Wildlife [Hardcover]

James Patrick Kelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1994

One woman's personal story shows how the life-styles of the rich and famous begin to permanently alter the social order when it becomes possible for people to purchase eternal life and super intelligence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Surely SF's loudest tempest in a teapot in the past 25 years was the so-called cyberpunk vs. humanist debate. Attention was paid when Bruce Sterling, editing the definitive cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades , included "Solstice" by humanist writer Kelly. Wildlife , a fix-up novel which includes "Solstice," a novella called "Mr. Boy" and two other sections, indicates that the battle is over and the winners are the readers. Kelly's novel deals with the effects artificial intelligence could have on society through the relationships of three generations of the Cage family. In the near future, journalist Wynne Cage witnesses (and abets) the theft of Wildlife--a computer program designed to create a cognizor, a human-equivalent AI--for a brilliant man in a decaying body. In "Solstice" (now changed from third to first person), Wynne's father Tony, muses on his relationship with his daughter, actually a female clone, "a twin, except that we were carried to term in different wombs and her birth came some 28 years after mine." "Mr. Boy" is the only section that does not deal with some version of Wynne and seems too long, but Kelly ( Look into the Sun ) has combined the virtues claimed by the humanists with the technological possibilities that are the cornerstone of cyberpunk in a book that delves into the very core of what it means to be human.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

When advances in computer technology and bioengineering come together in a spectacular computer program known as Wildlife, a young woman's future becomes irrevocably altered, and society is forced to redefine the meaning of "human." Based on his Nebula Award-winning story, "Mr. Boy," Kelly's extrapolation of the next two centuries' worth of scientific discoveries is both a gargantuan parody of the current rush toward hedonism and a grim look at the delicate balance between artificial and "real" intelligence. The author of Look into the Sun ( LJ 4/15/89) goes beyond cyberpunk in one imaginative leap. Most sf collections should have this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 299 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (February 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312855788
• ISBN-13: 978-0312855789
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,257,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Patrick Kelly has had an eclectic writing career. He has written novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, plays and planetarium shows. His most recent writing project is James Patrick Kelly's Strangeways, a series of ebooks for Kindle featuring some of his best stories. His short novel Burn won the Science Fiction Writers of America's Nebula Award in 2007. He has won the World Science Fiction Society's Hugo Award twice: in 1996, for his novelette "Think Like A Dinosaur" and in 2000, for his novelette, "Ten to the Sixteenth to One." His fiction has been translated into eighteen languages. With John Kessel he is co-editor of Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka, The Secret History Of Science Fiction, Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology and Rewired: The Post Cyberpunk Anthology. He writes a column on the internet for Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine and the Board of Directors of the Clarion Foundation. He produces two podcasts: James Patrick Kelly's StoryPod on Audible and the Free Reads Podcast. His website is www.jimkelly.net.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like a breath of fresh air, January 3, 2000

By 

missmao - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wildlife (Paperback)

Great characterization, well written. Explores what it means to be alive and human, particularly in terms of artificial intelligence.