sex,
simply by commanding a fleet of nanomachines to push in unison the
desired sequence of DNA keys. Biomorphic structure had become as
pliable as silly putty.'

'Ergotica, the largest, and most spectacular of the high orbital space
cities, was essential an anti-planet; a nanotechnolgically fabricated
human hive…Ergotica had achieved a most striking blend of natural
environments and high technology…cuddly furry mountains, redwoods, and
organic streamlined structures that baffled a gravity-soaked brain
like mine…Concepts like up/down floor/ceiling were completely
obsolete…Freedom from gravity allowed for relativistic architectural
design. Best of all their were no flies, ticks or mosquitoes!…The
sight was magnificent, like staring into the face of infinity…all
around was a vast network of pyramidical/polyhedrons interconnected by
tubular structures superimposed upon a spherical sea of rolling
mountains and forrests.'

'And so I float here in this ultra-plush cabin, carpeted with rolling
mounds of undulating genetically fabricated flesh, woven together
within a patchwork of living twisting human tongues…'

The book is called 'Brainchild' by David Jay Brown and published by
New Falcon Press. Its still in print.

Paul Hughes

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