Computer technology has advanced to the point that people can upload their minds into machines and thus "live" forever if they so desire. Eventually most people choose to do so and humanity dies out while human/machine minds spread throughout the galaxy. Artifical intelligence combines with the human minds and Earth is left behind, a relect of a time long past.
One artificial intelligence is left in charge of Earth called Gaia. Millions of years go past. Life on Earth adapts as the planet changes over time. The sun begins to age and enters its period of decline.
A notion takes hold among the hybrid intelligences that span the universe. They have the power to restore the sun and protect Earth, the birthplace of humanity. Yet Gaia has done nothing to protect the Earth from the dying sun and life is fading away on the planet as it gets hotter and hotter. When asked to take steps to stop Earth's decline, Gaia refuses, claiming there is much information to be gained by watching the planet and the sun die.
So the extraterrestrial intelligences send an emissary to examine Gaia and understand why it is refusing to preserve life on Earth. The emissary, called Wayfarer, contains, among other things, the mind of Christian Brannock, a man from back in the days when humans were first exploring the solar system. While Wayfarer examines Gaia's data, Christian will explore Gaia's studies of history through the simulations it has created. And a third aspect is a robot, Brannock, who explores the actual surface of the world. They eventually stumble upon Gaia's secret: it has recreated human beings and is trying to inspire them to save themselves from the dying Earth.
The most interesting part of this story was that of the robot Brannock exploring the world. But that part of the story is just a very limited. The major part is the story of Christian and Laurinda who fall in love as they experience the various simulations Gaia takes them through. I wasn't particularly moved by that, though. Overall, it was just too much talk and not enough action.
Review by Publishers Weekly.
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