継ぐのは誰か？ (角川文庫)

by Sakyo Komatsu, 小松 左京

人類は今や絶頂期にある。だが、「完全」ではない。技術文明の発展速度にくらべ、人間の叡智は常にそれに追いつくことができず、ますます制御不可能になっている。このままでは、人類の限界が必ずくる――。「チャーリイを殺す」。世界各地の大学で奇妙な予告があいつぎ、しかも現実のものとなっていた。このヴァージニア大学でも、優秀な学生であるチャーリイが、研究中に高圧電流に感電してしまった。予告通り、彼は殺されたのだ！　これは、極度に巨大化・複雑化したコンピュータ社会を密かに狙う新人類の出現なのか？　文明の最先端をよりどころとし、彼らは人類にとってかわるのだろうか？　小松左京ライブラリによる詳細な解説を収録。

324 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Born Minoru "Sakyo" Komatsu in Osaka, he was a graduate of Kyoto University where he studied Italian literature. After graduating, he worked at various jobs, including as a magazine reporter and a writer for stand-up comedy acts.

Komatsu's writing career began in the 1960s. Reading Kōbō Abe and Italian classics made Komatsu feel modern literature and science fiction are the same.

In 1961, he entered a science-fiction writing competition: "Peace on Earth" was a story in which World War II does not end in 1945 and a young man prepares to defend Japan against the Allied invasion. Komatsu received an honourable mention and 5000 yen.

He won the same competition the following year with the story, "Memoirs of an Eccentric Time Traveller". His first novel, The Japanese Apache, was published two years later and sold 50,000 copies.

In the West he is best known for the novels Japan Sinks (1973) and Sayonara Jupiter (1982). Both were adapted to film, Tidal Wave (1973) and Bye Bye Jupiter (1984). The story "The Savage Mouth" was translated by Judith Merril and has been anthologized.

At the time of publication, his apocalyptic vision of a sunk Japan wiped out by shifts incurred through geographic stress worried a Japan still haunted by the atomic devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was inspired to write it thinking of what would happen if the nationalistic Japanese lost their land, and ironically prefigured the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear plant disaster decades later on March 11, 2011 - the result of which he was interested in "to see how Japan would evolve" after the catastrophe.

Komatsu was involved in organizing the Japan World Exposition in Osaka Prefecture in 1970. In 1984, Komatsu served as a technical consultant for a live concert in Linz, Austria by Japanese electronic composer Isao Tomita. He won the 1985 Nihon SF Taisho Award. Komatsu was one of two Author Guests of Honor at Nippon 2007, the 65th World Science Fiction Convention in 2007 in Yokohama, Japan. This was the first Worldcon to be held in Asia.

With Shin'ichi Hoshi and Yasutaka Tsutsui, Komatsu was considered one of the masters of Japanese science fiction.

Komatsu died shortly after the destruction that followed the themes of his first and hugely successful novel. In the issue of his quarterly magazine published on July 21, Komatsu said he hoped to see how his country would evolve after the catastrophe. "I had thought I wouldn't mind dying any day," he wrote. "But now I'm feeling like living a little bit longer and seeing how Japan will go on hereafter." He died five days after publication, aged 80.

Reviews

[Ami Iida · Rating 1 out of 5]

foreseeing for the novelist

[アマチュア読者 · Rating 3 out of 5]

再怎麼超越時代終究還是性別歧視滿載

關於人造子宮與其使用率為1/3的這種預測，很在意作者是從何處得來的發想
(然後就看到日本不流行無痛分娩的討論)
覺得當女人真的好難，不肯忍痛就是沒有母愛

對故事中認為女性內建母性的這種想法感到憤怒，
另外登場角色女性不是床伴就是稍稍帶過的演奏者
（感謝天，作者為了符合那高級知識份子氛圍還給路人如她一個海洋學家的頭銜）
男女角色比例是9.9:0.1，啊不就好棒棒的未來

作者對很多角色都是用完即丟不會交代下場
前半看起來很重要的野孩子，後半馬上跟著曾經是床伴（但主角認為對方母性太強，跟自己漸行漸遠）的女子消失無蹤
還有看起來很厲害的賢者也是沒啥交代就默默神隱了

整體說來故事設計並不糟糕，想表達的東西也滿有趣
考慮到完成的年代(原著是1968年連載)，也許上面的評語會顯得過火
畢竟它的確呈現出一種預言效果

但不管是《妳一生的預言》（外星人）或是《繼承者是誰？》（超越智人的物種）都讓人對人類這種排外的物種感到無奈
想著的不是征服就是竊取科技

最後吐個跟性別無關的
如果對方真的如此高等生物，也統領所有科技，那又怎麼會沒法製作區區藥品？