21st Century Kids Book

BOOK ONE


CHAPTER ONE:

AN END...



It’s hard to remember your own death. It hurts to just think about it, but
I’m very glad this book made it to you, for you are the future and now you can be
the ones to help create it.

I’ll tell you my story—but first I must share my memory of how it all started. . .

Laughing and playing, making funny noises, teasing my brother, while the city rushes by outside our windows. . . Then Mom screams, “Kids, remember what I said about— GO LIMP!— WE’RE GOING TO—” . . . screeching tires, clashing, crunching, a deep thud. I am now gasping for breath, focusing on each intake as it burns, looking at the world, the ceiling of our van, those cute Care Bear stickers I put up for my little sister. She is crying. I can just see through some haze enough to unhook her from her car seat. My arms are so weak. Things are swirling still, even though we have slid to a stop.

I hear Mom. Her voice is scared. She’s asking me if I’m all right, saying, “Hang on! I heard an ambulance. Just hang on, please. They’ll help you. Avi, you can do it! Stay with us! I love you, sweetie.” Her eyes are brimming with tears, but she is not yet crying. Then I see my brother. He is not moving. He is wet with blood and there is glass all around. Mom has unhooked herself and twisted through the van to be by his side. “Avryn, oh, sweetie, Avryn!— Please please open your eyes.” Now she is sobbing and with each heave of her chest I imagine she is sucking in all of the air in the van. As she wails, “Avryyyyn!!!!” I struggle to breathe.

Paramedics come, a blur of faces, colors, tubes, words. I always thought it’d be cool to ride in an ambulance—all that high-tech equipment to ask about,
sirens clearing the way— But I’m not thinking about that now, only about survival—focusing on each heavy breath. . . A hand grasps mine. I can feel the warmth, the strength, the love, the comfort. Is it my mom or a paramedic? I can’t tell. I don’t care. I’m scared. Something is very wrong with my body. It isn’t working right. . . I can’t sit up. I can’t even think to sit up. I can’t focus on anything— I’m fading out, fading in—my body is one with the bed.

The sirens stop. I’m being carried through doors under bright lights to a room. The bright lights are silhouetting faces. A machine is hooked up to me. There are lots of lights, noises, beeping. I fade out to sleep. . . I have only exhaustion, non-awareness. When I’m aware, I see a flickering light coming from the darkness. For a brief moment of clarity through the pain, I can see where I am, know who I am, how I got here. I struggle to think beyond my pain. I see a lot of people: Mom, Dad, my little baby sister Avalyse. I try to smile at her. She’s so cute, kissing me, petting me, she looks like an angel. She sees me looking at her and starts to cry. “I love you, Avianna, please don’t leave me.”

Mom sees me smile weakly. When she sees that my eyes are aware, her body jumps to my side, bending down, breathing sweetly. “Avianna, are you there? Hang on, stay with us— You can do it. I love you. When you were a baby, I loved you so much I sang to you with tears in my eyes, showing you the beauty of the trees and the world.” She is starting to cry but tries to finish. “From my being, I sang to you of life. You have so much to see and learn about life as you grow. You have to do this— Come on baby, you can.” She is grasping my hand so hard I can feel it over my pain. I’m straining to breathe in her breath. It is so sweet. I know my face is red. She turns away from me, muffling sobs, and hugs my little sister, gently stroking her golden-red, cascading hair. I wish I could.

Dad takes over, “I love you Avi. You’ll be all right. You can do this. You have to do this. We need you. Your little sister needs you. Your brother is . . .” My brain is hijacked by pain. Avoiding the pain is all the work my body can do. I can’t hear anymore. With each breath that racks my body, the pain primally encompasses all. How can I avoid a fraction of it, until the button on the I.V. is pushed and I fade out? . . . Someone’s hand is rubbing my face, gently. I open my eyes. The bright room is there, the ceiling bare, a burning pierces my chest. The machines are beeping louder. With the stabbing there is a tightness, like I’ve held my breath too long in my pool and I need to come up for air. I’m hanging on, fading away, the pain blinds me, I’m crazed for air, gasping. There is
a tightness, a stillness . . . and all becomes dark. . .

And at my end—my story begins:

Ok, after that, her story gets even more fun (death is always scary, but hey lots of story books for kids, such as the popular ghost story series, start out just as intense...)

She figures out what has been going on the past 200 years on Earth from when she died... there are all sorts of things common in her new time that are only postulated as being possible now. (A.I., brain up-loading, cryonic re-animation, immortality with brain back up, cloning, space travel and planet colonization, virtual reality movies and 'net' with actual smell and tactile reality-- full immersion, neural chips that can connect to the net as well as sending thought/speak to other humans, downloads of knowledge that the kids discuss in school the next day. There are religions from our modern time and some new, parenting licenses, an underground market, financial credit based on creativity/societal contacts and contributions. Governments: Earth and A.I. both making and debating their own laws. Other planets have their own rules. )

She joins a school in her community, makes some friends--and even finds a boy she likes. She finds out that some of her family colonized a planet that has lost contact with Earth and no one knows why. She investigates and becomes lost herself. (Yeah, with a bit of appropriately intense drama )

Then the 'Second Book' begins--the story of her brother.

Her brother (that did in fact 'die' in the car accident) gets introduced to the same society. He sees a message from his sister's personal recorder imploring him not to follow her (she left this in a simulated environment to be given to him). He has more problems adjusting to society, a lot more; guilt, missing loved ones, wishing things could be different. He ends up being able to join a secret mission to go and try to find out what happened to his sister. (yeah, he gets to be a hero )

There are some surprises--you'll have to risk for yourself, there are aliens erasing the mind of anyone that reads about them, after all...

(The aliens caused their own destruction after a virus engineered by religious terrorists gets out of hand. Their society evolved with cool logic and reason, when they enhanced their species with human genes they had not fully expected how the newly emotions acquired would so direly affect them.)

Edited by wing_girl, 04 March 2007 - 03:36 PM.

21st Century Kids: An Innovative Adventure for Ageless People in the Future

BEWARE! Your memory of reading this book could be ERASED!

21st Century Kids is not a fairy-tale for children to read. This book opens up a completely inventive world of what life will be analogous to in the future. This work should be compulsory reading for all transhumans and cryonicist.
The author, Shannon Vyff, wrote about what could possibly occur if suspended for approximately 200 years. Set in the year 2189, the real life protagonists Avianna, Avryn and with the help of Avalyse, tell the progress of their story by their capacity to evolve into the new culture.
Reminiscent of other literary classics in the vein of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, this book is a societal exposition. In the form of a chronological account from the future, Vyff describes how trans-civilization developed. This is not an ideal Utopia comparable to the novel by Sir Thomas More. Pollution has damaged the world’s ecological system and the civilizations must live in nano-shield spheres for protection.

A comparative analysis of this adventure to the classics:

The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells, is known to many as a children’s classic, but was really the social political views about the 19th-century. By traveling forward in time, Wells was able to express his views of the world around him during a chaotic time. Vyff similarly tells about a possibly accurate portrayal of the future in an extraordinary story of her children traveling by cryonic suspension into the tranhumanial future.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain created the sub-genre of science fiction when his character, Hank Morgan, transports back into time. This was the first true book of time travel back in time rather then forward in time as The Time Machine. Similarly, Vyff creates a sub-genre for transhumanial literature with 21st Century Kids. Mark Twain was committing on the existing society of the 19th –century in a satire. Vyff has created a paradigm shift for the 21st-century by traveling forward in time by using cryonics as the transport medium.
This work is much superior to Robert A. Heinlein’s To Sail beyond the Sunset or The First Immortal by James L. Halperin. This novel is devoid of all the superfluous sex and violence to move a story.

The first chapter begins with a bang! No time to explain the life style of the principal characters, an accident happens very quickly…

A bright light flashed near my window. I’ll look out to see what it is. Was that a flying saucer? No, it is just the full moon behind the clouds…I think…


The initial narrative point of view is from Avianna, a twelve-year-old girl, re-animated into the new world. She gets through the event and finds the information that leads her to her ambition. To find her clone; akin to The Descent of Inanna, (Ishtar), Avianna has a feminine journey structure. She finds that the world is a beautiful place but she feels that she cannot grow because she does not know what happen to her clone. Avianna has learned about a spaceship that will travel to search for the lost colonist, but she would have to be a stowaway.
The first thing Avianna encounters are transhuman themes: A.I.; enhanced ageless humans and animals; telepathic, with different perceptions of time, watch-recorders, robots, nanotechnology; uploading and downloading sequences, such as schoolwork or even entities into supplementary forms of life. Oh, yes there are also flying cars!
The School of Langeles is where the children are collectively reside, using nano-minting to create whatever they want. They can change their rooms just by thinking of a new design and then the nanobots construct the environment to whatever they desire. However, her genetic copy is missing in deep space… Avianna has new dolphin acquaintances; will she leave them for outer space?

There is an eerie sound resembling a low hum near the door…but I need to finish this review…

The second narrative point of view is from Avryn, a ten-year-old boy who was also cryo-vitrified. He decides to make a sacrifice similar to The Epic of Gilgamesh, Avryn takes a masculine journey structure. When he was re-animated, his sister has vanished into deep space. Avryn needs to take a robot form for the expedition in space… can he locate her?

I don’t believe what I’m seeing! A gray alien with large black eyes is coming toward me!

I woke up… What was I doing? I look at the bookshelves and I notice that there is a book missing, a gap between two other books. I can’t remember which book was there.

I notice the computer is on the internet. It is the book club forum.
21st Century Kids… Wow, what a story! I’ll have to buy that book…

Edited by Neurosail, 01 April 2007 - 02:39 AM.

The following was sent to my by Patrice Kell the Principle of a school in Canada, who has ordered several copies of the book to teach futurist issues to her middle school students:

'21st Century Kids by Shannon Vyff'

'Vyff wastes no time educating her readers on just how different the world of the future might be! In less than 17 pages we learn that cryonic suspension can work, that nanobots have arrived, that cloning and artificial intelligence are now a part of everyday life, that our brains of the future have been upgraded with super chips, and that time is irrelevant …or perhaps as the story line unfolds, quite relevant!

'Through the eyes of a present-day teen reanimated from cryonic suspension, we explore and experience Vyff’s brave new world. Although this book was written for children, there is nothing childish about the issues mankind of the future must face. Nor has Vyff solved them all for the reader. This is a book that makes you think!

Readers should strap on their virtual seat belts and get ready for one fast-paced trip to the future!

(And Shannon just so you know, I am not sold on this book being geared to just teens. For a gal who grew up with the Jestons, Star Trek and Star Wars (and recently a Battle Star Galactica junkie!) this is right up my alley and I know I am not alone!

Well done!)

Thanks Patrice