Counting Heads
Encyclopedia
Counting Heads is a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by David Marusek
David Marusek
David Marusek is an author who was born in Buffalo, New York but lived various places in youth. He is currently divorced and has a grown daughter. He has lived in Alaska since 1973 and that is the state he is most associated with....

, published in 2005 by Tor Books
Tor Books
Tor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates LLC, based in New York City. It is noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. Tom Doherty Associates also publishes mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint. The company was founded...

.

Counting Heads is an expansion of Marusek's 1995 short story "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy"
Getting to Know You (short story collection)
Getting to Know You is a short story collection by David Marusek. It contains all of his published science fiction stories as of it publication. Includes an introduction and a commentary on each story by the author.-Stories:# The Wedding Album...

, which serves as the first chapter of Counting Heads (with minor revisions from its original rendition as a short story).

Mind Over Ship
Mind Over Ship
Mind Over Ship is a science fiction novel by David Marusek, released on January 20, 2009.Mind Over Ship is a sequel to the 2005 Marusek novel Counting Heads....

, a sequel to Counting Heads, was released on January 20, 2009.

Analysis

The extended story from We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy, happening in 2092-4, occupies the first part of the novel. The other two parts are set 40 years later, in 2134.

This is the story of an over-crowded humanity. The individual is obsolete here, even the family is a fluid notion. In such a world as described by Marusek, social institutions are oversized and functioning on weird principles. This is a world of caste system and clones.

Even that the plot is basically a murder/espionage mystery, because of the satire and the black humour, but also of the deep analysis of the human soul, the novel is convincing realistic.

External links

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