The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Maggie Chao tells origin stories to her children and grandchildren throughout this narrative, each story from different cultures: Greek, Norse, Australian Aboriginal, Christianity. Each story parallels the stage of evolution that humanity is currently facing.

The characters are on a generations-long mission to “61 Virginis e” on the ship Sea Foam. For the first time in a decade, the Earth has tried to contact them. That’s because back on their home planet, scientists have figured out the secret to immortality, and are offering it to those on the mission as well. This causes a problem on a generational ship, though, which is built upon algorithms for population planning, health, life expectancy, and resource consumption. Since the mission has been designed to be completed by the original travelers’ descendants, the discovery changes everything. They can choose to die; they can keep their children at whatever age they desire.

Husband and wife, Maggie and João, disagree on whether to die. João thinks they must make way for the next generation; she argues they no longer must leave the hard work to their descendants. He thinks death is essential to human growth: “How can we teach our children the value of sacrifice, the meaning of heroism, of beginning afresh?” (214). In the end, the people aboard the Sea Foam decide to let each people decide their own fates.

Maggie chooses to live, as does her son Bobby, but he stays the size of a 10-year-old boy. João and their daughter, Lydia, and Lydia’s children continue their lives and die. They reach 61 Virginis, which aliens inhabit. They meet the aliens, who are human but look like robotic centaurs. They are evolutionarily superior to the ship’s crew and have been waiting for them.

The beings have merged into a World-Mind called the Singularity but can be individuals if they choose: “[T]here was no more line between the ghost and the machine” (222). They invite the crew to join them or continue as they are. Maggie doesn’t transform, but Bobby does. When he touches her with his new body, she recoils, and then realizes she has no right to feel revulsion. Still, they are divided.

Maggie remains the only organic human on the planet, and maybe in the universe. She meets her grandchild, a tiny machine who asks Maggie to call her Athena. She has come to hear Maggie’s stories. Surprised that there are still young people in this new race, Maggie decides to upload and join her family.

The Singularity starts to send colonists away. Athena is to lead her own colony, and Maggie offers to join them as they search for a new planet. They meet another human who has evolved past even the Virginis humans. Maggie chooses to become a light being. Her family members, too, become patterns of energy. She and Bobby make up and say goodbye. She lands on a planet with small beings and tampers with their DNA to help them evolve. Then, she leaves the planet.