Who among us has not sometimes mused about how convenient it would be to upgrade or alter our bodies? I myself have occasionally pondered the benefits of a nuclear-powered exoskeleton strong enough to crush human skulls like eggshells (this would facilitate opening recalcitrant pickle jars). Unsurprisingly, SF authors have also thought along those lines. In particular, the mid-to-late 1970s saw what seemed like a flurry of SF books exploring the possibilities of advanced body modification.
I have no idea if this was actually a trend or simply accidental clustering. Thematically consistent with the other self-improvement efforts of the so-called Me Generation, it certainly seemed like a trend at the time. Take, for example, this cluster of books encountered in the mid-1970s…
Cinnabar by Edward Bryant (1976)
In the very distant future, the city of Cinnabar may be found between the desert and the ocean. Cinnabar may be the last city left on the world. Certainly, visitors from outside are not expected. This would be a sad, forlorn reality…if the sybarites of Cinnabar were at all inclined to consider the state of their world.
Cinnabar’s people have access to sophisticated technology that is the stuff of science fiction to us. Therefore, many facets of self (body and mind) that we can currently change only with great effort (or cannot change at all) are a matter of fashion in Cinnabar. It would be wonderful if this meant a golden age of self-realization. What these people actually do with their potentially liberating technology: create stark class differences, abuse others, and embrace joyless decadence.
Miraculous technology is wasted on some people, as the people of Cinnabar amply demonstrate.
Cinnabar was inspired in part by Ballard’s Vermilion Sands. It seemed to me that Ballard’s characters seem to have more fun (in a repressed British way).
Don’t Bite the Sun by Tanith Lee (1976)
The domed cities of Four BEE, Four BAA, and Four BOO are oases in a world desert (just as Cinnabar is isolated in an arid world). No oceans. Each city is self-sufficient and, aside from sporadic contact with the other cities, inwardly focused.
Young people—the Jang—are encouraged to embrace hedonism, enabled by the fact that physical form is a matter of personal taste. Even death is no major inconvenience, for “life sparks” are easily transferred from corpses to new incarnations. For people willing to settle for mindless pleasure, it is utopia. People who, like the narrator, seek a more meaningful existence will soon discover the limits of what is permitted.
Social convention is a powerful force in the domed cities; of the many pleasures one might enjoy, only a few are actually chosen. Assignations are always preceded by short and meaningless marriages. Couplings are expected to join one male body to one female body (to the extent that choices in bodily form can be described that way). This seems like an odd way to run a free love dys/utopia.
Man Plus by Frederik Pohl (1976)
Terrestrial Armageddon appears inevitable. For humanity and its creations to survive, Martian colonies are required. This would be no problem if Mars were the habitable Mars of old-timey SF. Mars being the nearly airless, radiation-soaked deathtrap that it actually is, to dispatch conventional humans there would be to doom them.
Enter Roger Torraway, the lucky individual who has been voluntold to test exciting new advances in cyborg technology. Accepting his new, heavily modified form will be a challenge. Once on Mars, Roger and all those dependent on his success will come to appreciate the utility of his transformation.
There are many SF stories in which the world faces some anthropogenic doom that everyone agrees is undesirable and nobody seems to be able to do anything about. Where do SF authors get their wild ideas? In this case, there are other factors influencing human behavior, factors whose natures and extent is not made clear until the conclusion of the novel. The characters will never know that they are not entirely responsible for their choices.
The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley (1977)
Centuries after the alien Invaders conquered the Earth, human civilization is thriving…in space. With the notable exceptions of Jupiter and Earth (both controlled by the Invaders), the Solar System is a human domain.
This is possible because the technology exists to reshape bodies at will, whether on a merely cosmetic scale or with more dramatic alternations that turn even Venus’ surface into a shirt-sleeve environment for humans. Many of the tools needed to prevail in the post-Invader reality were retrieved from the so-called Ophiuchi Hotline, an alien communications network into which humans have been tapping. Unbeknownst to humans, there is a charge for the information and that bill has come due.
Sight of Proteus by Charles Sheffield (1978)
General Coordination struggles to keep overcrowded, resource-strapped Earth functioning. Their task is complicated by the ubiquity of Form Change, an advanced biofeedback technology that allows people to reshape their bodies as they see fit. Some forms place more demands on infrastructure than others, thus a need to steer the masses away from (for example) changes that would greatly increase lifespan and thus accelerate population growth.
Behrooz Wolf and his partner John Larsen investigate Form Change abuse. Their final three cases illustrate just how powerful Form Change can be in the hands of a sufficiently unscrupulous researcher, while illuminating certain aspects of Solar history heretofore underappreciated by humanity. Long ago, aliens called the Solar System home and while they are long dead, their relics are still quite puissant.
Biofeedback was a big deal back in the disco era. In fact, this Sheffield novel is rich in dubious obsessions briefly fashionable at the time, from the Population Bomb to all-powerful biofeedback to the works of Ovenden and Van Flandern. Sheffield was known as a hard SF author; his fans might be interested to discover this side of his work.
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There are, no doubt, other disco-era works along these lines that I could have mentioned. Hansen’s War Games, for example, was only omitted because, being published in 1981, it seemed a bit too late for my purposes. Feel free to mention other example in comments, which are, as ever, below.
In the words of fanfiction author Musty181, four-time Hugo finalist, prolific book reviewer, and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll “looks like a default mii with glasses.” His work has appeared in Interzone, Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis) and the 2021, 2022, and 2023 Aurora Award finalist Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by web person Adrienne L. Travis). His Patreon can be found here.
