Bloomsbury Publishing, June 2, 2016.
Five Stars
Kit is nineteen years old, and she has been working
for the research department of the Shen Corporation for seven years. Her
research is conducted by projecting her consciousness into the bodies of
lab-grown animals, and her youth is valued in the industry because she is more
flexible at adapting to these animal bodies. She has had the opportunity to
experience many different lives, seeing the world through the eyes of an
octopus, an elephant and a spider, to name a few – but her most powerful
connection has been to her fox self. When the fox body she inhabits is hit by a
car and killed, Kit’s entire career is called into question.
Kit is a Phenomenaut, and she enters an animal body –
called a ResExtenda, or Ressy – through a neurological interface. When she is
inRessy, her only connection to the “real” world is her Neuro, named Buckley,
who is able to communicate with her throughout the experience. He is her most
trusted friend, the voice that guides her through her projections, so when she
begins to doubt him, her whole world is called into question. Suddenly, Kit
finds it hard to engage with her real body and begins to relinquish her
humanity, becoming more animalistic in her behavior. The feeling that her
original body is no longer hers feels like “insidious, chronic doubt.” (Loc.
1732) If she can’t trust Buckley, the voice that’s always inside her head, then
she can no longer trust herself.
After the death of her fox Ressy, Kit is moved from research
to tourism – the Shen Corporation is branching out, and they want to profit
from sending regular people inRessy, for a very high price. Kit knows it isn’t
right, but she has no choice. She feels that her purpose as a Phenomenaut is to
study ecology and preserve endangered species, encouraging empathy for those
who can’t speak for themselves. She compares Phenomenautism to reading fiction
because it is “like wearing another skin,” and understanding how others think
and feel. The corporate bureaucrats say tourism will create empathy too, but they
have taken something almost magical and disguised it with double-speak.
If you are able to suspend disbelief of the
Phenomenaut technology, this becomes a really intriguing, philosophical story, exploring
many ethically ambiguous issues. Because the Ressy bodies are essentially
printed in a giant 3D printer, the next step becomes the printing of human
bodies, which is morally questionable but somehow seems completely possible. I
really appreciated that the author didn’t go overboard explaining the
technology in detail – she gives us just enough to imagine the possibilities.
She cleverly uses a classroom of children who are touring the facility to
explain the Ressy experience – the science is dumbed down for the reader
without interrupting the narrative flow. In my opinion, that’s what makes this
speculative fiction instead of sci-fi – there is not as much science/world-building,
but instead it is more of a framework used to express philosophical ideas about
a potential future world.
Kit’s voice is so well developed that it easily
carries her character seamlessly through each animal body – she is sharp,
caustic and edgy, but at the same time her mind is thoughtful and authentic.
She expresses herself with a maturity beyond her age, but it makes sense
because she experiences so much empathy for her animal host bodies. The sections
where Kit is inRessy are incredible – it’s hard to believe that the author hasn’t
had these experiences herself. Seeing the world through the eyes of these
diverse creatures is amazing, and I felt like I was completely immersed in
their worlds.
This is such a strong story in every way, especially for
a debut novel. I could really see this as a movie in the same vein as “The
Hunger Games” – it is young/new adult writing with a serious edge. Either way,
I can’t wait to read whatever Emma Geen does next. She finishes the novel with
a great disclaimer, reminding the reader that she is not a scientist, but that
her research was extensive. She writes that “[s]cience permits only one truth,
one reality. But what if there are other valid ways of knowing? What if the
world is not one, but multitude, with as many ways of being as there are
beings? What if literature were the opportunity to glimpse such refractions,
thrown by the world as though from a diamond?” (Loc. 3789) This is the true
purpose of literature, I think, and that is why this novel spoke to me so
clearly.
I received this novel from Bloomsbury Publishing and
NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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