David Brin: EXISTENCE, an SF novel of the near future

David Brin
Existence


This is, as far as I can tell, Brin's latest novel, and it's a hefty one at some five hundred and fifty+ pages.  As he did with an earlier work, Earth, Brin set it on Earth in the near future, the mid 2050's probably and used the multiple narrative structure following a number of people.  This does distance the reader from identifying closely with any one character, but it does allow for a better overall impression of the world at that time.
 
Existence needs to be a large book for it explores a number of themes, disparate on the surface, yet Brin manages to interweave a fascinating tale with them.  Existence, first of all, is a first contact novel, but not with just one alien, but with a wide variety of species.  It is also a very dangerous crowd that comes visiting, for if nothing is done,  civilization will be destroyed and humanity itself will bring it about.  It's an insidious attack, well-meaning in its intent, yet humanity will be doomed unless it resists the invasion. 



The Information Age is another theme.  Here is a theme that I recognize as being a frequent topic on Brin's blog  Contrary Brin   --specifically the right to privacy and access to information.  In essence, it appears to me that Brin believes that the issue of privacy is dead.  There is too much information out there and generally speaking, today, only the privileged few have access to it, as well as governments, large corporations and powerful special interest groups.

Alvin Toffler wrote Power Shift in 1970 and posited that land, labor, and capital would no longer be the major sources of power in the 21st century: it would be information. In this novel, Toffler's prediction comes true.   Brin argues that the solution to the problem of information control is to make access to information available to everybody.  In Existence we see several people who are "outsiders" become important because they take advantage of the free flow of information.  It isn't perfect yet, but they have better access than we do today, and they know how to use it.

Project Uplift appears at a very early stage.  In fact, the process of "uplifting" dolphins and chimps has halted for lack of funding.  As usual, governments are playing their usual game of getting enthusiastic about a project because a particular party is in power.  When the opposition gains control, the funding stops, regardless of its value.  Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

This is a big, sprawling novel with a variety of major characters ranging from a reporter so badly damaged that she must live in a mobile metal cylinder; a Chinese man who makes his living scavenging homes flooded out by the rising sea level; a rich, young man who rents small shuttle craft to go into near Earth space; and an astronaut who gets into space because he is hired to clean out all the debris and garbage in orbit around earth.  And, of course, there are the aliens who didn't come to destroy or even conquer Earth.  They have come to spread the Good News.

This is not a book that can be read in short ten to fifteen minute segments.  You have to turn off the TV and all the other distractions and settle down with this one.  It's worth it.

David Brin: EXISTENCE, an excerpt

David Brin
Existence
SF novel, 553 pages

I'm in the midst of reading a remarkable SF novel by David Brin.  I've always enjoyed his previous works, but this one is something special.  I never thought he would be able to match his earlier ground-breaking novel, Earth, but he has not only matched it, but I think he has gone a step or two  beyond with Existence.  I haven't finished it yet, so I won't comment any more, but I do want to provide this brief excerpt from the novel.

Hamish, a writer and one of many characters,  is reminiscing:


"50
DIVINATION    

The art that I practice is the only true form of magic.
     It had taken Hamish years to realize this consciously, though he must have suspected it as a child, while devouring fantasy novels and playing whatever interactive game had the best narrative storyline.  Later, at university and grad school, even while diligently studying the ornate laws and incantations of science, something had always struck  him as wrong about the whole endeavor.
     No, wrong wasn't the word.  Sterile. Or dry, or pallid .  .  . that is, compared to worlds of fiction and belief.
     Then, while playing hooky one day from biomedical research, escaping into the vast realm of a little novel, he found a clue to his dilemma, in a passage written by the author, Tom Robbins.

Science gives man what he needs.
But magic gives him what he wants.

     A gross oversimplification?  Sure, Yet, Hamish instantly recognized the important distinction he'd been floundering toward.
      For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price--that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not.  It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law.  It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words--'I might be wrong.'
     On the other hand, magic is what happens when we convince ourselves something is, even when it isn't.  Subjective Truth, winning over mere objective fact.  The Will, triumphing over all else.  No wonder,  even after the cornucopia of wealth and knowledge engendered by science, magic remains more popular, more embedded in the human heart.
     Whether you labeled it faith, or self-delusion, or fantasy, or outright lying--Hamish recognized the species' greatest talent, a calling that spanned all cultures and times, appearing far more often, in far more tribes, than dispassionate reason!  Combine it with enough ardent wanting, and the brew might succor you through the harshest times, even periods of utter despair.
     That was what Hamish got from the best yarns, spun by master storytellers.  A temporary, willing belief that he could inhabit another world, bound by different rules.  Better rules than the dry clockwork rhythms of this one." 





Whether this represents Brin's own thinking or is simply part of the creative process of constructing a character is up for you to decide, if you choose to read the novel.  


I think, though, that there are hints or clues here to the present time, with all the conflict and partisan fighting going on all over the world, and right here at home.  Those who fear and hate the inexorable changes that seem to overwhelm all are in a state of denial.  Magic gives them what they want.    


If there is anything that characterizes science for me, it is the following, idealized though it may be:

For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price--that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not.  It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law.  It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words--'I might be wrong.'

Other ways of thinking --magic-- do not face that ultimate challenge for if something is not to one's liking, one simply ignores it or mentally rewrites it.  It may be more emotionally satisfying, but that really doesn't solve real world problems such as environmental pollution of water and air or global warming or disputes among belief systems.  We must learn to face problems and do something about them or go the way of the dinosaur.