Grains of Posthumanism
Samuel R. Delany's philosophical science fiction novel, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand begins in a future in which humans have developed divergently on over 6,000 planets (6,200 to be exact). The reader is instantly thrown into a planet called Rhyonon. Here, we meet a human male called Korga. He is an unhappy being, so he agrees to undergo psychosurgery and essentially become numb to the outside world by becoming a work slave. The process is called Radical Anxiety Termination, or R.A.T. for short. He is now RAT Korga.
Next, on the planet known as Velm, we meet another human male by the name of Marq Dyeth. He narrates the rest of the novel. Marq is an International Diplomat - he sees that there is equal distribution of economy on each of the many planets and helps manage the transfer of technology to different societies. His family is rich and associates themselves with one of two main political parties throughout the galaxy called the Sygn. The other, more conservative party is called the Family.
The main, posthuman theme in this novel is the concept that the characters fear - cultural fugue. This concept is defined as technology and culture clashing to create a giant, incessant positive feedback loop. This ties in directly with technological singularity. Ultimately, artificial intelligence becomes so self-reliant that it can not only sustain itself, but develop "better" versions of itself. This process would only speed up over time and destroy life as we know it. This is where Delany's cultural fugue gathers weight; it can destroy planets.
The planet Rhyonon, where the reader met Korga, has been destroyed. It is speculated that cultural fugue is the culprit. The planet was simply reduced to rubble and ashes. Korga was the only known survivor. This is how Marq hears of our initial subject.
Near the end of the novel, the reader begins to see that Marq is in love with RAT Korga. The two appear very compatible, not to mention that they are both of the same species. However, at a dinner party filled with political tension, Korga is taken away from Marq and the two never see each other again. Years later, Marq finds that the two were separated because their love was essentially so strong and pure that it would have caused cultural fugue (I wanted to call complete and utter nonsense on that one).
Delany gives his novel, based on a true story of his own sexuality, a romantic hopelessness for the reader to cling to. This makes me wonder if a technological singularity has the power to eliminate emotion, or in this case, specifically love. Back-tracking just a bit here to sexuality, I noticed that most of the book is centered around this notion. Information or the attaining of information appears to be a sexual practice in this book. This is where gender assignment comes into play, as well. In the Stars Universe, everyone is a "she". "He" is only used to denote sexual attraction. In a way, our author was bringing out a few key hints at feminism with this rhetorical choice; one wouldn't normally think of everyone in the novel as a "she" or as "womankind". This choice kind of forces the reader to make up their own opinion of characters without being influenced by the gender of them.
Another posthuman concept is GI or General Information. Everyone on the 6,000+ planets in this imaginatively crafted universe is equipped with GI in their brains. This would be like having google in your head! - with a few exceptions and blocked domains. We kind of have this technology now, only in the form of tablets, computers, and cellular phones. How Delany thought of this in the 1980s impresses me.
The part in the novel that intrigued me the most was Chapter Ten: A Dragon Hunt. The entire chapter covers one scene in which Marq and RAT Korga travel to another planet and go "dragon hunting". At first, this chapter's title made me angry, as I thought that these characters were setting out to kill magical creatures. But as I read on I discovered that they are seeking a being other than themselves to experience a sort of spiritual elation. Essentially what happens in this chapter that is so posthuman is the "latching-on" of one's mind to another's. RAT Korga and Marq, armed with what appear to be crossbow-like armaments, fire their "weapons" at dragons, hoping to hit one so that they can connect their minds to the winged wonders and see what it is like to fly and think like a dragon.
