Scan barcode
A review by stephenmeansme
Brain Wave by Poul Anderson
3.0
This was a much better story from Poul Anderson than his collaboration anthology with Gordon Dickson ([b:Hoka|315622|Hoka (Hoka, #3)|Poul Anderson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1299964531l/315622._SY75_.jpg|41096710]) or his later novel [b:The Stars are Also Fire|252230|The Stars are Also Fire (Harvest of Stars, #2)|Poul Anderson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1420944544l/252230._SY75_.jpg|244415]. Apparently he shifted quite a bit in his politics as he got older, and that might have been part of it. Anyway this one has an interesting premise: what if, in the year 19XX (probably about 1953, when it was first serialized), Earth moved out of a galactic anomalous zone that had slowed down electromagnetic processes just a bit? As a consequence, nerves would fire faster, especially the delicate and highly sophisticated cells in the brain.
And so every living thing on Earth with a brain jumps several standard deviations of IQ: smart people get super-smart, normal people get smart, etc. through the mentally handicapped to animals. Anderson describes the what-it-would-be-like-ness of getting suddenly much more intelligent in a way that I don't know if I've seen before. There's the stereotypical "and then he solved high order partial differential equations" or "the child invented calculus from first principles before breakfast," but for the POV characters it's more like having even more thoughts arise in one's stream of consciousness, and noticing more details about things, remembering more things, etc. etc. There's a maybe-predictable societal upheaval: oppressed people coordinate and rise up, farm animals figure out what's really going on and break out, lots of people go crazy because they're just not used to having so many thoughts...!
So this is the first stumbling block. Even though this is ultimately an optimistic book, with all of humanity finding a better way of living than before, Anderson's view of society and mental illness seems a bit reductive. I think some of the terminology is also quite outdated: we just say that some has a mental handicap or something, we don't have labeled bins for exactly how much they're handicapped.
Then there's the usual Fifties-sf problem of representation. Granted(?) he posits no racial component to which groups of people figure it out or freak out; but Anderson had an Anglo-Saxon-chauvinism streak and it's weirdly present here. Almost all the characters we see most often have extremely ethnic Northern European names: Helga Arnulfsen, Felix Mandelbaum, Archie Brock, Grunewald and Johansson (no first names given, lol). The main square-jawed scientist character is named Peter Corinth, which I suppose is Greek but is mostly pulpy as heck. Anyway, again, Anderson doesn't try to make some sort of cultural-superiority point by this, it's just a big difference from modern sf. That and the women being side characters at best.
The other big problem is structural, and I think it relates to the original publication method. Since it was originally a serial, that might explain why the later parts of the book skip forward in time so much, or why there's a brief but sort of pointless excursion into space. (Hey, if everyone gets really smart, why not build a spaceship?)
Finally, there are just some very Fifties-sfnal quirks to the book. Felix Mandelbaum wrangles the labor unions to help stabilize New York City, for example. It would not be as convenient nowadays. And Anderson concludes that with greatly heightened general intelligence, cities would become obsolete - this was not unique to him, but I find it amusing, especially since we actually have more of a "knowledge economy" now and cities are more important than ever.
Overall it's a fast read and a good example of that high-concept pulp sf scene of the 1950s, but a standard example of some of that scene's faults. 2.5 stars, rounded up for the neat premise.
And so every living thing on Earth with a brain jumps several standard deviations of IQ: smart people get super-smart, normal people get smart, etc. through the mentally handicapped to animals. Anderson describes the what-it-would-be-like-ness of getting suddenly much more intelligent in a way that I don't know if I've seen before. There's the stereotypical "and then he solved high order partial differential equations" or "the child invented calculus from first principles before breakfast," but for the POV characters it's more like having even more thoughts arise in one's stream of consciousness, and noticing more details about things, remembering more things, etc. etc. There's a maybe-predictable societal upheaval: oppressed people coordinate and rise up, farm animals figure out what's really going on and break out, lots of people go crazy because they're just not used to having so many thoughts...!
So this is the first stumbling block. Even though this is ultimately an optimistic book, with all of humanity finding a better way of living than before, Anderson's view of society and mental illness seems a bit reductive. I think some of the terminology is also quite outdated: we just say that some has a mental handicap or something, we don't have labeled bins for exactly how much they're handicapped.
Then there's the usual Fifties-sf problem of representation. Granted(?) he posits no racial component to which groups of people figure it out or freak out; but Anderson had an Anglo-Saxon-chauvinism streak and it's weirdly present here. Almost all the characters we see most often have extremely ethnic Northern European names: Helga Arnulfsen, Felix Mandelbaum, Archie Brock, Grunewald and Johansson (no first names given, lol). The main square-jawed scientist character is named Peter Corinth, which I suppose is Greek but is mostly pulpy as heck. Anyway, again, Anderson doesn't try to make some sort of cultural-superiority point by this, it's just a big difference from modern sf. That and the women being side characters at best.
The other big problem is structural, and I think it relates to the original publication method. Since it was originally a serial, that might explain why the later parts of the book skip forward in time so much, or why there's a brief but sort of pointless excursion into space. (Hey, if everyone gets really smart, why not build a spaceship?)
Finally, there are just some very Fifties-sfnal quirks to the book. Felix Mandelbaum wrangles the labor unions to help stabilize New York City, for example. It would not be as convenient nowadays. And Anderson concludes that with greatly heightened general intelligence, cities would become obsolete - this was not unique to him, but I find it amusing, especially since we actually have more of a "knowledge economy" now and cities are more important than ever.
Overall it's a fast read and a good example of that high-concept pulp sf scene of the 1950s, but a standard example of some of that scene's faults. 2.5 stars, rounded up for the neat premise.