The Terraformers

"The Terraformers is, explicitly, a book concerned with imagining hopeful futures. In the far future, the Anthropocene is over: it ended in ‘The Farm Revolutions,’ a seismic event only ever alluded to in passing, which culminated in ‘The Great Bargain.’ This bargain is the foundation for rapprochement between life forms. Democracy is now directly participatory, and diverse life forms are included as persons with a right to inclusion; capitalism is still the organising principle, and an antagonistic force throughout the novel. The novel takes place on a privately-owned planet being terraformed, Sask-E. We begin from the perspective of a ranger from the ERT – the Environmental Rescue Team – but don’t get too settled: this is a novel in three parts, from the perspective of three protagonists who live centuries apart. Each is shaped by the political decision-making of the last, so that the overarching story is one of slow-burn political change, constantly in need of renegotiation. In each section, struggles over the use and ownership of the environment must be resolved, while the travails of personal relationships provide the book’s warmth. Newitz has enough ideas in Terraformers for ten novels – expect talking moose, an array of hominid species, and sentient trains – and tackles a whole range of themes. Personhood, and its relationship to intelligence and ability to consent, are particularly central: if personhood is tied to intelligence, but persons are designed and decanted with their intelligence pre-determined, what are the implications? And what labour can be asked of a conscious being without the intelligence to enter the bargain? The lines between artificial intelligence and organic have long been blurred in this world, and these questions affect everyone."