Jacek Dukaj

For unknown reasons, all protein-based life on Earth is being destroyed by a death ray shot from deep space. Bartek, a hardware engineer in Poland, races to download his memory into an online storage service; by doing so, he becomes one of a few thousand humans to survive the extinction level event. 'The Old Axolotl' documents the years that follow, as humanity seeks to rebuild civilisation and learn what it means to be human in a world without bodies.

Dukaj's story is full of ideas, the futurological cup literally running over. The only problem here is the writing. Dukaj knows the value of the maxim 'show, don't tell', but doesn't quite follow the ruling, instead opting for a weird halfway-house of showing, leaving the reader confused, and then telling him in a massive, paragraphs-long exposition dump. These are actually some of the best-written passages in the book, and are genuinely thought-provoking, but at the same time they serve to undermine whatever slim investment the reader has in the characters. These never develop - this being practically a requirement, since shorn of their imperfect fleshy brains, the survivors cannot truly evolve or learn anything new - and as a result your attachment is slight, your concern ticking over at ten percent.… (mer)