Join
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
“A searing, ballistic plunge into the mysteries of identity and mortality” from the author of the time travel sci-fi thriller Side Life (Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love).
What does it mean to be human, and what happens when humanity takes the next step in its evolution?
When Join arrived, it was hailed as a miracle: a technology that allowed humans to join consciousnesses. To experience perfect, constant companionship through multiple bodies. To never die.
But Chance and Leap—two joins of five and four respectively—discover a terrifying malfunction in the technology.
Chance and Leap must journey into the climate change–ruined heart of North America and the communities of never-joined “ferals” in search of the only ones who can dismantle the technology: the ones who created it.
“[Toutonghi] combines smart, imaginative extrapolation about technology and a deep curiosity about civilization and the human condition.” —NPR.org
“Join is a conceptual powerhouse, tapping into the core of our contemporary debates about technology.” —Tor.com
“A heady sci-fi thriller about a world-altering technology—and its hidden costs.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Challenging, surprising, shocking, and enlightening. Steve Toutonghi’s Join stands alongside Ancillary Justice as a novel that forces us to ask impossible questions about identity and immortality. An exciting addition to 21st century science fiction.” —Robert Repino, author of D’Arc and Mort(e)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Toutonghi's debut novel, "joins" are entities comprising pooled consciousnesses shared by any number of individuals, or "drives." The social and interpersonal ramifications of this imaginative form of personhood are duly explored in the first part of this novel, but the going is not easy. The attempts to explain an essentially mysterious process can be tedious, and drives with names such as Chance 6 and Leap 2 are hard to keep track of. Also frustrating is the author's penchant for eliding the obvious such as when two drives of a single join are having sex, and Toutonghi ignores the fact that, basically, the join is having sex with itself. The latter half of the book, which focuses on disastrous climate changes on Earth and the chasm that exists between joins and "solos" (those whose consciousness isn't connected), is much more compelling, presenting two radically differing visions of humanity's future. Unfortunately, the most intriguing and thought-provoking issues are raised only at the conclusion, and even then, they're given too-short shrift.