A Son of the Rock

47 North, 2013, 199 p, plus ii p Acknowledgements and i p about the Author.

Jayna has an affinity with numbers and is employed as a researcher into trends for a firm called Mayhew McCline. But she is also a simulant, a type of clone developed to carry out high grade tasks for the corporations who dominate this future society.

Most humans, known as organics, are immunised against violence, addiction and over-indulgence and – except for a few allowed to do more menial tasks – spend their time in enclaves. So-called bionics (humans deemed suitable) have been given implants to enhance their capabilities, are relatively freer and better employed.

Simulants spend their out of work hours in rest stations, where their food and even sleeping times are controlled. As a result, Jayna’s life tends to be repetitive. Normal human interactions, such as sexual liaisons and it seems empathy, have been edited out of their make-up. However, Jayna keeps stick insects as pets of a sort. Simulants who show themselves to be unsatisfactory in some way are subject to recall and reinitiation – taken back to the Constructor.

Jayna begins to doubt herself when some of her predictions turn out to be off the mark and begins to wonder if she needs more contact with organics. Earlier simulants have been withdrawn from use but Jayna’s cohort has been endowed with better olfactory senses which she believes are tied up with emotions and ability to empathise.

The novel is a slow unfolding of Jayna’s development and – as she mixes more with bionics and organics – of her questioning her role and treatment.

The prose in A Calculated Life is stilted at times but this is a reflection of Jayna’s thought processes as a simulant. In all, the novel is an understated examination of a dystopia. Let’s hope it’s treated as a warning and not a blueprint.

Pedant’s corner:- Published in USian. “‘Pigeons are not animals. They’re birds.’” (Birds are animals; like humans, they belong to the class of vertebrates,) “rinsed it and lay in gently on the wooden board” (and laid it gently.) “‘That’s funny we were chatting the other night’” (needs a comma after ‘funny’,) “asked a women” (woman,) luck-luster (lack-luster; or in British English ‘lack-lustre’.)