Modernism’s
hopes for mankind found expression in numerous ways, many of which fell
directly into the wheelhouse of science fiction. Asmimov, Heinlein, Clarke and others made a
living presenting visions of a better life on Venus, robots to perform human
labor, and spaceships to other planets—lebensraum
abound. But the cyborg has always
been a fence-sitter. Venus a jungle
paradise, robots the perfect servant, and gleaming spaceships between the stars—these
three shine at a much brighter intensity than the augmentation of humans with
mechanical parts. Mankind wary of such
personal intrusion, literature about cyborgs has always been more equivocal in
tone. From Budry’s Who? to Dick’s “The Electric Ant”, the genre has seen a cautious
approach to the combination of machine and body. Adding a layer of subtle—and all the more
biting for it—political satire, Frederik Pohl’s 1976 Man Plus is another strong example of the ambivalence.
Man Plus is set in a future wherein the world is in the
grip of socialism. Only North America
remains capitalist, and statistics and trends indicate war is ever closer to
deciding for how much longer. Believing
human habitation of Mars is the only way to avoid conflict, US President
Fitz-James Deshatine sets up a secret American program to modify a man
physically for open-air life on the red planet in preparation for American
colonization. Deshatine’s strong Texan
demeanor driving the program as fast as it can go, Roger Torraway is quickly
called into duty: to sacrifice himself for the common good. Stripped of nearly everything that makes him
corporeally human, he emerges a cyborg man.
Much to the emotional pain of his wife and friends, his bat-like eyes,
plastic intestines, wings for dealing with balance in Martian gravity,
reptilian skin to withstand cold, muscles replaced with a substance that
requires no nourishment, and lungs a set of pumps to deal with the pressure
differential make him more machine than man, only portions of his brain left
untouched. As the statistics continue to
indicate war is ever closer, Torraway’s trip to Mars looms more important—but
for whom?
