Future Man

by Brian M. Stableford

Are we still homo sapiens, or has the human race already started to evolve into a new species? In Future Man Dr Brian Stableford argues that man has already entered into a new phase of evolution and in time will obtain power over the natural world which will be literally godlike.

The world we are entering into was already glimpsed in the 1930s by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, but the possibilities foreseen by Huxley could not become reality until the cracking of the genetic code in the early 1950s. Most scientists now believe that the remaining problems holding up our ability to control and manipulate the human gene will be resolved within the next few generations.

As Isaac Asimov writes in his introduction. "Now we can adjust the genes. We can decide on what we want and try to carve living things to suit ... Indeed, we can even ask ourselves, 'What kind of human beings might we like to be? What kind of abilities that we lack would it be good to have, and how do we go about getting them?' And what kind of dangers would he involved? And what about morality?"

This is where Future Man begins. It shows with vivid illustrations how future genetic engineers might manipulate all living things, including man himself. So far we have had to be content with the image in which evolution has shaped us, soon we will have the capability to remake that image in any way we choose.

Should this be allowed to happen? Or is this knowledge simply too dangerous to be delivered into human minds and hands? Is it, anyway, too late to stop the process? Future Man updates Brave New World. Like Huxley’s prophecy, Future Man deserves to become a classic of its time.

Cover Illustration by Peter Gudynas

Genres: Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 21, 1984

About the author

Brian Michael Stableford was a British science fiction writer who published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford. He also used the pseudonym Brian Craig for a couple of very early works, and again for a few more recent works. The pseudonym derives from the first names of himself and of a school friend from the 1960s, Craig A. Mackintosh, with whom he jointly published some very early work.

Reviews

[Paul Hartzog · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the thinking in this book is also in The Third Millennium which is another Stableford book that is technically fiction but is also a musing about futurist concerns and where things might be headed. Like The Third Millennium, it's a bit dated. It also doesn't deal well enough with the political and social forces that might array themselves actively against the developments and maybes that the book(s) ponder.

Nevertheless, books like these are great for getting your brain going on lots of threads and sparking myriad ideas that will take you to who-knows-where. Future Man just goes into too much detail I think and is not worth a whole book. It was handled better as a "summary" in The Third Millenium, imo.

[Shane Simmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very unusual book about the possible future of mankind. Highly speculative, the author makes educated guesses on the possibilities that await us in the future.

Topics include :

* evolution
* genetic engineering
* mastery of the environment
* health and diseases
* growing spare human parts
* defeating aging
* creating new types of people
* mind control
* human-machine hybrids
* scenarios for the future of humanity