Genesis

Genesis, Poul Anderson, Tor Books, 2000

Astronaut Christian Brannock is the sort of person who has spent his entire life looking at the stars on a clear night and wanting very much to be out there. It's a difficult time to live on Earth. An age of global cooling is in full swing, with glaciers reaching to the middle of North America. It's a good time to be alive because it is possible for a human personality to be uploaded into a computer, achieving something like immortality. Brannock becomes the first, and as mankind expands into the rest of the galaxy, copies of him go everywhere.

One billion years later, the galactic intelligence sends a ship called Wayfarer, with another copy of Brannock aboard, to Earth, now called Gaia. Planetary intelligence is now common, and all planets are supposed to send periodic reports concerning conditions on their planet. Gaia's reports have been
getting less and less satisfactory. No one likes to have "the boss" check up on them, and, if Gaia was human, Gaia would be no exception. Wayfarer is allowed to land, and Brannock, in a new body, takes a look around. He meets Laurinda Ashcroft, another former human, who was uploaded into Gaia. The intention is that Wayfarer and Gaia talk "face-to-face."

Mankind's days on Gaia are numbered. It's not due to any disease or holocaust, it's just that man is nearing the end of its natural lifespan. Gaia has been changing the parameters on various groups that are left and letting things develop naturally, as if this was an immense computer program. If the results are unsatisfactory, the program is terminated, with the loss of everyone who was living in it. Ashcroft and Brannock see the results of a variety of "experiments" being run by Gaia. They also fall in love with each other.

I really enjoyed this novel. Anderson is my favorite science fiction writer, so I don't claim to be totally impartial. This is a well done, idea filled story, done on a huge scale, with a writing style that I have yet to find elsewhere. It is highly recommended.