Every Version of You
In Grace Chan’s incisive speculative novel Every Version of You, people seek eternal virtual life, hoping to abandon the physical world for good.
In the near future, Earth is increasingly uninhabitable. People who can afford to do so spend more time in the digital realm, Gaia, than they do in the real world. When new technology allows permanent consciousness uploads, heralding a new age with a promise of immortality, Tao-Yi’s partner, Navin, signs up. Navin yearns to escape his chronic pain. But Tao-Yi’s aging mother resents Gaia’s lack of humanity, and Tao-Yi agrees that maybe Gaia is not right for everyone.
Tao-Yi forwards probing questions about what makes us human, the morality of technology, and the evolution of humanity. As she bears witness to her loved ones “tinkering around with the cogs and gears inside [themselves],” she wonders how much technology that can smooth your skin, grow your muscles, and inject hallucinogenic art into your mind compromises the innate humanness of the human experience. Her intra-Gaia job as an ikigai coach, helping clients find their personal meaning, informs her approach to navigating her mother’s illness and living part-time in Gaia. She feels both called to remain in “meatspace” and deserted by those who chose to leave.
Lush prose captures the shallowness and pretentiousness of Tao-Yi’s friends and her limited understanding of Navin’s pain and irritability, putting Tao-Yi and her uploaded friends in stark contrast. The luxurious scenery inside Gaia exists in tantalizing juxtaposition to the dying world outside. While the oft-forthright conversations lean saccharine, Tao-Yi’s introspection is poetic, handling grief and transcendence with eloquence and grace.
Every Version of You is a thoughtful speculative novel that asks whether discarding the human body to enter a permanent virtual reality represents extinction or evolution.
Reviewed by
Aimee Jodoin
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