Factoring Humanity [Hardcover]

Robert J. Sawyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1998

The new SF novel of the human race transformed, from the Nebula award-winning writer

Since the early years of the twenty-first Century, Earth has been receiving signals from interstellar space -- but no one can understand them. Now they are simply the background noise of daily life, until the day they stop, message complete. Heather is one of the many scientists who has been working on the signals over the years, and now her whole life has gone astray, with one child a suicide, and her marriage failing. But she is the one who realizes that the signal contains instructions to build something: an extraordinary machine that allows one to mind travel into the collective subconscious of the human race. Factoring Humanity is a mindbending journey into a universe transformed.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Factoring Humanity will undoubtedly satisfy Sawyer fans, as well as those looking for positive-future scenarios à la Carl Sagan's Contact. Rather than a galactic vision of war and peace, this novel is localized in the extreme: the plot revolves around Heather, a psychology professor struggling to decipher extraterrestrial messages, and her estranged husband, Kyle, on the brink of the biggest computer science breakthrough of all time. What makes Factoring Humanity work is that Sawyer deals with vast ideas such as alien contact, quantum mechanics, and the human overmind, but does so to a deeply personal effect.

Sawyer, like many writers of near-future science fiction, has an unfortunate tendency to be too rooted in today, to make so many casual references to our present that they draw undue attention to themselves, making it difficult for the reader to suspend disbelief. This fascination with 20th-century pop culture crowds the real story and real details into a corner and underscores an apparent lack of creativity in painting future landscapes. Otherwise, and forgiving Sawyer's breathtakingly myopic view of Native Canadians and rather bland prose, this is exciting, readable science fiction that will take you where no one has gone before--and you'll never forget the ending. --Jhana Bach

From Publishers Weekly

It's the personal implications of first contact that Sawyer (Illegal Alien) dramatizes in his disturbing and uneven new novel. Set in Canada, circa 2017, the story focuses on Heather and her computer-scientist husband, Kyle, who have separated following the suicide of their daughter Mary. When younger daughter Rebecca confronts her parents and accuses her father of molesting her, the family starts to shake apart. Redemption comes in the unlikely form of alien altruism: the messages from Alpha Centauri that psychologist Heather has studied for years prove to be blueprints for a "psychospace" device that enables her to see into the overmind of humanity, and to know anyone's deepest thoughts. In a flash, Kyle is exonerated, Rebecca apologizesAand her nasty, manipulative therapist is blamed for the false accusation. Although the novel ends with Heather greeting the first starship from Alpha Centauri, the bulk of the plot centers around the family's own mystery, and so the conclusion comes off as anti-climactic. Sawyer also includes too many digressions about the cultural significance of Seinfeld, Star Trek bloopers and quantum physics, delivering a tale that ultimately works more as a study of the human heart than as believable story of alien encounter. (June) FYI: Sawyer, whose The Terminal Experiment won the 1995 Nebula for Best Novel, was recently elected president of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (July 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312864582
• ISBN-13: 978-0312864583
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,836,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert J. Sawyer -- called "the dean of Canadian science fiction" by the OTTAWA CITIZEN and "just about the best science-fiction writer out there" by the Denver ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS -- is one of eight authors in history to win all three of the science-fiction field's highest honors for best novel of the year: the Hugo Award (which he won for HOMINIDS), the Nebula Award (which he won for THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT); and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (which he won for MINDSCAN).

Rob has won Japan's Seiun Award for best foreign novel three times (for END OF AN ERA, FRAMESHIFT, and ILLEGAL ALIEN), and he's also won the world's largest cash-prize for SF writing -- the Polytechnic University of Catalonia's 6,000-euro Premio UPC de Ciencia Ficcion -- an unprecedented three times.

In 2007, he received China's Galaxy Award for most favorite foreign author. He's also won eleven Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards ("Auroras"), an Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, ANALOG magazine's Analytical Laboratory Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and the SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE Reader Award for Best Short Story of the Year.

Rob's novels have been top-ten national mainstream bestsellers in Canada, appearing on the GLOBE AND MAIL and MACLEAN'S bestsellers' lists, and they've hit number one on the bestsellers' list published by LOCUS, the U.S. trade journal of the SF field.

Rob is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences, teaches SF writing occasionally, and edits his own line of Canadian science-fiction novels for Red Deer Press.

His novel FLASHFORWARD (Tor Books) was the basis for the ABC TV series of the same name. He enjoyed spending time on the set and wrote the script for episode 19 "Course Correction."

His new WWW trilogy, WAKE, WATCH, and WONDER (Ace Books), is all about the World Wide Web gaining consciousness.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb hard science and a blazing pageturner, May 3, 2000

By 

Rob - See all my reviews

This review is from: Factoring Humanity (Mass Market Paperback)

I read this book in one night. I could not put it down, nor sleep. Every chapter drew me into the next and I was hopelessly lost to the real world for a fabulous evening. I felt that the family issues added a level of realism that often sci-fi lacks in its concern for high minded ideals and ultra big pictures.

My only qualm with this book was that Heather (the main character) seemed to have an unrealistically uncanny ability to make intuitive discovery after discovery that no single human likely would be capable of making by themselves, let alone in a matter of mere hours or days. In that sense it seemed forced, although if one is willing to forgive Mr Sawyer that one transgression, this book can easily be included amongst the best of the genre.

Something I found particularly satisfying was the breadth of future hard-scientific inquiry touched on. Everything from Quantum theory, Jungian overmind concepts, the nature of morality and god, defining characteristics of humanity, the future of AI's, and many other topics are addressed and add well to the plot. I heartily recommend this book to all sci-fi fans!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Near-future SF can still have really big ideas, April 9, 2000

By 

Peter Dowling (Montreal, PQ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Factoring Humanity (Mass Market Paperback)

Sawyer seems to like writing about the near future --- say, 10 to 20 years down the road. The effect is to ground his work in the everyday, in settings people can easily grasp. The setting of this novel, at the University of Toronto, should be familiar to anyone who has ever attended (or taught!) at a big city university. The details of academic life ring true ... but even more so do the details of Sawyer's characters personal lives, despite the horrific things that happen to them. Of course, this is SCIENCE fiction, and there's plenty of science, too: quantum computing, artificial intelligence, SETI (indeed, the SETI subplot, really relatively minor, is quite wonderful, especially for any fan of Alan Turing), and more. And the ending has that "sense of wonder" that is the hallmark of the best SF from the classic age. I've also read Sawyer's FLASHFORWARD, and gave that five stars, too, but between the two, this is my favourite, although both are excellent novels. Enjoy!

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Enough to Read, July 5, 2000

By 

Richard Tyler "Adult Child of an Engineer" (Redmond, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Factoring Humanity (Mass Market Paperback)

I read this book on a flight from Atlanta to Seattle, and it was perfect for the environment: short enough to finish in six hours, engaging enough to keep the pages flipping, and not so complex as to require more concentration than is possible on an airplane. As an alternative to the usual Clancy/Steele/Grisham airplane fare it was first-rate, as a Great Novel of Science Fiction, it was OK.

First, the bad news. The characterizations are flat and thin, with more revealed in internal dialogue than in actions. For example, our protagonist has his wife and two children ripped from him in different ways, but we are only told of his anguish. His actions in the story do not show it, although I did enjoy the scene when he asked his AI for moral comfort and support.

On the other hand, good science fiction rarely seems to also be great literature. Sawyer plays with cool ideas: quantum computers, the fourth dimension, artificial intelligence, the nature of "mind", recovered memories, and teenage angst (I find teenage angst the most difficult to understand). With so much deep thinking go on there is not much time left for finely detailed characterization.

"Factoring Humanity" seems to be a tribute to the great themes of science fiction. You get thinking machines with conscience ("I, Robot" and the other Asimov "Robot" stories, "With Folded Hands", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"), fun with tesseracts ("A Wrinkle in Time", "He Built a Crooked House"), and alien first contact (and sending construction plans via radio, as in "Contact").

First and foremost, it was a good read with lots of page-flipping interest. Recommended.