Adam and Eve meet the Wizard of Oz in the Twilight Zone - well sort of.
This story is a fanciful look at how biotechnology will lead to strange bargains between government, religion and science. But the ethical dilemmas in this book are not fanciful. They are real.
The story takes place in the future when people are resurrected periodically to keep them young. But their minds age also. Our hero rejuvenates their minds by giving them a reverse MRI overhaul. However, bad things happen when he takes away their sins. These find an evil home. But our hero has help from a woman that looks like Snow White, an unstable genius, and a man that can't decide if he is Ensign Sulu or a clock.
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Excerpt
New York City was replaced by Oooooga City. In gorilla language, oooooga roughly translates as "a whole lot o' shakin.” But people outside of Oooooga City often refer to it as "the big banana" or "the city of the oops."
Deer were not the first animals to be given higher intelligence. Gorillas were brought into New York to perform manual labor and to sell hot dogs to Buddhist monks who needed primates to make them one with everything. Later, the gorillas were made smarter so that they could work in the plants and factories. However, once they received a very slight increase in intelligence and learned to speak broken English, they became excellent lawyers. It seems what they lacked in literacy, they more than made up for in "courtroom presence.”
The gorillas also excelled in politics and broadcast journalism for similar reasons. However, gorillas never did take over Wall Street because intelligence-enhanced Orangutans had better heads for numbers and better financial instincts in general. By and by, the combined Orangutan-Gorilla Alliance (OG) took control of local politics and put a dome over Oooooga City. Of course this meant cutting down some of the higher structures such as the Statue of Liberty. (Charlton Heston stopped by for a visit to Oooooga City some time later and was visibly upset by the whole thing.) Even without the dome it is likely that the OG would have demolished the Empire State Building since it had become a symbol of anti-simianism. The OG invited Jessica Lange to attend the Empire State Building demolition ceremony but she politely declined saying she was afraid "she might get too carried away with the whole thing.” And the city's nickname, the big banana, isn't entirely inappropriate since the dome over Oooooga City resembles a giant banana. The dome also allows for a controlled climate that supports the cultivation of small banana plantations
MONSTROSITY n. 1. That which deviates greatly from the norm in appearance or structure. 2. The quality or character of being abnormal; hideous; frightful; shocking.
Pieces of Eight, Part III is a collection of eight novellas to complement the eight in Pieces of Eight, Pieces of Eight, Part II and Pieces of Eight, Part IV.
