Nina Munteanu’s Short Story “Natural Selection” features in Eagle Literary Magazine Issue #1

Illustration by Ionut Banuta

Sarah reached the summit, panting for breath, and grinned at her prize. She’d just caught the sun trembling over the horizon, before it dipped out of sight and left a glowing sky under pewter clouds. She glanced behind her, where the towers of Icaria blazed like embers catching fire. Struck by their beauty, Sarah admired their smooth, clean surfaces. 

When she looked back toward the path, the sanguine images burnt into her eyes.
Which way should she go? The deer path she’d followed now diverged into two smaller ones. She shifted her mind to veemeld with her AI, DEX. Which way should we go, DEX? 

Her AI answered in her head: Sarah, shouldn’t you be returning inside? It’s dangerous to stay out this long. Statistics are now against you for getting caught— 

Just a few more minutes, DEX. How about to the right?

“Natural Selection” tells the story of Sarah, an unruly veemeld who can speak to the machine world that runs Icaria. Given her immunity to the environmental disease ravaging the enclosed city, Sarah—at least her genetic material—is sought after by the Ecologist government in a bid to maintain order and reshape humanity through “selection”; but Sarah fraternizes with unsavory friends and her truant behaviour poses a great risk to her freedom and survival.

“Natural Selection” first appeared in 2013 in my short story collection of the same name by Pixl Press. The story returns in Issue #1 of Eagle Literary Magazine,Pan European Science Fiction & Fantasy Collection (Summer 2019; Nexus Project) edited by Mugur Cornilă and featuring the impeccable artwork of Ionuț Bănuță.

In the 2013 Pixl Press short story collection my introduction describes the theme that embraces the nine stories in the collection:

How do we define today a concept that Darwin originated 200 years ago in a time without bio-engineering, nano-technology, chaos theory, quantum mechanics and the internet? We live in an exciting era of complicated change, where science based on the limitation of traditional biology is being challenged and stretched by pioneers into areas some scientists might call heretical. Endosymbiosis, synchronicity, autopoiesis & self-organization, morphic resonance, Gaia Hypothesis and planetary intelligence. Some of these might more aptly be described through the language of meta physics. But should they be so confined? It comes down to language and how we communicate.

Illustration by Ionut Banuta

Is it possible for an individual to evolve in one’s own lifetime? To become more than oneself? And then pass on one’s personal experience irrevocably to others—laterally and vertically?

On the vertical argument, the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamark developed a theory of biological evolution in the early 19th century considered so ridiculous that it spawned a name: Lamarkism. His notion — that acquired traits could be passed along to offspring—was ridiculed for over two hundred years. Until he was proven right. Evolutionary biologists at Tel Aviv University in Israel showed that all sorts of cellular machinery — an intelligence of sorts — played a vital role in how DNA sequences were inherited. When researchers inserted foreign genes into the DNA of lab animals and plants, something strange happened. The genes worked at first; then they were “silenced”. Generation after generation. The host cells had tagged the foreign genes with an “off switch” that made the gene inoperable. And although the new gene was passed onto offspring, so was the off switch. It was Larmarkism in action: the parent’s experience had influenced its offspring’s inheritance. Evolutionists gave it a new name. They called it soft inheritance [also known as epigenetics].

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the movement of genetic material between organisms other than by vertical transmission of DNA from parent to offspring. Jumping genes (transposons) are mobile segments of DNA that may pick up a gene and insert it into a plastic or chromosome. Pieces of DNA move from one locus to another of a genome without parent-to-offspring by horizontal transposon transfer (HTT). Epigenetics describes the modification of DNA expression through DNA methylation—and results in “Lamarkism.” Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance is the new black: genes and environments interacting. Where do we end and where does environment begin? Researchers have proven the significant role of environmental feedback through HGT in evolutionary success. Researchers showed that up to 20% of a bdelloid rotifer’s genome is made of foreign genes that they stole from the environment through horizontal gene transfer and gene conversion. This compares to about 1% for humans and a fifth for tardigrades.
—excerpts from “A Diary in the Age of Water” due for release in 2020 by Inanna Publications.

As for passing on one’s experience and acquisitions to others laterally, education in all its facets surely provides a mechanism. This may run the gamut from wise mentors, spiritual leaders, storytellers, courageous heroes to our kindergarten teacher.  Who’s to say that these too are not irrevocable? This relies, after all, on how we learn, and how we “remember”.

Evolution is choice. It is a choice made on many levels, from the intuitive mind to the intelligent cell. The controversial British botanist Rupert Sheldrake proposed that the physical forms we take on are not necessarily contained inside our genes, which he suggested may be more analogous to transistors tuned in to the proper frequencies for translating invisible information into visible form. According to Sheldrake’s morphic resonance, any form always looks alike because it ‘remembers’ its form through repetition and that any new form having similar characteristics will use the pattern of already existing forms as a guide for its appearance.  This notion is conveyed through other phenomena, which truly lie in the realm of metaphysics and lateral evolution; concepts like bilocation, psychic telegraphing, telekinesis and manifestation. Critics condemn these as crazy notions. Or is it just limited vision again? Our future cannot be foretold in our present language; that has yet to be written. Shakespeare knew this…

There are more things in heaven and earth , Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy—Shakespeare

Each story in the “Natural Selection” short story collection reflects a perspective on what it means to be human and evolve in a world that is rapidly changing technologically and environmentally. How we relate to our rapidly changing fractal environments—from our cells to our ecosystems, our planet and ultimately our universe—will determine our path and our destiny and those we touch in some way.

My friend Heidi Lampietti, publisher of Redjack Books, expressed it eloquently, “For me, one of the most important themes that came through in the collection is the incredible difficulty, complexity, and importance of making conscious choices — and how these choices, large and small, impact our survival, either as individual humans, as a community, a species, or a world.”

 

“Natural Selection” also features the sprawling semi-underground AI-run city of Icaria (a post-industrial plague Toronto) that was first introduced in my novel “Darwin’s Paradox” and is a character itself. Sarah is a “gifted” and troubled misfit—not in sync with the rest of the population. Yet her choices—and how she is treated by her community— will influence an entire species and world.

Nina is a Canadian scientist and novelist. She worked for 25 years as an environmental consultant in the field of aquatic ecology and limnology, publishing papers and technical reports on water quality and impacts to aquatic systems. Nina has written over a dozen eco-fiction, science fiction and fantasy novels. An award-winning short story writer, and essayist, Nina currently lives in Toronto where she teaches writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College. Her non-fiction book “Water Is...”—a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, teacher and environ- mentalist—was picked by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times as 2016 ‘The Year in Reading’. Nina’s most recent novel “A Diary in the Age of Water”— about four generations of women and their relationship to water in a rapidly changing world—will be released in 2020 by Inanna Publications. www.NinaMunteanu.ca; www.NinaMunteanu.me

Evolution, Digital Immortality and "Freenet"

Steve Stanton’s fourth science fiction book Freenet explores humanity in the far future after we have created the “Macpherson Doorway” through folded space-time, and vaulted ourselves with the blink of an eye into a galaxy far far away and 12 million years into the future. No traffic back through the doorway is permitted since a quarantine was placed some dozen years ago to prevent any unwanted DNA from sneaking through from Earth to “New Jerusalem”.

As the back book jacket reveals, Freenet is a novel about the “power of [free] information…in a post-digital age.” The book explores what digital immortality means, when “consciousness has been digitized and cybersouls uploaded to a near-omniscient data-matrix.” This is a world where information “is currency and the truth belongs to whoever has the greatest bandwidth.”

Stanton shared with me that he was inspired to write the novel “from the simple observation of watching a woman lose her cellphone. Young people today are so tied to technology that they freak out when the strings are cut. In the future when life experience is delivered directly to the brain by wi-fi, the personal loss will be catastrophic.”

Told in three parts, the book begins with Simara Ying—a plugged-in V-net jockey and spacer—about to crash-land on the desert planet Bali. Her rescuer, a naïve—almost too nice to be true—native, Zen Valda, introduces her to his cave-dwelling culture with no social network support. The persistent electromagnetic storms of Bali interfere with digital communication and wipe all data. Like a baby removed from her comfortable womb, Simara survives panic attacks and heavy withdrawal chiefly because she is bombarded so heavily with Bali experiences that demand her attention. Lost without the support of her V-net—a comforting web of infinite communication and information—Simara struggles with Bali’s foreign ways. At every turn, she stumbles across some custom or taboo, forced to rely on her own wits; making the kind of mistakes she’s not used to making. More than a simple communication/information tool, the V-net embraces Simara with confidence. Without it, she fears she may go insane.

 

Canadian cover

Intrigue arrives on Bali and chases Simara with a bounty on her head for murder. Zen demonstrates a simple faith in her innocence and helps her escape. Zen accepts a cochlear installation to connect him to the V-net, thinking it will help him better communicate with Simara, who—already somewhat distant—is even more so now that she has reunited with the V-net.  The V-net instead overwhelms him with a surging sea of irrelevant chatter and information, which threatens to drive him insane. Struggling with chaotic information overload, he remains with Simara, even after she estranges herself from him and is captured for murder. They escape and survive an arranged “accident” by literally jumping into space from an abandoned troopship about to crash.

The story deepens into nuanced commentary in the last third of the book when Roni Hendrik, an energetic V-net anchorman of the Daily Buzz, pokes into the intrigue surrounding Simara Ying. He discovers that she is biogenic, an omnidroid—bioengineered from human DNA—and likely smuggled from Earth.

Omnidroids share a major cerebral augmentation that includes unlimited access to the V-net, higher intelligence and an unknown possibility of enhancements, including pre-cognition and telepathy across vast distances. Created as effective firewalls and filters, omnidroids streamline all V-net data for users across the galaxy. “Omnidroids [are] born into zero-day digital space and live in a fantasyland far beyond the mortal sphere of intelligence,” Henrik reflects, sensing a deeper story than a simple murder conspiracy. “Physical experience and bodily sensation [are] only tiny fragments of their transcendent existence, mundane accessories to digital infinity. In time,” Henrik concludes, “life itself might become a vestigial appendage.”

Nina holding a pre-release copy of Freenet

Hendrik, a humanist and closet idealist, pieces together connections with Neurozonics a New Jerusalem private corporation, responsible for the creation of biogenic humans. With holdings in a vast range of areas and an streaming amoeba of interests, Neurozonics is “a grinning spider on a translucent web of intrigue.” One discovery leads Henrik to more. He learns that the omnidroid community, to which Simara belongs, acts and communicates like a hive-mind, guided by a collective voice called “Mothership”. Other omnidroids have been targeted for elimination—and killed. Hell-bent on getting answers, Henrik confronts the owner of Neurozonics, Colin Macpherson—the same Macpherson who created the wormhole. Macpherson was uploaded earlier and runs his empire from digital space, part of the consortium of eternal intellect. 

Henrik’s meeting with Colin8 (the seventh clone of the original Colin Macpherson) runs like a “Neo-Architect” lecture in which the truth behind the omnidroids deaths is revealed. It’s not what you might think. Macpherson divulges his vision, which includes the reason for omnidroids’ communication abilities and the role of the Neurozonic brain. The ultimate meaning and use of the omnidroid freenet ties to a greater destiny that redefines what it is to be human and subverts the history of our primordial origins.

 

"Ma, can you read the part where the cat
omnidroid takes over the world?"

The story flows seamlessly from one perspective to another with crisp page-turning narrative, action and intrigue. Stanton trades some richness of character for a page-turning plot and clever dialogue. If there is a weakness in the narrative for me, it lies with Simara, the arcane omnidroid, who remains mysterious—from her introduction aboard her ship about to crash land, to the limited revelations of her character during her interactions with Zen, both in her POV and in his. Considering her unique characteristics and experiences as an omnidroid, I would have enjoyed more insight to her unique outlook and perspective, especially when faced with no social network—perhaps the most frightening experience for an omnidroid: to be disconnected from the hive. On the other hand, Zen Valda as the simple Bali boy on an insane rollercoaster ride is painted with a sensitive and graceful hand. Stanton also skillfully portrays his news team, Roni and Gladyz, with finesse and subtly clever notes. The dialogue and overall interactions between them is some of the most enjoyable of the novel.

Ultimately, Stanton’s Freenet flows like a fresh turbulent river, scouring and building up sediment then meandering like an oxbow into areas that surprise. He lulls you into expectation, based on your own vision of the digital world, then—like a bubble bursting—releases a quantum paradox of wormhole possibility.

Freenet will be available in Canada on April 1 and in USA on April 12. Preorders are open on Amazon in both countries.


Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s recent book is the bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” (Mincione Edizioni, Rome). Her latest “Water Is…” is currently an Amazon Bestseller and NY Times ‘year in reading’ choice of Margaret Atwood.

Natural Selection by Nina Munteanu FREE This Week on Amazon

Natural Selection, my short story collection on humanity's co-evolution with nature and technology is available for FREE this week on Amazon Kindle, starting Valentine's Day, Feb 14th through to Feb 18th.

The back jacket blurb reads:

A man uses cyber-eavedropping to make love. A technocratic government uses gifted people as tools to recast humanity. The ruins of a city serve as battleground between pro-technologists and pro-naturalists. From time-space guardians to cybersex, GMO, and biotech implants, this short story collection by science fiction novelist Nina Munteanu promises a journey of great scope, imagination and vision.

"This slim volume of nine science fiction stories is a fine showcase of gritty and powerful short fiction by Canadian author Nina Munteanu. The author evasions a bleak future of warfare and scarcity as she entertains some interesting ideas from the fringe of science."--Steve Stanton, author of "The Bloodlight Chronicles".

Get your FREE Kindle copy of NATURAL SELECTION on Amazon.com or here on Amazon.ca. Hope you enjoy! Please let others know and don't forget to share on Facebook and Twitter, especially if you enjoy the stories.

Thanks!
Nina

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visitwww.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.

Darwin and Lemarck on Soft Inheritance

Evolution is the language of destiny. What is destiny, after all, but self-actualization? Walking the path that we—or something “greater” than us has blazed for us? What is evolution and through what mechanism do we evolve? If evolution is the language of destiny, then choice and selection are the words of evolution and “fractal ecology” is its delivery.

What is natural selection, after all? How do we define today a concept that Darwin originated 200 years ago in a time without bio-engineering, nano-technology, chaos theory, quantum mechanics and the internet? We live in an exciting time of complicated change, where science, based on the limitation of traditional biology, is being challenged and stretched by pioneers into areas some might label heretical. Endosymbiosis, synchronicity, autopoiesis, self-organization, morphic resonance, Gaia Hypothesis and planetary intelligence. Some of these might more aptly be described through the language of metaphysics. But should they be so confined? It comes down to language and how we communicate.

Gaia versus Medea: A Case for Altruism

God’s in his heaven; all’s right with the world—Robert Browning

Medea in Greek mythology consumed her own children; she also lends her name to paleontologist Peter Ward’s hypothesis, which argues that life has self-destructive tendencies. This hypothesis challenges and contradicts the Gaia Theory (named after another goddess, the Greek goddess of the Earth), which posits that organisms can and do adapt their environment “to suit themselves”. Ward argues that organisms have triggered repeated mass extinctions; hardly behavior of self-interest, contests Ward. Or is it?

Perhaps it is a matter of definition. For instance, what is “self” and therefore “self-interest”. Where does “self” end and “other” begin? Bring in fractals, autopoiesis, synchronicity, self-organization, and altruism and it all begins to blur. Bring in notions of cellular “intelligence” and concepts of “external mind” and morphic resonance and our traditional precepts of self-interest lose themselves within the greater complexity of “stable chaos” (a term I coined in my book Darwin’s Paradox to describe the apparent chaotic behavior of nature and the universe that is, in fact, stable—but humans cannot perceive mainly because of scale and our lack of perspective).

Ward gives as an example for his thesis the Permian extinction, which led to the demise of over 90 percent of all the species some 250 million years ago. According to Ward, the “Great Dying” was caused by sulphur-generating marine bacteria that poisoned the sea and land. Bad bacteria… Others suggest this was caused by other cataclysmic events.

Darwin and Lincoln: Revolution to Evolution

Two hundred years ago, on February 12, 1809, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born within hours of each other in opposite worlds: Darwin in a comfortable home in the English countryside of Shrewsbury; and Lincoln in a log cabin in the Kentucky woods.

Their shared birthday is more than intriguing coincidence; it marks their shared legacy in shaping the modern world. A legacy that is far more intermingled than one might first think. It both starts and ends with one word: evolution.

The common belief in 1809 was that life was fixed in place since the beginning of a terrestrial time that went back a few thousand years at most. The “truth” held in 1809 lay in a “vertical” organization of life, a kind of established hierarchy of species on earth, descending from humans downward with a divine judge above. Focusing on the example of the terror in France, people also believed that societies generally required inherited order and a strong immutable structure to keep them from dissolving into anarchy or tyranny. The notion of democracy was a fringe ideal held by a handful of radicals. In America, where “democracy” was embraced through the revolution, the persistence of slavery tainted its ideal with ill notions of prejudice and fixed social order. Yet, the tide of change and evolution was stirring in the hearts and minds of these two men of humility and grace.

Robert McHenry of the Encyclopedia Britannica Blog, says: “Lincoln’s humility is to be read in almost his every utterance and writing. No one of such humble beginnings could be other than painfully conscious of the great distance he traveled with none of the usual requirements of birth, breeding, education, or fortune. He stands as Exhibit Number One in the argument for democracy, a great man whom no one could possibly have suspected of being one until he was one. With Darwin the case is different. He had the advantages that Lincoln lacked, and yet he did not, as so many so often do, take that fact as evidence of his superiority. He undertook arduous work in the interest of learning, and he submitted his findings and his theorizing to an often hostile world for examination.”

Both men believed in the honorable spirit of and equality of humanity. Both men freed humanity from the shackles of certain attitudes borne of fear and ignorance. Lincoln embodied the spirit of racial progress and emancipation. In their book Darwin’s Sacred Cause Adrian Desmond and James Moore concluded that Darwin’s interest in evolution could be traced to his hatred of slavery. Darwin “was disheartened to see advocates of slavery justifying their position by saying that white European humans and black African humans were not the same species,” writes author Thomas Hayden in one of a series of articles in the February 2009 issue of the Smithsonian devoted to these two men. “One of the animating thoughts in the young Darwin’s mind as he set out to understand the world was his conviction that all humans were one.”

Both men challenged established mores. Each forged a new rhetoric and evolving paradigm of thought and action. “They shared logic as a form of eloquence, argument as a style of virtue, close reasoning as a form of uplift,” writes New Yorker author Adam Gopnik in the February 2009 issue of the Smithsonion. Lincoln “managed, somewhere along the way, to turn himself into one of the best prose writers America has produced. Lincoln united the North behind him with an eloquence so timeless that his words remain fresh no matter how many times you read them,” writes Malcolm Jones of Newsweek (July 2008). Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (wherein he assured that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth") remains one of the most quoted and is considered one of the greatest speeches in American history. With his first 29 words, Lincoln accomplished what he had come to Gettysburg to do—he defined the purpose of the war for the Union: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." In 272 words, he defined the national principle so thoroughly that today no one would think of arguing otherwise, writes Jones.

Today, Darwin’s Origin of Species “ranks among the most important books ever published, and perhaps alone among scientific works, it remains scientifically relevant 150 years after its debut,” writes Hayden.

Darwin “started out as an amateur naturalist,” writes Jones. He was “… a 22-year-old rich-kid dilettante who, after flirting with the idea of being first a physician and then a preacher, was allowed to ship out with the Beagle as someone who might supply good conversation at the captain's table.” Darwin returned “in the grip of an idea so subversive that he would keep it under wraps for another two decades,” says Jones. “ Darwin may have been independently wealthy, but in terms of his vocation, he was a self-made man.”

“Lincoln was self-made in the more conventional sense,” Jones continues. “A walking, talking embodiment of the frontier myth made good. Like Darwin, Lincoln was not a quick study. Both men worked slowly to master a subject. But both had restless, hungry minds. After about a year of schooling as a boy—and that spread out in dribs and drabs of three months here and four months there—Lincoln taught himself. He mastered trigonometry (for work as a surveyor), he read Blackstone on his own to become a lawyer. He memorized swaths of the Bible and Shakespeare. At the age of 40, after he had already served a term in the U.S. House of Representatives, he undertook Euclidean geometry as a mental exercise.”

Capping his eloquent tribute to these two men, McHenry ends his blog article with this thought: “Is it too trite, in this so sophisticated age of doubt and irony, to note simply that each man did the work he found himself called to, and did it with unequalled grace? Can we set aside the suspicion that we, most of us, are not up to their example and instead rejoice that they were of our species?”

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.