Greg Egan is a prolific science fiction author Active on social media Can be found pondering questions of complex geometry
His worlds might be considered a kind of parallel fiction where a single fundamental paradigm is changed with the expected consequences. He then goes a step further in disrupting this new equilibrium with another development.
An overall tender story, if you can accept the body horror inherent to discussions about our physical humanity. I first heard that it was inspired by the work of Dr Michael Levin, a scientist whose ideas I greatly admire for pushing my own past a major philosophical roadblock. And indeed, at the end of the book one of his seminal papers is cited. Michael Levin, “The Computational Boundary of a ‘Self’: Developmental Bioelectricity Drives Multicellularity and Scale-Free Cognition,” Frontiers in Psychology , December 2019, volume 10, article 2688, online at https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02
Characters are all female
Going by chapters is a necessary limitation of text. Rather, I consider the story a tapestry woven from 3-4 distinct threads, though of course some images are composed mostly of one thread at first, and later joins with another. Link to Ch5
In a world where the cells that make up our bodies are not committed to any one organism, Marla is confronted by the fickleness of her cytes, and resolves to understand them with help from Ada, a centuries-old Flourisher. Swappers like Ruth embrace fluidity, and meet with others to exchange cytes, seeking the perfect mix. But Ruth faces her own crisis, and as the technology to manipulate cytes advances, all three are drawn into a struggle to shape the future of life.
The Auto-Ablation of Marla A personal health crisis has struck Marla, which her mother Silvia handles with solemn practicality: Her left limbs have disintegrated into their component cells which have migrated across her bedroom. Sisters: Fiona (youngest), Joanna and Emily, taking turns between curiosity and aggravation. Dr Gimbel and Geraldine the pig. Fear, guilt, blame. Pig extract used to elicit the secretion of salve from teats But it’s not enough and Geraldine must be slain for Marla to survive. That was her purpose for dwelling in this household. After the deed is done in the bathtub, what’s left mostly resembles salve. Marla lies in this Limits of knowledge: Why would cytes desert a healthy body? Why are cytes interchangeable between a slain pig and a live, wounded human girl? And even the drastic sacrifice of the household pig might not be enough to save her life, a question which would only be answered after 8 hours of immersion. (She even wonders if it’s the pig who would be re-constituted instead.) The doctor has great humility.
Analogy of the body as a city. Similar analogies to the body as a nation, together with more unsavoury metaphors.
A dialogue-heavy hook, slow and inevitable, ending on an equally slow cliffhanger.
(Where’s the father? Or brothers?)
The Dice against Ruth A bit of realism with webpages that we have learned to massage, rather than they simply serving the needs of the end-user. A gruff accountant Ruth who pulls her sister Sarah as a witness to some sort of clandestine exchange, with the stakes extending to life or death. Again the body-city analogy appears, this time in reference to Zaleh. This is a next implication of pan-metazoan cytes: Deliberate cyte transfer between individuals. Preparing the body by consuming a tailor-cooked meal, something like the macros cited by gym-goers. Deserted part of town. Simple clothes, lack of jewellery, spray can to ward off assailants. Except this illegal spray might melt their eyeballs, a claim Sarah takes seriously. Old American-style public health poster warning body-covering bathing suits when swimming in sewage-contaminated water. Apparently the presence of decomposers in such waters might even lure the cytes out of a human body. Ruth’s pursuit of the perfect cytome has left her greatly changed in appearance, to the point that Sarah claims no other relative would recognise her on the street any more. Zaleh as a large-sized human. Being built up as a kind of ideal for the Swappers. A bit of world-building where Ruth claims that humans are the most successful morphotype for cytes in terms of food and shelter. Dermalyse, an enzyme for breaking down skin. As established in Marla’s case, skin helps contain the cytes within the body. An apparently one-sided exchange in the case of Tonia and Xue, where the former became noticeably emaciated after losing 8 kg. Swapping as an illegal activity, to the point where even research on it is banned. Ruth even used a pseudonym called Deborah. Note: Deborah and Ruth are often cited as women of faith in the Old Testament, as Deborah was the only named female judge in the pre-regal period of Israel, and Ruth was a Moabitess who supported her Israelite mother-in-law after the death of her husband. Rahab is the third name, but probably was omitted due to its lesser popularity. Sensing cyte flows using proprioception. Anesthesia of dermalyse, outflow of cytes, burning of ‘invading’ cytes. Then uncharacteristic fatigue. Before she could sound the alarm, the danger instinct itself snuffed out and her awareness quickly followed. Second cliffhanger
All women
Marla’s Recovery So in 2 chapters both protagonists have been thrust into health crises: ONe through accident and the other through choice. But of course Marla’s fine. Inquiry: Will the names lengthen on a re-growing arm? They didn’t. Nadia had supported this disproven hypothesis. More questions: Sequence of re-growth, rate of re-growth, target shape, target size. These are very real questions in the real-life study of regeneration. A new faction introduced through Nadia’s traumatic recount: A Scavenger who forcibly exchanges cytes with others, as contrasted with Swappers who agree to exchanges. Scavenging may involve years of stalking not just the victim but their families as well before the physical assault. They seek immortality, which may arise rarely in individuals, yet might not be shared with their kin. Here lies the second tweak in the setting, since immortal humans are mentioned only in myth and legend even today. Feeling that they have reached the limits of human potential, the rich and powerful continue seeking to indefinitely prolong their lives, to no avail. A lingering echo: The fingernail of her left index finger continued to grow abnormally fast.
The Scavenger is also a woman
Ruth’s Awakening A prosaic description of her sensorily-deprived predicament, along with a determination to push through. She thought of Zaleh and Sarah.
Whims of the Rich A timeskip to Marla working as some kind of biological researcher whose lab is being visited by the long-lived patron Ada Moss. It’s a plunge straight into current biology.
When Ada arrives with other VIPs Prof. Ubani and Dr. Piper, Dr. Lidcombe explains her lab’s work in the production of characterised mono-salves that physicians could mix and match, as compared to the heterogenous salves produced by mothers nursing their young. Nitpick: Excrete is used for waste, while secrete is used for chemicals that serve other purposes. There is a similar problem being faced by cell culturers: Animal-free serum. Mammalian cells are harder to grow in the lab due to their slower growth rates as compared to unicellular organisms or even plants and fungi. The conventional solution is to grow them in Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS), which to put it bluntly is the purified blood of young calves. More politely it’s described as a by-product of the meat industry or factory farming. The cultured meat industry is especially keen on finding a formulation based purely on the mix of measured ingredients, with results varying based on the cell type and species. On a more hobbyist front, the YouTuber Thought Emporium even tried Gatorade with some effectiveness. Maintaining cell cultures is a constant chore to ensure that the cells remain viable. Otherwise they might get infected, overrun by bacteria, grow too densely, prematurely specialise, stop growing entirely or develop unusual morphologies, amongst many other concerns. It’s a necessary step to pursue other goals, namely the controlled multiplication and specialisation of stem cells in other contexts, whether to replace non-functional tissue, re-create an organ for research or grow a cut of meat without animal suffering.
Then Ada addresses Marla directly on her work, and Marla explains that she’s seeking to find a polysaccharide that might induce individual cultured cytes into a stable resting state. This is a small part of the story, but I’ll summarise it as the concept that cells bear surface receptors on their cell membranes to detect any of thousands of molecules ranging from sugars (polysaccharides), proteins (amino acids) fats (lipids or steroids) or ions (H+ or metals). These might trigger any of a multitude of signalling cascades that triggers a change in the cell’s behaviour or physiology. So no surprise that Marla is working on this, but also no surprise on Ada’s pessimism. The search space is simply too large for the cycle time of a month. That’s a lot of woman-hours.
In turn, Marla contemplates Ada’s physiology rather than her status or personality. On some sense her physiology is precisely what granted her those other two privileges. Just a somewhat old person who never actually experienced senescence. Marla wished to know the cell lineages of her body’s cytes, speculating that some might even have survived for her entire lifetime of centuries (250+ years old), while others might have drastically shifted their role over time, even immigrating from outside of her body. Then Ada displays surprising openness: She wants the research to be published openly with anyone to produce the monosalves without fearing patent infrigement or copyright. In other words, Open Access. Probably Greg Egan’s own preference as well. Basically, in academic publishing the publishers earned their revenue from readers subscribed to regular releases of the academic journals managed and owned by themselves. But in Open Access it is the authors who pay the publishers instead so that readers can freely access the research. The authors in turn ask for this publishing expense in their budgets. Both approaches have pros and cons, and while the latter does sound appealing, it is subject to the control of the rich and powerful who then shape the direction of research. But then again, they’ve always been shaping it since the time of kings.
the challenges in stably isolating cytes for clinical use. Simply leaving them might result in unwanted mutations or adaptation to uni-cellularity, while storing them in liquid nitrogen would introduce freezing and thawing issues.
Dr. Lidcombe, Celia, Talia. All women.
Do you realise it yet? I’ve practically been rubbing it in your face. All the characters are female. Do they behave in recognisably female ways? If the pronouns were swapped, would there be any difference? I think so, and a friend of mine who is more sensitive about these matters enjoyed the story as well.
Tags: reading