by Arwen Elys Dayton
Synopsis:
For fans of television shows Black Mirror and Westworld, this compelling, mind-bending novel is a twisted look into the future, exploring how far we will go to remake ourselves into the perfect human specimen and what it means to be human at all.
Set in our world, spanning the near to distant futures, Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful is a novel made up of six interconnected stories that ask how far we will go to remake ourselves into the perfect human specimens, and how hard that will push the definition of "human."
This extraordinary work explores the amazing possibilities of genetic manipulation and life extension, as well as the ethical quandaries that will arise with these advances. The results range from the heavenly to the monstrous. Deeply thoughtful, poignant, horrifying, and action-packed, Arwen Elys Dayton's Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful is groundbreaking in both form and substance.
Set in our world, spanning the near to distant futures, Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful is a novel made up of six interconnected stories that ask how far we will go to remake ourselves into the perfect human specimens, and how hard that will push the definition of "human."
This extraordinary work explores the amazing possibilities of genetic manipulation and life extension, as well as the ethical quandaries that will arise with these advances. The results range from the heavenly to the monstrous. Deeply thoughtful, poignant, horrifying, and action-packed, Arwen Elys Dayton's Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful is groundbreaking in both form and substance.
(cover image and synopsis lifted from Goodreads)
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication date: December 4th 2018
Source/Format: eARC/Netgalley
Purchase links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
My Rating: ★★★★☆
My Thoughts:
“Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful” is not cookie-cutter YA sci fi. Comprised of six interconnecting short stories each set farther and farther along in the future, the totality of the book makes it hard to pinpoint for what it is. It did not feel like a straight up novel nor an anthology neither. Maybe it’s a mix of both, with bits of dystopic elements. A literary Princess Monster Wife, please excuse the Adventure Time reference. A dystoanthonovelogy, perhaps? Ha-ha! My silliness is laughable but wait until you learn what humans call and make themselves into in the imagined future of this book.
The first part is about a twin brother and sister, one of whom is about to harvest the organs of the other in order to live longer. The second is about a lovesick turned vengeful android. The third part is the conversion story of a religious body purist zealot into a religious body modification zealot. The fourth is about a dolphin boy. The fifth is about a sick boy who underwent a deep frozen sleep in hopes of a cure in the future only to be awakened a prisoner of war and be turned into a cyborg slave instead. And the sixth is a doomsday of sorts, the end of the future as future humans know it. The characters from each story and the stories as well could not be more different from each other. And yet, and yet they still connect.
Better still is the wealth of imagination and the richness in details of these stories. The humans of this world as the title suggests never cease to want to become stronger, faster and more beautiful. In the near future, they finally discovered how to delete diseases in our DNA. Humans can edit or modify themselves so they can have increased brain function and lower sleep requirement. I mean, what a time to be alive, right?! Later body modifications becomes routinary as applying one’s makeup on a face. And some body modifications become just like that; for cosmetic purposes only. Want a unicorn horn with rainbow aural projections? Hells yeah, why not, you can totally do that! Enter politics and religion and soon you have factions of pro and anti modification. You can see the shift of humanity’s perspective from looking down to humans with modified body parts to exalting humans with modified body parts to god-like status. And you can see how humans can spectacularly f*ck up science by treating it like a commodity or by using it against each other or by othering each other. (Yeah, there is much othering in this book just like these days. Humans are disgusting then, now and in the future, TBH.) Eventually, humans become too arrogant with their beauty. And you know what they say: pride comes before the fall.
The stories are a mix of 1st person and 3rd person. Sidenote for me, I discovered that my favorites are in 1st person: the twins, android girl and dolphin boy. Each story ends in a way that makes the story arc complete but also makes me want for more. It takes our characters out from of a bleak plight but it fades to black just before the first rays of sunshine start to appear. And because they are short stories, there is not enough pages to get to know the characters better but somehow it does not matter. Most of them are caught in the crux of yet another shift in humanity and thus they are thrown into a state of confusion and their decisions push the action and adventure. I guess the main conflict of these stories is humanity’s hubris. In a restless chase to be better, moral anchors and consequences are thrown out of the window. These consequences affect our characters and their motivations are basic things like simply surviving or getting their identities back or having a meaningful life.
The tug between a hopeful and an anxiety-ridden future of this book is not entirely hard to believe. Reading it feels like holding up a magic mirror and seeing what we could become. “Stronger, Faster and More Beautiful” is imaginative, cohesive and more importantly, reflective of our own past and present.
Diversity Watch:
Evan and Julia Weary – semi-identical twins described as red haired.Reverend Tad Tadd – described with tan skin, thick wavy black hair and dark eyes.
Milla – the android girl, racially indeterminate.
Gabriel Phillips – Milla’s crush, described as all blond, with dark brown eyes.
Alexios – the dolphin boy, racially indeterminate.
Jake – frozen and woken up to be turned into a cyborg slave, racially indeterminate.
Kostya – Jake’s Russian friend and fellow cyborg slave; explicit in text that he is gay.
Yulia Boykov – a Russian girl who helped Jake and Kostya escape; described with long hair blond at the ends but very dark at the roots.
Starlock – described with deep, rich brown skin and dark eyes that are almost black.
Luck – described as light skinned, blue eyed and blond haired.
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I’d love to hear from you!
If you are a human of a future with brain and body modifications possible, would you go for it or not? I’d probably opt not to have wings or extra limbs but I’d consider all the reading I can do with an enhanced brain and a lower sleep requirement.
