Man After Man
Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future is a 1990 speculative evolution and science fiction book written by Scottish geologist Dougal Dixon and illustrated by Philip Hood. The book also features a foreword by Brian Aldiss. Man After Man explores a hypothetical future path of human evolution set from 200 years in the future to 5 million years in the future, with several future human species evolving through genetic engineering and natural means through the course of the book.[1]
 First Edition cover. The cover depicts "Jimez Smoot's descendant", a spacefaring human descendant living five million years in the future. | |
| Author | Dougal Dixon |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Speculative evolution Science fiction |
| Publisher | Blandford Press (UK) St. Martin's Press (US) |
Publication date | 14 June 1990 (UK) 1 September 1990 (US) |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 128 |
| ISBN | 978-0713720716 |
Man After Man is Dixon's third work on speculative evolution, following After Man (1981), which explored the animals of a hypothetical world 50 million years in the future where humanity had gone extinct, and The New Dinosaurs (1988), which explored the animals of a world where the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event never occurred. Unlike the previous two books, which were written much like field guides and explored factual natural processes through fictional examples and worlds, the focus of Man After Man lies much on the individual perspectives of future human individuals of various species, mainly focused on how they perceive the changing climate, which they are specifically engineered to be adapted to, around themselves.
Though reviews of the book were generally positive, they criticised the science aspect of the book in a greater extent than in its predecessors, finding parts of the book unlikely. Dixon himself is not fond of the book, referring to it as a "disaster of a project". During writing, the book had changed considerably from its initial concept, which instead would have involved modern humans time-travelling to the future world of After Man and subsequently devastating the future ecosystem. This idea was later repurposed into Dixon's 2010 book Greenworld, which applies it to a fictional alien ecosystem, so far only published in Japan.
Summary
Man After Man explores an imaginary future evolutionary path of humanity, from 200 years in the future to five million years in the future. It contains several technological, social and biological concepts, most prominently genetic engineering but also parasitism, slavery and elective surgery. As a result of mankind's technological prowess, evolution is accelerated, producing several species with varying intraspecific relations, many of them unrecognizable as humans.[2]
Instead of the field guide-like format of Dixon's previous books, After Man (1981) and The New Dinosaurs (1988), and instead of the conventional narrative style of most science fiction works, the book is told through short stories, isolated sequences of dramatic events in the lives of select individuals of the future human species imagined by Dixon. The genetically engineered humans of the future, in total numbering about 40 species through the book, occur in several different and diverse forms, with genetically engineered forms first being slave races created to survive underwater and in space without the need of protective gear and suits, described as the "ultimate triumphs of the genetic engineer".[3][4]
Eventually, modern humanity dies out and technology disappears. With subsequent human species having been engineered to be unintelligent and animal-like in order to repopulate the Earth's ecosystems, concepts like culture and civilization disappear and the lives of most human descendants revolve around gathering food and surviving the harsh conditions of nature.[3][4]
Development
Dixon's previous speculative evolution book projects, After Man (1981) and The New Dinosaurs (1988), used fictional examples to exemplify real-life factual natural processes. After Man focuses on the processes within evolution and projects them into a hypothetical future scenario set 50 million years after the extinction of mankind, where various hypothetical future animal species are used to explain the concepts within evolution. The New Dinosaurs, meanwhile, focuses on the science of zoogeography, using fictional species in a world where the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event never happened to explain the process.[5]
Initially, Man After Man was intended to be a project where fictional examples would be used to explain factual processes, like the previous books. The original idea involved mankind avoiding catastrophes such as overpopulation and mass starvation by inventing time travel and moving 50 million years into the future to re-establish civilization. This original Man After Man would have been set in the same world as After Man and would have focused on man-made catastrophes destroying the ecosystem established in the previous book. Dixon was reluctant to be involved in the final version of the project, which instead focused on changing climate conditions through the eyes of future human species engineered to adapt to them,[6] and has in subsequent interviews referred to it as a "disaster of a project".[5]
The original Man After Man concept, mankind destroying an established ecosystem, was later used by Dixon for another project where mankind colonized an alien planet with a complex and unique ecosystem. This project, published as the book Greenworld in 2010 (though so far only released in Japan) follows human colonization of the planet Greenworld over the course of a thousand years, showing how mankind affects its ecosystem.[5]
Reception
Like its predecessors After Man and The New Dinosaurs, Man After Man received generally positive reviews, though the science of the book was criticised in a greater extent than that featured in the preceding works. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, reviewer John Wilkes likened the future explored within Man After Man to the world of the film Blade Runner (1982) in its grim depictions of "technological progress decaying into human viciousness". Wilkes praised the introductionary chapters of the book, particularly the "easy-to-grasp and clearly illustrated" chapter on genetics. The various future human species were referred to by Wilkes as "truly wondrous" but "miserable". Wilkes also praised the "striking" illustrations by Philip Hood, particularly that of the "vacuumorph", though noted that some of his artwork was somewhat anatomically questionable and that some aspects of the book's science and technology "raised questions too involved to introduce here". He concluded that the greatest strength of the work was its ability to "compel empathy with such strange creatures".[3]
Writing for the magazine The Skeptic, British critic and author David Langford stated that the book was a "superior coffee-table production", but found it "illuminating and fun" rather than realistic. In particular, Langford questioned the scattered usages of the term "telepathy" and the genetic engineering of humans capable of life in space and underwater without suits when suits would surely be more economical and avoid creating slave races dependent on high technology to survive. He found the most questionable decision to be the repopulation of Earth's ecosystem by human species engineered to be unintelligent, though noted that "the initial premise once accepted, this is good, striking stuff".[4] Subsequent reviewers have characterized the book as "dystopian", featuring a "freak show of genetic engineering", and that it feels more like science fiction than science, in contrast to After Man and The New Dinosaurs.[2]
See also
- Transhuman
- Posthuman
- Last and First Men (1930) by Olaf Stapledon – a book which similarly explores future humans and their descendants.
- All Tomorrows (2008) by C. M. Kosemen – another book which similarly explores future humans and their descendants.
References
- Dixon, Dougal (1990). Man After Man. Blandford Press. ISBN 978-0713720716.
- Jakub, Lucy (2018-09-19). "Wild Speculation: Evolution After Humans". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2019-08-16.
- Wilkes, John (1990-09-25). "BOOK REVIEW : Hope, Despair Clash in a Fictional Future in 'Man After Man'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2019-08-16.
- Langford, David (1990). "Man After Man". ansible.uk. Retrieved 2019-08-16.
- Naish, Darren. "Of After Man, The New Dinosaurs and Greenworld: an interview with Dougal Dixon". Scientific American Blog Network (Interview). Retrieved 2018-09-21.
- "An interview with Dougal Dixon - OUGH.gr". OUGH.gr (Interview). Retrieved 2018-09-22.