Straight Chatting from the Library: Olga Werby

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“Becoming Animals” allows its readers to get inside the minds of animals. How does it feel to fly? What does craving for dark and food feel like? Why does the weight of the sun through the cold waters of the Pacific tastes so exquisite? What do baby whales dream of? When you can let go of feeling human, what experiential vistas open up? Animals might not have the tools we do to communicate their experiences and feelings, but if a human could embody an animal, that person could describe what they sense and the emotions that run through them.

And if a rat were scared, would its human rider feel the same? Can a human become lost in the rat’s mind? Or can we learn to understand and control the information coming form an animal’s senses and emotions? Can we truly control the mind of another being? Or does the process of total brain-to-brain immersion merges and changes both animals, the human and the rat? In “Becoming Animals”, we get to watch a little girl grow up while riding different animals in her dad’s lab—rats, pigs, ravens, and finally a whale. Is Toby even fully human by the end of the story?

While animals have very similar organs to humans, the way they use them is different. In particular, animal cognition is both familiar and radically dissimilar to ours. Just to give a few simple examples. Humans see in full color spectrum…at least that’s what we think. Dogs see in black in white, while birds see extra colors. Human sense of smell is rather weak, but a rat’s olfactory organs are amazingly well developed. People see the world from a height of several feet above the ground, rats from below an inch, birds from hundreds of feet up in the air. Just this change of perspective is a spectacular mind altering experience. In its essence, “Becoming Animals” is a story of mind-altering experiences and the desire of a child to survive a terminal illness by escaping into a mind of an animal.

It was very fun to write the scenes in this book where Toby rides the various animals in her dad’s lab. Aside from ethical dilemmas, getting the details of what it’s like to be rat or a bird or a marine mammal was amazing. A lot of research went into this book. We’ve tried to make the science in this book as accurate as possible – all the scientific details described in this story are true, even if they are pushed to the limit of what’s possible. When you read about how a rat responds to danger or how a whale mourns the death of its baby or how a young piglet gets the zoomies, it’s all real. The fictional part is how a human girl responds to experiences that are unique to other animals. That’s not to say that Brats – brain riding apparatus that turns animals into living drones -- is an existing military program already, just that it’s possible and is getting more probable every day.

Here’s a little preview of one ride:

He could smell food. Where? The scent overlaid the environment like a map. Rufus ran in the direction suggested by slight radial variations in the strength of the odor. But the path had to be safe. Rufus always craved food, but when balancing hunger against fear, safety had to win out. Too bright! Stay in the shadows.

Itch! Itch!

The blue luminance on his head was a nuisance. Rufus was stuck in mid-action—his back leg raised over his head, next to the bright blue light, ready to scratch, his paw just quivering on the edge of action. He never actually touched the thing embedded in his brain.

His stomach grumbled, returning his attention to food. Rufus ran again. He stuck to the edges, wary of the brightly lit center. But after he’d twice navigated the perimeter, Rufus realized the food was in a place he couldn’t get to without risk.

He heard a sound, and felt a familiar vibration of footsteps. He was used to the Big Ones—they provided food and water—but he knew this vibration pattern in particular. He paused, waiting to hear what would happen next. His ears turned in the direction of the sound, assessing its danger; his vision was limited to only what was right in front of his snout.

“Hi, Ruffy!”

The high-pitched voice raised Rufus’s anticipation of emotional contact and food. After a moment of excitement, he felt his heart rate slow a bit; his littermate was here. She was one of the Big Ones, but she could be trusted; they had grown up together. She smelled right—like home.

Making himself limp so he could be lifted gently, Rufus settled against the warmth of his littermate’s hands. He could hear the slow rhythm of her giant heartbeat. Her breathing motions, and the slight gurgling and hissing sounds that emanated from her—these were comfortingly familiar. He closed his eyes and relaxed.

The voice made soothing sounds, repeating “Ruffy, Ruffy, Ruffy”—a sound combination he recognized. This behavior usually preceded feeding and cuddling. Despite the bright lights, Rufus was safe now.

The change came on suddenly. There was brightness and clarity. Rufus raised his head above the fingers and looked around. There was still a lack of definition, but among the light and dark fuzziness that was the great out there, he could sense the functionality of the space. His home cage was placed up high—he had located it before from its odor, but couldn’t see it. Now he was certain of its location without the need to run and explore first.

Rufus was held high off the ground, and the littermate was gently rubbing the blue thing on his head, making it throb. That was good, for it had started to tickle and buzz.

Everything got sharper, more focused. With all the new information flooding in, Rufus was most pleased to learn where the tasty little snack pellets were stored. He contented himself with the anticipation of their crunchy goodness, satisfied, for now, with the feel of his littermate’s touch.

READ THE BLURB

Humans have always wanted to know what goes on inside the minds of other animals. But what if humans could become animals? Toby’s father leads a team of neuroscientists directly connecting the brains of humans with those of animals. And Toby is a prodigy at throwing her mind into the animal subjects in his lab—she’s the best there is.

But Toby suffers from cystic fibrosis and she’s not likely to live into adulthood. Could a radical plan to embed her consciousness into an animal allow Toby to survive? And what does it mean to live without a human body?

Can Toby and her father solve the problem of fully merging two beings before she takes her last breath? Will the government succeed in stopping their efforts before they are done? It’s a race against death and into the minds of animals.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Olga Werby, Ed.D., has a Doctorate from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on designing online learning experiences. She has a Master's degree from U.C. Berkeley in Education of Math, Science, and Technology. She has been creating computer-based projects since 1981 with organizations such as NASA (where she worked on the Pioneer Venus project), Addison-Wesley, and the Princeton Review. Olga has a B.A. degree in Mathematics and Astrophysics from Columbia University. She became an accidental science fiction indie writer about a decade ago, with her first book, "Suddenly Paris," which was based on then fairly novel idea of virtual universes. Her next story, "The FATOFF Conspiracy," was a horror story about fat, government bureaucracy, and body image. She writes about characters that rarely get represented in science fiction stories -- homeless kids, refugees, handicapped, autistic individuals -- the social underdogs of our world. Her stories are based in real science, which is admittedly stretched to the very limit of possible. She has published almost a dozen fiction books to date and has won many awards for her writings. Her short fiction has been featured in several issues of "Alien Dimensions Magazine," "600 second saga," "Graveyard Girls," "Kyanite Press' Fables and Fairy Tales," "The Carmen Online Theater Group's Chronicles of Terror," with many more stories freely available on her blog, Interfaces.com.

http://www.interfaces.com/blog/
http://www.amazon.com/author/olgawerby
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4056895.Olga_Werby
https://www.facebook.com/OlgaWerby/
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http://Pipsqueak.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDE3BNceupMYgvoaoAps2mg
https://www.linkedin.com/in/olgawerby/

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