Wired Paperback – May 1, 2018 by Douglas E. Richards (Permutes Press)

As a work of entertainment Sci-Fi, this book was excellent, and deserves 5 stars in that sub-category. I reserve 5 stars for Sci-Fi books that have visionary intellectual themes that offer allegorical insights into future dystopias or utopias depending on the choices made going forward. At this point, human future seems rather bleak given that only a small fraction of the world population is willing to make the sacrifices needed to prevent catastrophic changes to the world ecosystem from climate change to deforestation and desertification to global loss of biodiversity.

This book is great fun and has some interesting intellectual ideas regarding how nootropic technology could be utilized for good or evil. The idea of genetic modification that improves intelligence by several orders of magnitude through alteration of neural architecture is an extremely interesting idea, but the notion that it would kick in in 5 minutes and precipitously end in 1 hour is laughably preposterous. He needed that short duration as a plot device, and the story was undeniably a page turner, so I get why he did that. Nevertheless, I would like to read a story designed not as a “bestseller “ action book that explores themes of the ethics and scientific/technological potential of nootropic gene therapy, which would obviously need to be permanent to be realistic and allow for exploration of how such technology could lead to dystopian or utopian futures depending on how it affects intelligence. In my opinion, such technology would automatically lea to utopian future because humanity would learn how to utilize science and technology to avoid continuing to metastasize and destroy the Earth like a cancer.

The most interest Sci-Fi book I can possibly imagine would explore a utopian future scenario similar to Aldous Huxley ‘s book Island, but focused on the use of technologies and genetic engineering for the betterment of all, as well as a Huxleyesque vision for how such an enlightened society would structure itself and operate for the betterment of all life and especially the advancement of knowledge and understanding.