Our verdict on sci-fi novel Every Version of You: We (mostly) loved it

The New Scientist Book Club continued to reflect on the inner workings of the mind with our November reading, moving from neurologist Masud Husain’s look at the brain disorders of some of his patients, Our brain, ourselvesto Grace Chan’s sci-fi exploration of a world where citizens upload their brains into a virtual utopia, Every version of you.

Following the stories of Tao-Yi – who is reluctant to leave our world, although ravaged by climate change, for the digital paradise Gaia – and her boyfriend Navin, who is one of the first to upload his brain, Every version of you definitely piqued the interest of the book club members. This was certainly the case for me too: I felt this book touched on so many questions, from what constitutes a person themselves to what the meaning of home is, and from climate change to grief.

“I really enjoyed it. It was probably the best the club has chosen so far,” Glen Johnson wrote on our Facebook group. “My knowledge of avatars is limited to the first film of the same name so [I] I was a little confused for the first few chapters,” says Margaret Buchanan. “However, once I got into the story, I was captivated by the book. I can understand the need to escape the mess we’ve created on earth, but I found Tao-Yi’s need to maintain his substance and identity really believable.

Judith Lazell also found this novel “a very enjoyable read” and points out something that also impressed me: “I really enjoyed the ‘jet’ moments and the way the worrying state of the planet was described in a tangential way,” she says. This is a very good point: I thought that the way Chan made us reconstruct the terrible reality of the end of the 21st^stSeventeenth-century Australia itself was brilliantly managed.

Of course, this is a book club with many members (there are over 22,000 of you now), so not everyone has been so positive. “I loved this book but I am ambiguous about the ending,” says Linda Jones, while Jennifer Marano is also not convinced by certain details: “The climate situation as described in the book is very worrying,” she says. “I just finished the book and felt very unsatisfied. There was some hope that the planet could regenerate with most of the humans uploaded to Gaia in cyberspace, but no mention of how the digital universe they escape to is powered.”

Every version of you stayed with me for months (I re-read it in May) as I pondered the many questions it raised – including, of course, whether or not I would download. I’m leaning towards no, as is Chan herself, as she told me in our interview, and it’s a question members have been pondering online. “In today’s world – no, but if/when our world deteriorates to the same degree as in the book, it might be a different story,” says Steve Swan.

Karen Seers has an interesting take on this question. “When I started reading this book, I thought I would have avoided downloading it until I was sure of Gaia’s structure, policies, and protocols,” she writes. “Then I injured the ligaments in my knee and that changed my perspective a bit. I thought more about how I might be less inclined to want to stay in today’s world if access became very difficult.”

One of the things I really liked about this book is the way it addresses disability through Navin’s pain and discomfort in the real world – a major driving force behind his desire to upload it to Gaia. This seemed to me to be handled with care and sensitivity, and it also struck Niall Leighton.

“I think it’s to Chan’s credit that she makes an effort to address issues of disability and marginalization (especially given some of the criticism of other recent books!), although I think there’s more to be said,” Niall said in response to Karen. “If one rejects the assumption that there is a continuity of consciousness, what does that say about the decision to download? There are huge contemporary issues about how we manage and potentially end physical and mental suffering, as well as how human societies are structured that make life unnecessarily difficult for people with disabilities.”

In his review of the book, Niall wrote that he had “extremely mixed feelings” about this novel. “It’s a complex, multi-layered work that comments on a number of current issues, and there’s no doubt that it kept my brain occupied. In that, it meets my expectations of a good science fiction novel. Grace Chan has clearly worked extremely hard on her plot, characterization, and prose, and it’s an excellent book, if you like that sort of thing,” he writes.

“On the other hand, I’m not one of those people. It turned out to be another book fulfilling the seemingly insatiable demand from publishers, and even readers like me, for another person bravely confronting a new dystopian hell.”

This is a topic raised by a few members – not another dystopia! “It’s a pretty easy read, but I can’t say I particularly enjoy it. It’s another dystopian vision of the future and we’ve had a few of those this year, like Dengue boy And Circular movement“, says David Jones.

For Phil Gurski, the book “grew on me over time (I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish it at first).” “Even though it was another depressing dystopian novel (the end of the world due to climate change), it held my interest,” he writes. “One comment: the world where everyone is online all the time reminds me of when I’m riding the O-train in Ottawa and I’m the only one reading a physical book (and not looking at my cell phone!). » Note to Phil: I also look out for other London Underground readers – and I’m happy to find that I’m never the only one!

I hear you say you don’t want another dystopia – I guess the problem is that science fiction is usually set in the future, and it’s more interesting whether that future is better or worse than our current reality. I hope you’ll approve of our December reading anyway, even if it has utopian undertones: that of Iain M Banks. The games playerafter publishing another Banks novel, Consider Phlebasin a book club vote. Set in the interstellar man-machine society of Culture, this follows the great Jernau Morat Gurgeh. Master of every game he tries, the novel will see Gurgeh challenge himself with the infamously complex game of the cruel Empire of Azad, the winner of which becomes emperor.

Check out an excerpt here, from the novel’s opening, as well as a fascinating article by Bethany Jacobs, another of the late Banks’ sci-fi authors, in which she explores her “astonishing” talent as a world-builder. And join our Facebook group, if you haven’t already, to share your thoughts on all our readings.