The Legacy Human by Susan Kay Quinn
What would you give to live forever? Seventeen-year-old Elijah Brighton wants to become an ascender—a post-Singularity human/machine hybrid—after all, they’re smarter, more enlightened, more compassionate, and above all, achingly beautiful. But Eli is a legacy human, preserved and cherished for his unaltered genetic code, just like the rainforest he paints. When a fugue state possesses him and creates great art, Eli miraculously lands a sponsor for the creative Olympics. If he could just master the fugue, he could take the gold and win the right to ascend, bringing everything he’s yearned for within reach… including his beautiful ascender patron. But once Eli arrives at the Games, he finds the ascenders are playing games of their own. Everything he knows about the ascenders and the legacies they keep starts to unravel… until he’s running for his life and wondering who he truly is.
The Legacy Human is the first in Susan Kaye Quinn’s new young adult science fiction series that explores the intersection of mind, body, and soul in a post-Singularity world… and how technology will challenge us to remember what it means to be human.
My Review
I received a free ecopy of this book for an honest review.
The Legacy Human starts out slowly but once I got about a quarter of the way through, it grabbed my interest and kept it until the end.
Eli, the main character, seems like any of a number of talented humans when the story begins. He’s 17 and has a sponsor who is supposed to help him develop his talent. His mom is dying and he’d do anything to get the cure for her. He’s been trying drugs off the black market but, so far, they’re not helping. There is one other thing he can do: ascend. He lives in a future in which many humans “ascended” to a higher level and are immortal. The only way humans can now ascend is to win an annual competition of the arts. The winners’ families also can ascend, which means his mother would be cured. It is now or never for Eli because once a human turns 18, they’re not allowed to enter the competition.
It is eventually revealed to Eli that he is not a normal human. By the end of the book, he knows more about his conception but he’s still trying to figure out the visions he has occasionally. The whole concept is pretty complicated but the author does a good job at explaining it.
I liked Eli but I liked his best friend even more. Cyrus is fiercely loyal to Eli and his mom, as well as extremely competitive. He would do almost anything to help Eli win.
Once the competition is over, things get exciting and suspenseful. It was difficult to put The Legacy Human down during the last few chapters.
I do recommend this book even with its slow beginning. I’m looking forward to reading The Duality Bridge.
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Praise for The Legacy Human
“This book is Hunger Games (without the violence or controversy) meets Divergent.”
“This story is so intense I felt I couldn’t get a proper breath.”
“Science fiction with philosophical depth!”
The Duality Bridge
What does it mean to be human? Elijah Brighton is the face of the Human Resistance Movement. He’s the Olympic-level painter who refused an offer of immortality from the ascenders—the human/machine hybrids who run the world—in solidarity with the legacy humans who will never get a chance to live forever. Too bad it’s all a complicated web of lies. Worse, Eli’s not even entirely human. Few know about the ascenders’ genetic experiments that left him… different. Fewer know about the unearthly fugue state that creates his transcendent art—as well as a bridge that lets him speak to the dead. But the Resistance is the one place he can hide from the ascender who knows everything the fugue can do. Because if Marcus finds him, he’ll either use Eli for his own nefarious purposes… or destroy him once and for all. The Duality Bridge is the second book in the Singularity series and the sequel to The Legacy Human. This thrilling new young adult science fiction series explores the intersection of mind, body, and soul in a post-Singularity world.
About the Author
Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the Singularity Series, the bestselling Mindjack Trilogy, and the Debt Collector serial, as well as other speculative fiction novels and short stories. Her work has appeared in the Synchronic anthology, the Telepath Chronicles, the AI Chronicles, and has been optioned for Virtual Reality by Immersive Entertainment. Former rocket scientist, now she invents mind powers, dabbles in steampunk, and dreams of the Singularity. Mostly she sits around in her PJs in awe that she gets to write full time.
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