''Headlong'' is a 1999
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...
novel by English author
Simon Ings. It is Ings's fourth novel and depicts the struggle of a man trying to find his humanity after his previously enhanced senses have been removed. A review of the novel in ''
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publish ...
'' praised it as "mature and thoughtful".
[Sourbut, Liz, 27 February 1999]
Take flight
''New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publish ...
''.
Plot summary
''Headlong'' is set England in the mid-21st century. There has been a civil war and reconstruction after a period of corporate excess. Advances in nanoelectronics and
robotics
Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...
have led to the hybridization of human and
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
(AI). These expensive interfaces have only been installed on a few architects to facilitate their direction of
nanobot
Nanoid robotics, or for short, nanorobotics or nanobotics, is an emerging technology field creating machines or robots whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters). More specifically, nanorobotics (as opposed to m ...
s that are constructing beautiful cities on the Moon. However, a few years before the novel begins, the AIs take over the Moon and precipitate an economic collapse on Earth by subtle
market manipulation
In economics and finance, market manipulation is a type of market abuse where there is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market; the most blatant of cases involve creating false or misleading appearan ...
s.
The novel's
posthuman
Posthuman or post-human is a concept originating in the fields of science fiction, futurology, contemporary art, and philosophy that means a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human. The concept aims at addressing a variety o ...
protagonist Christopher Yale and his wife Joanne have enhanced senses and are telepathically linked.
[ Christopher has lived on the Moon for years.][Brooke, Keith]
Headlong by Simon Ings
Infinity Plus. When his interfaces are removed following the economic collapse, he struggles with Epistemic Appetite Imbalance (EAI), a disorder precipitated by the loss of his enhanced senses. Christopher and his wife divorce, and she is killed a few months later.[ Christopher is pursued by both his wife's murderers and the police.][Mathew, David, 2000]
SF Site.
References
1999 British novels
British science fiction novels
Voyager Books books
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