Genesis

The story begins as 14-year-old Anax prepares to endure a cold and rigorous oral examination in an attempt to enter the Academy, the intellectual elite controlling the authoritarian Utopia in which she lives. Much of the book is the transcript of her interrogation, recounting the history of the state’s emergence from the global biological war of the 2050s. Anax’s specialism is the life of Adam Forde, a rebel against the ruthless isolationism of an earlier Republic. The mystery of Forde’s contribution to the current civilisation is at the heart of the book, conveyed in Anax’s reconstruction of the antagonistic dialogue between the imprisoned rebel and the articulate robot with whom, or with which, he shares his cell. The question of whom or which is critical. Complex issues about the nature of human and artificial consciousness, and about the ethical status of Forde’s rebellion, form a philosophical theme rising to the staggering climax of this novel-of-ideas. Readers who have engaged in its deeply fascinating and moving play of theory and narrative action will never forget these final pages. They haunt me still.