Robert J. Sawyer

In the near future, a signal is detected coming from the Alpha Centauri system. Mysterious, unintelligible data streams in for ten years. Heather Davis, a professor in the University of Toronto psychology department, has devoted her career to deciphering the message. Her estranged husband, Kyle, is working on the development of artificial intelligence systems and new computer technology utilizing quantum effects to produce a near-infinite number of calculations simultaneously. When Heather achieves a breakthrough, the message reveals a startling new technology that rips the barriers of space and time, holding the promise of a new stage of human evolution. In concert with Kyle's discoveries of the nature of consciousness, the key to limitless exploration---or the end of the human race---appears close at hand. Sawyer has created a gripping thriller, a pulse-pounding tour of the farthest reaches of technology. Factoring Humanity is a 1999 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.

Factoring Humanity

Bryan Alexander

Factoring Humanity is a very ambitious novel. It aims to combine hard science ideas with deeply human issues. 

The plot involves a married but separated couple, a psychologist and a computer scientist. When the story begins the latter is working on a quantum computing problem, while the former seeks to puzzle out transmissions humanity has received from another star, and both are in trauma from a death in the family. Right away the couple is thrown into turmoil when another family member lobs a terrible accusation. Sawyer adds more problems to the mix, starting with emergent AI, false memories, and the nature of consciousness, along with first contact and retributive justice.

Which sounds very much like a book I'd like to read. You can see why it was a Hugo nominee. I also admire Sawyer's willingness to offer little in the way of action, brazenly letting dialog do a lot of work. The two main characters are decently realized, flawed and believable people.

And yet. 

It didn't do much for me. As the novel progressed I gradually lost my investment in the characters. As the ideas and issues ramped up, they felt weirdly less powerful, possibly because the dilation down to a domestic drama with underpowered drama didn't work for me.

It may be that it felt like a weak response to contemporary sf. Carl Sagan's Contact (1985), which Sawyer says was no influence on his writing, certainly influenced my reading here. There's a strong similarly of plot device, with humans building a device based on alien transmissions, leading to improved understanding. Joe Haldeman's Forever Peace (1997) leads to a similar conclusion as Factoring, but with an awful lot of power. Themes in the end are straight out of Stapledon's criminally underread, vastly more ambitious, and obviously groundbreaking Star Maker (1930). The conclusion also echoes an excellent 1950s Isaac Asimov short story, which I won't name here for fear of spoilering.

Speaking of which, the ending... let me pull up some spoiler shields. (view spoiler)[Building the Centauri device (heh heh) leads us to the brink of a total revolution in human society. Our protagonists back away from the real chaos this would unleash, and instead see it as a kind of planetary romance. I found the flow of good feelings unwarranted and not build up sufficiently. (hide spoiler)]

Meanwhile, the prose... at best it was workmanlike. At worst it felt like a bestseller, like Dean Koontz, or even bad YA. One example:And now, after this brief, deep, joining, she would likely never encounter him again.
But she did have to press on. 
The truth was out there. 
The undeniable truth. 
The truth about the past. 
The truth about Kyle and their daughters. 
A truth Heather had to find. (208-9)
One more note: it's interesting to see this as a 1990s book, given the points about child abuse and repressed memory.

Overall, a promising outline for a novel with a lot of potential.

Factoring Humanity

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