Transhumanist Sci-fi

[OsirisLord]

Sup SD. I just caught the new Deus Ex trailer and it's rekindled the on again off again interest I have in transhumanism. I wanted to know what would be a good list of transhumanist sci-fi literature.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

There's a really good Transhumanist shor story in the collection The New Space Opera. I think it's by Ian MacDonald, but I could be wrong. It also deals with a Type 3 (or 4?) civilization meeting another one.

Then there's always Charles Stross.

[Rossum]

Not sure exactly how Transhumanist it is, but there is the Wellstone series by Wil McCarthy. The series kind of revolves around a few technologies like Wellstone (a type of programmable matter that can emulate a wide variety of physical properties... and make hats that have supercomputers built into them that can change shape when you tell them to), and nanotech "fax machines" that can dismantle an object, record its makeup on the atomic level, store the data, and rebuild an exact or modified copy elsewhere.

The Fax is where it dealves into the transhumanism since people can walk into the Fax, get scanned, and then have copies reconstructed elsewhere which are modified to eliminate damage due to age, disease, injury or even death... though they know that it kills them when they do this.

The people are essentially immorbid (they do die, but they can easily be rebuilt to perfect health) they also have backup copies of their personality on hand that can be used to print out a copy of themselves if they die in an accident, and even remerge two copies of a person so that the result has the memories of the two merged ones. Since they have computational power high enough to store the data a persons entire body and programs that can scan that data, there are numerous hacks and programs that can modify a person and change them into whatever they want. There are some who have turned themselves into blue-skinned centaurs, some who have rebuilt themselves with expanded brains and redundant organs... and some who tried turning into winged humanoids but found out that they could never get light enough to actually fly and unfortunately tried sacrificing some weight in their brains to lighten their bodies... which turns them into 'bird brains'.

But since all diseases can be cured with a trip through the Fax then any downsides to their transformations can be dealt with.


Anyway, the series is rather lighthearted with some dramatic bits. I would recommend checking it out just to give it a look over.

[Mayabird]

Vernor Vinge writes a lot of transhumanist stories; I haven't actually read most of them so I can't make recommendations but you could look into him.

[Stark]

Sup SD. I just caught the new Deus Ex trailer and it's rekindled the on again off again interest I have in transhumanism. I wanted to know what would be a good list of transhumanist sci-fi literature.

By 'transhumanist' I guess you mean 'Ghost in the Shell'? The Deus Ex trailer was a pretty low read on the transhumanism scale, since it was about megastructures and retarded nano silliness.

[Starglider]

Most of Greg Egan's books have transhuman protagonists. That said, he doesn't usually spend that much time detailing transhuman socities, preferring to base his plot twists on made up physics (Quarantine is the exception; the society is explored in some depth, though the central plot is still based on made up physics). They're good books though, particularly because they center on the characters actually applying the scientific method in an interesting and relatively realistic way. This was much more common in the early days of science fiction, you rarely see it now.

Nearly all his characters still have very human personalities despite being genetically engineered/cyber-augmented/uploads/AIs/all of the above, which is kind of annoying because it feels like they should be more alien given how detailed the technology is. That isn't really a criticism of Egan though, realistic characterisation of post-humans is very hard and few writers even attempt it.

[Sarevok]

Transhuman themes and ideas are dime a dozen in various stories. The biggest problem is finding a book that is also a good story rather than a info dump. Does anyone of know of transhuman scifi that also has fun dialogue and interesting characters ? I mean like Snow Crash as opposed to dull drab writtings like Charles Stross who would be better served by posting a RAR! thread like Zor instead of attempting novels.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I find Charles Stross to be a good writer. Try his Atrocity Archives if you don't like his more "out-there" stuff.

I'm not sure that there are any really great stories that also involve a lot of transhumanist themes. It kind of kills the drama.

[Bright]

I'd recommend some of the comics work of Warren Ellis. His stories are rarely about transhumanism per se, but it tends to be a pretty big theme. Although he plays pretty fast and loose with it: for instance, in the future of Transmetropolitan, cellphones have been replaced with pills that grow temporary communication devices in peoples' heads. There's a lot of bizarre mody-modification going on in that series. But he also takes a more realistic approach at times.

Sup SD. I just caught the new Deus Ex trailer and it's rekindled the on again off again interest I have in transhumanism. I wanted to know what would be a good list of transhumanist sci-fi literature.

By 'transhumanist' I guess you mean 'Ghost in the Shell'? The Deus Ex trailer was a pretty low read on the transhumanism scale, since it was about megastructures and retarded nano silliness.

What are you talking about? The DX3 trailer didn't have a trace of nanotechnology. It was all mechanics. It takes place 25 years before the original, remember?

And maybe I'm missing something, but what do megastructures have to do with transhumanism?

[Slacker]

Any of Alistair Reynolds stuff is pretty much transhumanist, but House of Suns is an especially good book and also a standalone.

[Companion Cube]

Bruce Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist stories are all about this kind of stuff; one of the main themes is conflict between various transhuman factions (e.g. the Shapers, who favour genetic modification, and the Mechanists, who're more into cybernetics). See if you can pick up one of the collections of his works, like Schismatrix Plus.

[Imperial Overlord]

S. Andrew Swann has written a number of sci-fi technothriller/mysteries in settings with strong transhumanist backgrounds.

His Moreau trilogy is based around uplifted animals and gene engineered humans, with a healthy helping of AIs.

Hostile Takeover, same universe a couple hundred years latter, has a transhumanist commune with nanotech and personality uploads on an anarchy world.

Apotheosis trilogy, same universe even latter on, is even more centered on AIs, nanotech, and personality uploading.

[speaker-to-trolls]

I'm going to second Alastair Reynolds, as someone who actually can do good human drama when writing about weird things like cyborgs and ancient post intelligent things. I'd also like to say that I think Charles Stross is hideously overrated, at least in terms of his space opera stories and a few of the other short ones I've read (Missile Gap and that one with Nanotech Cthulhu, both of which just kind of peter out at the end).

[adam_grif]

Sup SD. I just caught the new Deus Ex trailer and it's rekindled the on again off again interest I have in transhumanism. I wanted to know what would be a good list of transhumanist sci-fi literature.

By 'transhumanist' I guess you mean 'Ghost in the Shell'? The Deus Ex trailer was a pretty low read on the transhumanism scale, since it was about megastructures and retarded nano silliness.

Ehh, what nano silliness? It was all mechanical augmentations. Nano augs were hot shit in the first Deus Ex, and this is a prequel.

EDIT: Fucking beaten.

Also, Alastair Reynolds++;

[interstella87]

I have to agree about Alastair Reynolds (despite the fact he is my all time favourite author), his Revelation Space universe is truly fantastic and a great example of Transhuman societies.

Another book which is an amazing look at Transhuman ideas is Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. There are about 3 books in the series but the sequels do not compare what so ever to the first one.

The basic premise of the universe is that human minds are uploaded to a 'server' and then can be downloaded into any body. I read this quite a few years ago so the technical jargon is missing a bit! I just liked the idea of our uploaded hero's mind being transmitted to a planet that needed a special forces soldier and then being downloaded into an augmented body to ....well...f*ck sh*t up if you excuse my French.

Approved necro. Do not lock. -D

[LionElJonson]

Iain Banks writes pretty good transhumanist sci-fi in his Culture novels.

Also the Orion's Arm setting in general, though that doesn't have much actual fiction written for it.

[sirocco]

There's also the Hyperion novels by Dan Simmons, though only the poet has undergone various physical transformations. He was a satyr at one point.

Are you looking for Mechanized humans like in Ghost in the shell and Deus Ex or just any story about engineering the human body?

[Sarevok]

There's also the Hyperion novels by Dan Simmons, though only the poet has undergone various physical transformations. He was a satyr at one point.

Are you looking for Mechanized humans like in Ghost in the shell and Deus Ex or just any story about engineering the human body?

I would not consider Hyperion on its merits as transhuman fiction. Hyperion is a wonderful story overall that features many themes. It is also very "soft" scifi that is most unlike the "gritty near future" look and feel of Deus Ex and GiTs.

[Norade]

I enjoyed John Varley's Steel Beach when I was about 15 or so but haven't been able to read it again since so I can only vouch for it from memory. He's won some awards so I would assume that his work is at least passable and the idea of casual gender changes and action movie heroes storing their brains in their chests so their heads can get blown off for the scene is definitely transhuman.

[The Cooler King]

If you're into paper and pencil roleplaying games, you might wanna check out Eclipse Phase. It deals with a lot of transhuman themes and elements, and some of the background and enclosed fiction are well done.


I'll second the Takeshi Kovacs books by Richard Morgan (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies).

[Pulp Hero]

Miles Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold are very transhumanist. The take place in the far future among multiple starsystems. There are no aliens, but humans have diverged massively in culture and genetics to create some freaky mixtures.

[Slacker]

I enjoyed John Varley's Steel Beach when I was about 15 or so but haven't been able to read it again since so I can only vouch for it from memory. He's won some awards so I would assume that his work is at least passable and the idea of casual gender changes and action movie heroes storing their brains in their chests so their heads can get blown off for the scene is definitely transhuman.

Sort of along that same line, Varley's Ophiuchi Hotline is about a society that's desperately trying to NOT go transhumanist and the consequences of that. I wouldn't necessarily call it hard scifi in some regards, but it definitely has transhumanist elements.