The second in a series of three novels exploring what it means to be human, this novel’s title comes from an encounter between the protagonist and her father, who remarks that she is ‘barely human’ when he realizes she has transitioned into an immortal robotic body and demonstrates that she is no longer capable of the emotions, nor able to experience the feelings that made her a person he could recognize.
This is the dilemma the singularity between biologic and technologic systems will pose. What does it mean to be human when you remember love, but do not experience it? When you do not feel pleasure or pain? When the motivation to seek love, have a family and raise a future generation is no longer possible in the sense that we know it?
The forces that hold communities together shatter when we move into a stasis. We no longer work to afford a home, to raise a family, that will grow and mature over time, eventually taking their rightful place in another community and repeat the process.
What of the inequality that will result from those who transition to superhuman, while all others remain left behind? Unable to compete with those whose abilities sprint away from the rest of humanity with every chip upgrade.
The inequality that results when there are immortals amongst us. Not everyone would be able to be transitioned, which also condemns those who do not to death, when those who do never die.
And what of the family that gets left behind, leaving the immortals as lonely individuals with no support from the family and friends who were their life?