David Goldman's "The Last Man's First Year on Earth" (short story, science fiction): When kids killed off all adults!

This is a dystopic singularity story, but quite readable. There were places that had an echo of Arthur Clarke's "Childhood's End", & others that reminded me of Phillip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?".

Full text of this story is available for download.

Story summary.

Defining event of the story is the discovery of a longevity treatment - you can live to be 600 years old, provided the treatment is received before puberty. Catch is - you will always look like a child, though you will mentally mature. This happened "early 23rd century".

Some political events based on who can afford the treatment, & some of these long lived kids have released a virus in the air that kills off all adults on earth - presumably including their own kin! So we have an otherwise normal earth of long lived kids, & no physical adults.

A little before the treatment is discovered - during the closing years of twenty-first century, a manned space ship named "Vasco da Gama" had left to investigate something in the system of "Shastri's Star" - with crew in stasis during transit. Over a century later, it "returned to Earth orbit precisely on schedule, in 2234." All crew save one are dead - some problem in "automated reactivation sequence" of stasis machines.

Mr Kerry Molloy, a xenobiologist born in the year 2072 with current biological age of 38 or 39, is the sole survivor. He is the last adult on earth now (adult killer virus has long since dissipated). For unexplained reasons, retrieval of this survivor from earth orbit took over a half century - probably to do with turmoil following longevity treatment. The year is now 2309, "More than two hundred years since you left Earth", when Molloy is awakened. The story looks at this strange world through the eyes of this adult.

We are treated to some magical technology of this future - 300 years from now. Mood altering pills are common place. Card sized computers whose display is "Direct laser painting onto your retinas ... It's activated by your attention, shuts off when you look away. You control it via pressure sensors around the rim." I generally found them distracting from main story.

New kids are now born via "in vitro gestation". Sometimes, for some reason or another, the longevity treatment will be missed for one; these grow to be adults, live on the fringes of society, & it's impolite to acknowledge their existence!

While the long lived kids never physically grow beyond a child's body, urge for sex is very much there - sex toys in the form of android robots generally indistinguishable from humans are common. This suppressed & unsatisfied sexual urge forms a major part of the plot.

Fact sheet.

"The Last Man's First Year on Earth", short story, review
First published: Helix magazine, #7 (Winter 2008).
Rating: B