Synopses & Reviews
Jake Sullivan has cheated death: he's discarded his doomed biological body and copied his consciousness into an android form. The new Jake soon finds love, something that eluded him when he was encased in flesh: he falls for the android version of Karen, a woman rediscovering all the joys of life now that she too is no longer constrained by a worn-out body. Karen's son sues her, claiming that by uploading into an immortal body, she has done him out of his inheritance. Even worse, the original version of Jake, consigned to die on the far side of the moon, has taken hostages there, demanding the return of his rights of personhood. In the courtroom and on the lunar surface, the future of uploaded humanity hangs in the balance.
Mindscan is vintage Sawyer--a feast for the mind and the heart.
Review
Praise for
Mindscan:
"Sawyer lucidly explores fascinating philosophical conundrums."
--Entertainment Weekly
"A tale involving courtroom drama, powerful human emotion and challenging SF mystery. Sawyer juggles it all with intelligence and far-reaching vision worthy of Isaac Asimov."
--Starlog
"Sawyer deftly examines what a future might be like in two neighboring countries that have become polar opposites. And he focuses on the legal and moral ramifications involved in various definitions of humanity in an intriguing and stylistically fine story.
Synopsis
Mindscan is cyberpunk, with a Sawyer twist, about the implications of uploading one's conscious personality into a computer.
About the Author
Robert J. Sawyer is the author of
Flashforward, winner of the Aurora Award and the basis for the hit ABC television series. He is also the author of the WWW series—
Wake,
Watch and
Wonder—
Hominids,
Calculating God, and many other books. He has won the Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial awards—making him one of only seven writers in history to win all three of science fictions top awards for best novel. He was born in Ottawa and lives in Mississauga, Ontario.