The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer

Since I don’t blog much anymore in a general sense, I’ve decided I should fill some of that gap by posting my reviews of science fiction and fantasy books by other authors. And what better place to start than the latest offering from Canada’s most successful science fiction writer (and one of my favourites) Robert J. Sawyer? I give it Five Stars.

Robert J. Sawyer writes my favourite kind of science fiction: the concepts are thought-provoking, sometimes disturbing, and the themes are rich and important, but the stories are always about the people. Fully-fleshed people, too—equal parts warts, wit, and wisdom. But whether it’s an astronaut with all the “right stuff’ or a convicted murderer, you can relate to each one. And that’s how stories have emotional impact.

The title The Downloaded refers to human consciousnesses that have been ‘uploaded’ into digital storage, and then returned to their original bodies which have been cryogenically frozen. Some of these frozen and revived characters are convicts who’ve been offered a chance to serve their sentences in computer simulations at sped-up time, so they experience a years-long incarceration, but only lose several months of real time before being released back into society. The others are astronauts meant to take a long space journey to colonize the planets of another star. But when disaster strikes the Earth, both groups are downloaded into physical bodies again and have to face a drastically changed world.

Is it intellectually stimulating? Sure! In The Downloaded Sawyer skilfully combines the concepts of cryogenically preserving humans while they await future medical cures or travel to distant stars, uploading consciousness into digital storage, adapting human biology to conditions on other planets, and more. Yet, what keeps us reading isn’t just the ideas, it’s caring about what happens to Captain Letitia Garvey, murderer Roscoe Koudoulian, even robot Penolong.

The Downloaded is different in structure from other Sawyer books, written in a kind of interview format that reflects how it was first published as an audiobook. But all the qualities we’ve come to expect are there, the ones that keep us seeking out Robert J. Sawyer’s books time and time again.