eHuman Dawn is a book about humanity. It presents us with a likely scenario of evolution and it poses many dilemmas regarding our present and future. Rapped in the mist of utopia, this futuristic world soon reveals itself to be a dystopia. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World, eHuman Dawn presents another form of totalitarian government.
There are many levels to the book itself. First, there is the intimate plane of interpersonal relationships, where we close-in on individuals and their personal experiences. Second is the social and political plane, which presents the totalitarian form of government, the Resistance and their battle for humanity. Lastly, the plane of an entire species.
Nicole Sallak Anderson’s background in computer science lights up her futuristic world. The reality she thought out is skillfully constructed and presented in great detail. It is a world where technology and biology are intertwined and the delimitation between human and machine are blurry. Humanity is presented at the next stage of evolution and on the verge of entering the following stage. So, our species is presented under three forms.
Humanity went through a great leap in evolution, called the Great Shift, when scientists discovered that they can store a human’s life essence into an artificially manufactured body that does not age. This Shift is caused by the many dangerous that threaten the survival of the human race. The problems of disease, famine, and over-population are solved by immortality. Each person is granted the gift of eternal life in artificial bodies, which do not get sick, do not require food but cannot reproduce. There is even an alternative, a way to restart a life. People can opt to jump into a new body and start a fresh life all over again. However, in the process they lose the memory of their previous life. So, if a person is unhappy all he has to do is Jump and restart. There is a constant struggle to keep the population ignorant and happy.
This technologically advanced civilization is more fragile than it looks. The eHumans are not even aware of the World Government’s totalitarian rule. Immortality is fueled by electricity, without power there is no eternal life, this dependency makes immortals quite vulnerable. Also, the citizens of this new world are submitted to continuous surveillance and thought control. However there is also an underground Resistance that plans to overthrow the government.
The reader gets the most intimate with Adam Winter, out of all the characters. He is a popular journalist who begins to see through the fog of deception created by the World Government. Also, he is part of the few eHumans who never Jumped. He sees jumping as the equivalent of death, and he argues that true immortality lies in the memory. So, he chooses to remember and stay immortal. Pushed by curiosity and the threat of possible annihilation he becomes involved with the Resistance and ends up playing an important role in the future of eHumanity. However the key to eHumanity’s future is in Adam’s past. So, only by discovering his identity before the Great Shift can he truly discover his purpose in this eternal life.
Nicole Sallak Anderson’s eHuman Dawn is well thought out and well written. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys dystopias and sci-fi. There is a lot of action, but there is plenty of romance too, and above all philosophical reflections about control, privacy, totalitarian systems, the nature of man and immortality.
Reposted from Bestseller's World
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