Who wants to live forever? No doubt a few do, but the broadest question asked by ML Lloyd in his character-led science fiction tale, PERILS OF IMMORTALITY, is what might the world look like if we actually could.  In Lloyd’s take, set far into the future in the west-American bio-province of Cascadia, humans–at least some of them–are entirely different as a concept. They can live forever, subject to certain changes that amount to a kind of complex system reboot every couple of centuries, but only–in a kind of hyper-capitalist twist–if they are rich enough to afford it. For the less well off, there might be a more limited life extension, or nothing at all.

For those who have crossed over, periods of time and levels of experience are now commonly measured in centuries, not in months or years. Humans, therefore, can’t really get much of a foothold. Plus–and this is made abundantly clear by the non-human characters–humans smell.  Our narrator and lead character is Harry, and he introduces us gently to a world where a strange combination of humans and artificial intelligence mix only lightly, with the artificial intelligence side very much in the primacy. Harry himself is slowly exhausting, suffering from a mental deterioration and feverishness that accompanies the need to ‘reboot’.

Humans here are a kind of sub-breed here, looked down on by their AI relations, whose technology has adapted to a kind of living mechanics, a kind of humanoid AI revolt still led by the human spirit. At the heart of the tale is Kora, a mush of human charisma deposited inside a valuable ‘husk’, a complex case of confused identity that Harry is determined to get functioning properly. He’s doing so in part to win a bet around her ability to portray a high-class AI, a challenge that will be undertaken at the high-end ‘Festival Of Firsts’. Meanwhile, Harry is haunted by Big Blue, a patronizing and aggressive parrot-like creature and an effect, perhaps, of his lessening grip on reality.

What’s different in PERILS OF IMMORTALITY is the portrayal of the future through a localized, character-led format. We learn of the broader context of the books’ world through clever peripheral comments and through our sideways glances at the outside world, and it’s new normals, such as sending humans to the nearest beach so they can copulate, or digging a deep hideaway hidden under a house as a form of personal protection. The story unravels slowly, centered mainly on Kora, Harry, and that bet, and it’s very much that clever plunging into a new-normal that is the PERILS OF IMMORTALITY’S main asset. Readers may feel as if they’ve landed in a new world, but not like it has been primed carefully for their arrival, and that’s a smart, refined piece of artistry.

A playful, character led glance at a far-flung future that’s somehow both wondrous and a touch dystopian. THE PERILS OF IMMORTALITY is a colorful science fiction story that leans more micro than macro, and is better for it.

~James Hendicott for IndieReader