Brain Wave
Poul Anderson
192 pages
published in 1954

It's almost impossible to be a sf reader and not like Poul Anderson, or at least some of his work. His oeuvre includes high fantasy (Broken Sword), hard science fiction (Tau Zero), alternate history (A Midsummer Tempest), space adventure (the Dominic Flandry series) and so much more. Somebody here once remarked that for every sf theme, Poul Anderson had written a book.

Sadly, he died on 1 August, 2001. As a private remembrance I read his first, breakthrough novel Brain Wave the week after his death. First published in 1954, it established his reputation as a first rank sf writer. My edition was published in 1976, as part of the New English Library "SF Master Series". This story is where Vernor Vinge got his idea for the Zones for:

Earth has been travelling through a force field for the last umpteen millions of years, which inhibited certain electromagnetical and electrochemical reactions and slowed down the speed of light. Now that the Earth is leaving this field those reactions as well as the speed of light speed up ever so slightly, not enough to produce noticable effects in the real world but which has a extraordinary impact on human brains.

The upshot is that ordinairy men are now supergeniuses with IQ's in the 400 range, morons now posses a slightly more then normal intelligence and many animal species have also reached an intelligence level equal to that of prechange humans.

The story is mostly told through the eyes of Peter Corinth, a somewhat typical Rational John Campbell Man as well as through Archie Brock, a former moron. The way in which the latter learns to adapt to his new found intelligence is handled pretty well.

The new situation obviously brings a lot of changes: people aren't satisfied with their menial jobs anymore and enough people quit to disrupt the economy. (One example given is the lift boy at the Institute Corinth works for, which shows the book's age...) Others reject their new intellect and join the cult of the third Ba'al, who preaches death for the eggheads and professors. Corinth almost dies in one of their riots at one point

Archie Brock's problems are simpler, if not less urgent. Left behind on the farm he used to work for, he has to deal with a now intelligent animal population, of which the pigs have already escaped to the nearby forest. One of the more touching moments in the book is when he has to slaughter a sheep which completely trusts him, to provide meat for the coming winter.

In some way, you can say that Brain Wave depicts what happens during the Singularity: after the chance is completed the vast majority of the population has become superhuman. Anderson shows that this means the loss of (almost) everything that makes us human, that much of the old emotions are irrelevant afterwards.

Not everybody accepts the new order: an international conspiracy tries to launch a satellite which will restore the old situation and at least one character damages her brain enough to become human again.

Typical of Anderson and unlike some US writers, he doesn't neglect to show what's happening outside the US. Apart from revolt in the USSR there's also the overthrow of the white rulers in the various African colonies, where the black Africans are aided by the animals of jungle, steppe and veld. At the time Brain Wave was written there were of course still western colonies in Africa, indeed the French were busy fighting a colonial war in Algeria and the English had troubles in Kenyia.