As the first book for my 2012 science fiction reading challenge I chose - browsing the young adult shelves in the local library - WE by John Dickinson (2010), the title of which does not intentionally refer to the Russian dystopian classic, We, by Yevgeni Zamyatin, even though the title's similarity to Zamyatin's novel was propably what caught my eye.
John Dickinson's WE is set to a distant future where almost everyone on Earth is connected to one another via system called the World Ear (thus the title WE). This connection has made it unneccessary for people to learn to talk, since after being intergrated to the system, they can share their thoughts immediately with whomever they choose to do so. Inside the system people also have access to all of mankind's knowledge, so there's no need to learn anything, because one can always search the system.
In the era of social media the point made here is easily seen, but Dickinson deepens the message by cutting his protagonist, Paul, off the system and sending him to work on a frozen moon eight years' journey from Earth. As Paul gradually learns to cope with being alone with his thoughts and relying on his own best knowledge of things, and to question the power of the World Ear back on Earth, the reader is made to think about her own position towards the way social media is reshaping the humanity.
Dickinson manages to create a vast difference between the world of instant, and constant, connection and the huge loneliness of Paul's surroundings on a distant moon, and at the same time, discuss the evolution of human life; the point perhaps being, that without the individual, there will be no collective.
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