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21st Century Kids

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Jimmy Adams has written a review of Shannon Vyff's
book entitled "21st Century Kids: An Innovative Adventure" which
is much better than anything that I can write about the book. I
am sharing it here for those interested in the book.

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21st Century Kids: An Innovative Adventure reviewed by Jimmy Adams

BEWARE! Your memory of reading this book could be
ERASED!

21st Century Kids is not a fairy-tale for children to
read. This book opens up a completely inventive world
of what life will be analogous to in the future. This
work should be compulsory reading for all
transhumanists, cryonicists and people into life
extension.

The author, Shannon Vyff, wrote about what could
possibly occur if suspended for approximately 200
years. Set in the year 2189, the real life
protagonists Avianna, Avryn and with the help of
Avalyse, tell the progress of their story by their
capacity to evolve into the new culture.
Reminiscent of other literary classics in the vein of
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells and A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, this book
is a societal exposition. In the form of a
chronological account from the future, Vyff describes
how trans-civilization developed. This is not an ideal
Utopia comparable to the novel by Sir Thomas More.
Pollution has damaged the world's ecological system
and the civilizations must live in nano-shield spheres
for protection, there is also a black market
sub-society as well as political factions vying for
power.

A comparative analysis of this adventure to the
classics:

The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells, is known to many as a
children's classic, but was really about the social
political views in the 19th-century. By traveling
forward in time, Wells was able to express his views
of the world around him during a chaotic period. Vyff
similarly tells about a possibly accurate portrayal of
the future in an extraordinary story of her children
traveling by cryonic suspension into the tranhumanial
future.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark
Twain created the sub-genre of science fiction when
his character, Hank Morgan, transports back into time.
This was the first true book of time travel back in
time rather then forward in time as The Time Machine.
Similarly, Vyff creates a sub-genre for transhumanial
literature with 21st Century Kids. Mark Twain was
commenting on the existing society of the 19th
-century in a satire. Vyff has created a paradigm
shift for the 21st-century by traveling forward in
time by using cryonics as the transport medium.

This work is much superior to Robert A. Heinlein's To
Sail beyond the Sunset or The First Immortal by James
L. Halperin. This novel is devoid of all the
superfluous sex and violence to move a story, yet at
the same time is a page-turner all ages find hard to
put down.

The first chapter begins with a bang! No time to
explain the life style of the principal characters, an
accident happens very quickly.

A bright light just flashed near my window. I'll look
out to see what it is. Was that a flying saucer? No,
it is just the full moon behind the clouds.I think.

The initial narrative point of view is from Avianna, a
twelve-year-old girl, re-animated into the new world.
She gets through the event and finds the information
that leads her to her ambition. To find her clone;
akin to The Descent of Inanna, (Ishtar), Avianna has a
feminine journey structure. She finds that the world
is a beautiful place but she feels that she cannot
grow because she does not know what happen to her
clone. Avianna has learned about a spaceship that will
travel to search for the lost colonists, but she would
have to be a stowaway...
The first thing Avianna encounters in this new world
after her awakening are transhuman themes: A.I.;
enhanced ageless humans and animals; telepathic, with
different perceptions of time, watch-recorders,
robots, nanotechnology; uploading and downloading
sequences, such as schoolwork or even entities into
supplementary forms of life. Oh, yes there are also
flying cars!

The School of Langeles is where the children
collectively reside, using nano-minting to create
whatever they want. They can change their rooms just
by thinking of a new design and then the nanobots
construct the environment to whatever they desire.
However, her genetic copy is missing in deep space.
Avianna has new dolphin acquaintances; will she leave
them for outer space?

There is an eerie sound resembling a low hum near the
door.but I need to finish this review.

The second narrative point of view is from Avryn, a
ten-year-old boy who was also cryo-vitrified. He
decides to make a sacrifice similar to The Epic of
Gilgamesh, Avryn takes a masculine journey structure.
When he was re-animated, his sister has vanished into
deep space. Avryn needs to take a robot form for the
expedition in space. can he locate her?

I don't believe what I'm seeing! A gray being with
large black eyes, just stepped out of the shadows! Its
coming toward me!

I woke up. What was I doing? I look at the bookshelves
and I notice that there is a book missing, a gap
between two other books. I can't remember which book
was there.

I notice the computer is on the internet. It is the
book club forum. 21st Century Kids. Wow, what an
interesting soundingstory! I'll have to buy that book.

Hyperdrives, nano-minting, accelerated brains with direct computer interfaces, conversations with dolphins, indefinite lifespan... It may all sound a little far-fetched, but consider the current acceleration of scientific knowledge. This acceleration inevitably leads to exponential growth in technological progress. Now project this 180 years into the future! Shannon Vyff does exactly that. In her novel '21st Century Kids' she pulls the reader straight into the fascinating world of the year 2188. When we get there, we will encounter highly advanced human beings - upgraded to a version 5.0 of the earlier model, so to speak. Does this sound too strange to you? Think twice. Already today, we live in a time of Web 2.0 and the 3.0 version will follow soon. People's lives are improved by products like pacemakers, artificial limps, and cochlear implants also known as bionic ears. So what happens if this trend continues? Not only continues, accelerates?

Ray Kurzweil in his highly acclaimed book 'The Singularity is Near' defines the technological singularity as a point in the future when technological advances begin to happen so rapidly that normal humans cannot keep pace. In the fifth of his six epochs of the universe's evolution he foresees the merger of human technology with human intelligence. This is what Shannon Vyff's book is all about. So will we all end up as version 5.0 humans? Not necessarily, but there is a way and the book's plot contains all the hints on how it could be achieved.

While Ray Kurzweil established a solid scientific foundation for the expected accelerating changes, the author of '21st Century Kids' brings this scenario to life with two vivid and memorable characters: a girl named Avianna and a boy named Avryn. Both children die in a tragic car accident and are rushed to a hospital where contemporary medicine soon reaches its limits. Normally two death certificates would be signed and the grieving parents would prepare the funeral of their two beloved children. Is there no other way? Well, actually there is. Avianna and Avryn's parents decide to put their children's bodies into cryonic suspension. Advanced vitrification techniques are applied to protect the bodies and the delicate brains.

Avianna is the first of the two to awake 180 years later. At first she can't see anything, but hears voices in her head. She is vastly surprised to have survived the terrible accident and it takes her a while to grasp the full significance of what is really happening. Her badly injured body has been repaired by nanorobots. Her fully intact brain - which had not suffered from oxygen deprivation - was being greatly enhanced with ultramodern computer technology. She realizes she can think so fast that the experience of an hour of events barely takes a minute. Talk about quality time! The Internet - now called the grid - can be connected to every brain directly. That way the cerebral cortex can access encyclopedic information or any kind of information in almost an instant. There is no need for a web browser, Wikipedia search fields, or archaic mouse clicks. Even speech-to-text interfaces are superfluous. Just a thought. That's all it takes. Too hard to imagine? Okay, in today's techno-babble language our future brain would run at something like a 100 terahertz, have its own IP address (IPv6 of course!) and a wireless 10-petabit connection. Say good-bye to slow cursor response and limited bandwidth.

Avianna learns about numerous changes that have taken place during her time in the cryonics chamber: molecular manufacturing is done by nano-minting techniques, aging was ended in the year 2101, humans can choose between biological and robotic forms, schools are the tallest buildings in the cities, status is gained by accumulating knowledge instead of physical beauty or market capitalization. When Avianna leaves the hospital she quickly masters how to decorate walls with her thoughts. She also boards flying cars to cross the city and even takes a cool mini-break to see the magnificent ice buildings of the North Pole. Too magical? Sit back and make sure your seat belt is securely fastened. Modern hyperdrives allow spaceships to travel the galaxy in a matter of months instead of millennia. In fact, seat belts are not really needed for the smooth ride. This may be a bit too miraculous and could leave the impression that things are always perfect and never go wrong. Well, this is about to change. Several extrasolar planets suitable for human colonization have already been reached by the new pioneers of the late 22nd century. Contact with one of the colonies has been lost. Was there a terribly tragedy? One of the lost colonists is Avalyse, Avianna sisters's great-great-granddaughter and Avianna boards a starship to join the search party. A mysterious world awaits her, full of beauty and charm, but also fraught with danger and challenges at every turn.

Shannon Vyff has crafted a gripping and powerful tale that portrays the transhumanist visions in vivid personal detail. Her storytelling is entertaining, insightful and thought-provoking. She captures the imagination of young readers and adults alike, while also deepening the knowledge about the true potential of technological progress. All of us need to be aware of the accelerating rate of paradigm shifts. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the mid-term future of the human species.

This is a really good story. Though billed as a kids book, it shows real depth of thought about many future technology issues, including artificial intelligence, human augmentation, cryonics, and personal identity. While much has been written about these topics by others, never before have all these ideas been put together in such an engaging and entertaining form.

To begin with, the title, while not a misnomer, is misleading. It suggests that this is a book for kids, but in fact this is really a book for "the whole family."

Someone, it might have been Kurt Vonnegut, once wrote that it was too bad nobody had put together a manual for people newly born as to what they might expect from life in the future so they could prepare better for it. Well, 21st Centuries kids is a major contribution to that end.

This is a book about children (adolescents actually) but it is definitely not, only a book for adolescents. It is a book that simply, but brilliantly, projects the rapidly emerging scientific technologies of space exploration, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, nanotechnology, cryonics, radical life extension, etc., that make-up the gathering momentum of The Singularity, or that point in this century when humans will have evolved into a new, transhuman, species. This will of course be an event equal in importance to the evolution of Homo-sapiens from Neanderthals, with many more promises, and some perils.

It begins simply enough in 2008. A family is on their way to a church Christmas event when there is a tragic automobile accident. Two children who did not survive the accident but who do survive 200 years in cryonic suspension, Avianna, a precocious and determined 12 year old whom every parent would want as a daughter, and her slightly younger brother, Arvyn (Vyff has an alliteration for the letter A) awaken to a new world of the late 21st century, in which all of the far out scientific and technological projects already unfolding have transformed almost everything.

Like Mark twain's, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; H G. Well's, The Time Machine; and Edward Bellamy's, Looking Backward; 21st Centuries Kids is a serious text disguised as an enjoyable read. Vyff has also crafted a great story around the solid forecasts of the 20th and 21st centuries leading futurists, RCW Ettinger, Buckminster Fuller, FM 2030, Ray Kurzweil, et al...

Herself a leading Transhumanist (the 21st century equivalent of the humanists of the past century), author, educator, and parent, who apparently tested 21st Centuries Kids out on her own kids, who then literally demanded that she publish it for which we can all be thankful.

Again, this is not just a kid's book but it is especially important for parents and children seeking a fact-based antidote to the terrifying and destructive future fairy tales youngsters are so often subjected to today in popular media, which overwhelms so many of them with irrational hopelessness and helplessness during the time when they should be dreaming and preparing to "boldly go where no one has gone before." However, since the future will directly affect most grown-ups now alive, including probably many who don't think they will be around to see it, this is an important and useful book for everyone.

A word about the author, Shannon Vyff. Shannon is a mother, religious educator, author who, like me, regrets that biology is not moving as fast as technology. She has dedicated 21st Centuries Children to "the 6.4 billion human beings alive today" in hopes that we will use our ingenuity to move to the stars "after the 900 or so million of us who have enough to eat everyday find a way to help the billions who do not."

This is a serious and significant contribution to a literature of the human future. And, it is a treat.

Child characters with the perky brilliance of those in Heinlein's books combined with the explosive, adventurous landscapes found in the C.S. Lewis' Perelandra trilogy. This book hums with plot and is one of the most imaginative hard science fiction book that I can remember. It takes place in a future that feels very real and one that is highly entertaining to visit.

I liked the book. The book gave a feeling of seeing the future through the eyes of the respective ages of the children, which I really liked. It gave what I look for in a good fiction book, a catalyst to my imagination. The world building is great. The concepts were sound and imaginative. The flow of the book was good, as it was hard to sign off for the night once getting into it.

The book is a fun read that gives significant exposure to emerging technologies that will change how we live.

It is about time your kids get a taste of what is to come. With Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, simulated environments, cryonics, and brain enhancement it would be smart to read this book to your kids in order to prepare them for the ethical challenges over the horizon. This book is a fun way to contemplate the implications of advanced technology and the way it may shape institutions in the future.

"With all my enhancement chips and neural implants, was I even still 'human'?" ~Avryn

Computing power and the growing way it is used is one of the few things that continue to advance at an astounding pace. My ninth grade daughter told me a few days ago that at least two-thirds of the kids in her school have an MP3 player. This is a device that did not exist even a few years ago, and the amount of data that can be stored on them is astonishing. Even the most pessimistic of technology observers believe that the pace of advancement will not appreciably slow in the near future.
This story is about children 200 years from now, where advanced robots exist and have memories so sophisticated that an entire human consciousness can be transferred into them. Furthermore, the transference can be carried out both ways; the personality in a robot can be transferred back into the original brain. Therefore, it is possible to transfer your mind into a robot, explore dangerous places and then return your mind back to your body with the new memories intact. In addition, humans do not have to die, once their bodies begin to fail, their consciousness can be transferred into a robotic body. Advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) exists and has been granted human status. Animals with higher intelligence such as dolphins have also been granted full citizenship rights.
An extraterrestrial civilization has been encountered and they are generally hostile to humans. They are known as the Eurestans and their civilization was devastated by a civil war that nearly wiped them out. The Eurestans are capable of controlling human minds, making it difficult for the humans to deal with them. Cryogenics has also advanced to the point where a person can be frozen at the time of death and then reanimated hundreds of years later with little or no degradation of the personality. Humans have also learned how to be telepathic, many of the conversations in the book are telepathic in nature.
There are a lot of major advances described in this book and that is the fundamental problem with it. With so many major changes in technology described, there is no time to expand each out into a major plot device. This relegates all of the major changes such as finding an extra-terrestrial civilization and full personality transfer into minor plot devices. It would have been a much better book had there been a smaller number of major advancements and each of those advancements explored in greater detail.

Shannon Vyff shows a world where children apparently combine the best (and currently conflicting) aspects of high IQ's, high emotional intelligence and high-functioning autism in a wild ride of futuristic possibilities. While many of the ideas she uses will sound familiar to people who've read a lot of the science fiction published especially since the early 1980's, she combines them in some entertaining ways. If the futurist and transhumanist FM-2030 (F.M. Esfandiary) had ever written a children's novel, it would strongly resemble "21st Century Kids." Imagine a cross between "Harry Potter" and "The Matrix," and you only begin to describe the adventures of the siblings Avianna and Avryn. The youngsters in Robert Heinlein's novels about the future never had so much fun.