Subject: THE MODULAR MAN by Roger MacBride Allen

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070)
Date: 22 Jul 92 06:28:48 GMT

THE MODULAR MAN by Roger MacBride Allen
                     A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		      Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

     David Bailey has downloaded himself into his home maintenance unit
(a.k.a., vacuum cleaner, a.k.a., "Herbert"--it's a pun, get it?) and now
Herbert is being charged with first-degree murder, because the complete
download of a personality destroys the original.  The district attorney
hopes Herbert's owner (Suzanne Jantille, who is also David's widow and a
lawyer) will take the obvious path and ask for dismissal on the grounds that
Herbert can't be charged because he isn't human.  This would set a precedent
for preventing the rich from achieving immortality by replacing all the
parts that wear out--in effect, turning themselves into cyborgs.  But
Suzanne takes another tack.

     Allen raises a lot of interesting issues here, but eventually short-
circuits them (you'll pardon the pun) by providing an ending that does not
follow at all from what comes before, but from the whim of one character
(which means, basically, the whim of the author).

     And the supposedly innovative solution to resolve the problem of the
"immortal rich" is one that has appeared before, and in a very well-known
work.  (I'm desperately trying to avoid spoilers here.)

     In addition, I'm no lawyer, but it seems obvious to me that if Herbert
can stand trial as David Bailey, then David Bailey isn't dead, and so no one
can be tried for his murder.  If the prosecution is claimed Herbert is David
Bailey, but a *different* David Bailey, then it's clear that the original
David Bailey did all the set-up for the transfer ("murder") and so the new
one is not responsible.  (If I rig up a suicide device so that I'm killed
when someone rings my doorbell, is the unsuspecting mailman guilty of
murder?)  Allen tries a bit of hand-waving to get around this, with some
obscure point of law not introduced until near the end of the story (future
law, not any law we have), but it's not very convincing.

     This is probably the last of the "Next Wave" series, and even this is
an abbreviated entry: instead of an introduction by Isaac Asimov and an
essay by a "working scientist," it has three short articles by Asimov strung
together in place of the essay and no introduction.

     THE MODULAR MAN started out with some great ideas, but didn't carry
them through.  I wish I could recommend this book, but ultimately I found it
disappointing and annoying.

%A      Allen, Roger MacBride
%T      The Modular Man
%I      Bantam Spectra
%C      New York
%D      June 1992
%O      paperback, US$4.99
%G      ISBN 0-553-29559-4
%P      306pp

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 908 957 2070   |   att!mtgzy!ecl or [email-masked]