Beginning the fourth week of this SFFaudio 7th Anniversary Story-a-Day Celebration! Be careful out there…
Identity Theft
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Anthony Heald
2 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010
ISBN: 9781441716729
Themes: / Science Fiction / Robots / Consciousness / Mystery / Detectives /
This is a great story. It originally appeared in Down These Dark Spaceways, and anthology edited by Mike Resnick and published by the Science Fiction Book Club. This version is read by Anthony Heald, a terrific narrator who was once the voice of choice for the Star Wars universe. He reads with energy and verve, great characterization and accents as needed.
Sawyer has said before that he feels that science fiction has more in common with the mystery genre than it does the fantasy genre, and this isn’t the first time he’s written an effective science fiction mystery. In the future Mars he presents, people can trade their bodies in for artificial ones, providing long life and more reliable body parts. The process requires making a copy of a person’s conscious mind, and imprinting that copy into the brain of the new body.
Like in many Sawyer stories, many of the implications of such a world are explored. What happens to the originals? What about unauthorized copies? In addition, there is a very interesting human settlement on Mars, and some fossil finding there. “Identity Theft” is a very entertaining novella, very well presented.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
