(Amazing Crossing).

- Bruna, "Tears in Rain"

These words, fired out angrily by the replicant detective Bruna Husky during a confrontation with a human police officer, encapsulate the overall message of "Tears in Rain" by Rosa Montero.

It is the year 2109, and humans have done everything within their power to destroy the earth and then harness the power of technology to wipe up the ensuing mess. Pollution and global warming have gotten to a stage so critical that the inhabitants of Earth now have to pay for clean air or be relocated to toxic ‘dirty air’ zones full of harmful substances. Other planets have been colonized and interplanetary travel has been developed. Additionally, technological advances have led to the creation of androids that are so life-like that the only way to tell them apart from humans is by their distinctive feline eyes.

However, the attempts of humans to distinguish themselves as natural, superior creatures leads to a stratified society with the androids below humans and alien refugees at the very bottom. The novel focuses on Bruna Husky’s investigation of the mysterious and horribly violent deaths of these technohumans – referred to colloquially as replicants, or reps. Husky’s detective work leads her into a sinister plot involving racial hatred, discrimination, political agendas, and the problems caused by technology run amok.

Androids are created with the bodies and experiences of a 25-year-old and programmed to die by a wasting disease 10 years later. Within that short span, they are to serve a certain purpose. Husky was programmed for combat and served in the military before becoming a detective. In order to provide the replicants with the complete human experience, scientists program them with elaborate artificial memories written by trained professionals known as memorists. While the replicants know that the events that they remember of the first 25 years of their life are completely fake and doctored by people working in a lab, they feel the emotions associated with the memories as if they had actually happened. Husky is able to feel the false painful emotions associated with her difficult life and relives her horrible past every day because of the artificial memories.

Interspersed among narratives from the perspectives of a variety of different characters are documents from an archive chronicling the events leading to the situation in 2109. The change of perspective allows the reader to see the same situation through not only the eyes of the paranoid Bruna Husky, but also from the point of view of humans such as an archivist, a memorist, a police inspector, and briefly a supremacist who is working towards the eradication of all replicants. Also, the historical archive documents and the archivist’s editing subtly reveal certain details to the reader without actually coming out and revealing the information in a straightforward manner. All of this makes the novel difficult to put down once started. The technological innovations described in detail in the historical archive as well as in general by the characters in the story were fascinating. They constituted a coherent, consistent system; they were also developed from existing research and famous scientific principles such as Newton’s Laws and the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle.

This novel probes the depth of the human experience and questions what it means to be human. Androids are exactly like humans, complete with flesh and blood as well as the abilities to feel emotions. However, humans see them as sub-par beings and treat them with disdain. So what is the distinction between real and fake? Is it the same as the difference between natural and man-made?

The scientifically engineered pain that Husky associates with the first 25 years of her life is just as psychologically crippling to her as the real pain that she went through when her lover Merlin died. In addition, she is constantly burdened by the fear of dying in four years. Does the ability to create life in such an artificial manner justify actually doing so, especially when it has the potential for causing the effects seen in the suffering Husky? The treatment of aliens, refugees from unstable planets seeking safety on Earth, makes the whole situation even more complicated and interesting. Bruna shows indignation, frustration, and hostility toward humans for their lack of tolerance of replicants. At the same time, she shows the same intolerance and even disgust towards aliens. The intolerant nature of humans is universal, and it seems to have been programmed into replicants as well.

Despite its guise as a mystery novel, Tears in Rain is a book that chronicles pain. It examines pain in a variety of different situations from various perspectives in a world that seems to be slowly hurtling towards doom. Every character is in some sort of emotional torment, and the book suggests that pain is the ultimate uniting human characteristic. There is a lot of hatred, violence, and discrimination that defies logic. However, all of this has a purpose in the book and adds to overarching message.

It is not all depressing however; the book is peppered with heartwarming passages and parts that will make readers reconsider their lost faith in the humanity portrayed in this futuristic society. This book is a truly gripping read. However, readers who are looking for something light beware – this is an intense, gripping novel packed with emotion and difficult questions concerning humanity and technology.

Reach Contributor Hemalatha Bhamidi here.