In semi-tropical London, surrounded by paddyfields, bathed in sunshine, the people photosynthesise. The Consensus, a vast DNA unit, controls the country. Cancer has been cured, but as a side effec the span of human life has been halved.
Children are raised in Child Gardens and educated by virus. Viruses control their behavior; nonconformism is 'treated' by the Consensus. Information, culture, law and politics are now biological functions.
This is the story of some of the people who live in this future: Lucy, the immortal tumour; Joseph the Postman, …
In semi-tropical London, surrounded by paddyfields, bathed in sunshine, the people photosynthesise. The Consensus, a vast DNA unit, controls the country. Cancer has been cured, but as a side effec the span of human life has been halved.
Children are raised in Child Gardens and educated by virus. Viruses control their behavior; nonconformism is 'treated' by the Consensus. Information, culture, law and politics are now biological functions.
This is the story of some of the people who live in this future: Lucy, the immortal tumour; Joseph the Postman, whose mind is an information storehouse for other people; Mike Stone, the astronaut. It is the story of Rolfa, a genetically engineered Polar woman, who composes exquisite music; and of Melena, who comes to love her, and devotes her life to staging Rolfa's greatest work, an operatic Divine Comedy. As she works and struggles and dreams, MelEna's life begins to follow the pattern of the Comedy, here on Earth — and in the stars.
Melena has a secret, lost even to herself. It makes her resistant to the viruses. It makes her frightened and alienated from the world. It will make her one of the most extraordinary women of her age. The secret is lost in memory. It is hidden somewhere — in the Child Garden.
