短小精悍！

很短小的一本关于人工智能的科幻小说。说是完全关于人工智能，其实有点不公平，毕竟这个主题在全书的一半左右才开始浮现出来。前一半我读的时候还是很像一个劫后余生的异托邦的故事：原有的世界毁灭了，剩余的人们在一个有远见的领袖的带领下成为延续人类文明火种的希望。我觉得更确切的可能是说这是一个关于“想法”的书。正如作者指出：

The only thing binding individuals together is ideas. Ideas mutates, and spread; they change their hosts as much as their hosts change them.(p.43)

所以不管是文明的孤岛，还是后面人工智能的故事，都围绕着这个主题展开。所不同的是我觉得他驾驭题材的能力，显然是在书的后半才体现出来。而那流畅又富有激情的文字在Adam和Art一次次的辩论的运用真是让读者觉得非常之心潮澎湃。Beckett把那种作为智慧生物的自豪和骄傲在这面这段对话中很精准地体现出来：

You mock me the for shortness of my life span,but it is the very fear of dying that breathes life into me. I am the thinker who thinks of though. I am curiosity, I am reason, I am love and I am hatred. I am indifference. I am the son of a father, who in turn was a father’s son. I am the reason my mother laughed and the reason my mother cried. I am wonder and I am wondrous. Yes, the world may push your buttons as it passes through your circuit. But the world does not pass through me. It lingers. I am in it and it is in me. I am the means by which the universe has come to know itself. I am the thing no machine can every make. I am meaning. (p.88)

Beckett采取了一种很有意思的策略来推进关于人VS机器边界的讨论（再一次，是和“想法”有关的），这不是传统上的那些关于“感情”、“不可测性”等路径，而是一种别地东西。从某种那个程度上和Richard Tanas写的西方哲学史有那么一点点联系。不过很可惜的是这本书的结局异常之坑爹。对我而言非常不近情理。感觉像是浪费了之前的种种伏笔，甚是可惜。作为一个中篇，我觉得还是很值得推荐的！