Man Plus

Author: Frederik Pohl

For as long as we have had the technology to do so, we have attempted to improve our own bodies, from pulling teeth to using glasses to correct poor eyesight. But how far can such technological change go, and how will it affect what makes us human? When the cold war threatens to turn hot, the push to colonise Mars is accelerated, and one man is gradually turned into a cyborg in order to withstand the pressures of life on the red planet. His body is enhanced, and changed, his ability to process sensory information is radically altered. But with every new improvement to his own body, he becomes more and more detached from humanity. Only when he gets to Mars does his new body make sense to him, but by then he is totally separated from everything that made him human. Why itâ€™s on the list: Transforming our bodies is one of the common themes of science fiction, but this novel, which won the Nebula Award, shows the human cost of that transformation better than any other.