Major themes
In the novel, thanks to technology, children can become smarter and more cynical than adults; such children are known as baby-heads. "Baby-heads" have their own subculture and bars, and can drink alcohol. Animals, too, can be given the intelligence of a human being through bioscientific techniques, a concept explored previously by David Brin in his Uplift novels, Roger Zelazny in The Dream Master, and in Olaf Stapledon's Sirius . Lethem's animals stand midway between these two; like Brin's, they have clearly delineated and delimited rights; like Zelazny's, however, they are part of a darker symbolism. It is not considered bestiality when one has a sexual relationship with an evolved animal in this world, and humans may also adopt younger evolved animals.
Lethem also envisions nerve-swapping technology. Couples trade erogenous zones for the purpose of sexual experimentation. Metcalf previously underwent such a procedure, and is now trapped with a woman's neuro-sexual apparatus because his girlfriend skipped town with his male one.
There are other incidental touches. For an unexplained reason, psychology is no longer viewed as a science, and psychologists behave like Jehovah's Witnesses, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other itinerant proselytizing religions. One such couple asks Metcalf if he'd like to listen to selections from Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents . In this future, television is now an abstract art form, and has abandoned linear narrative sequence genres.
People are more easily disconcerted in Lethem's future. Asking questions is considered astonishingly rude, making detectives (or "inquisitors", as they are known), whose job involves prying, social pariahs. Rather than broadcast bad news to squeamish listeners, the radio plays ominous music instead. (Handguns also come with threatening violin soundtracks.) And everyone is "on the make"--make being a snortable drug available in a dozen different blends (Acceptol, Avoidol, Forgettol) in stores called makeries. But substance abuse still exists in this future- there is a lucrative black market in blanketrol, an earlier version of forgettol and addictol, but highly addictive nevertheless. Pansy Greenleaf is initially addicted to it.
Karma is also subject to transactions through portable debit cards. Once someone's karma reaches zero, they are sentenced to specific periods of cryogenic respite until they "work off" their karmic "debt". Lethem went on to further explore this idea in his later novel Amnesia Moon , in which "luck ratings" served a similar role to Gun's karma. However, unscrupulous criminal elements in this society have developed "slaveboxes", neural implants which activate the inert central nervous systems of the sleepers, using their bodies for prostitution or slave labour while unconscious.
Metcalf himself is frozen late in the book. After six years, he is thawed out, only to find that memory retention has become a social taboo, and people now have prompters installed to provide retrospective commentary about past events in their lives. As a result, "makeries" only supply one standardized blend, with forgettol paramount. Private investigation is also illegal.
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