An event horizon is a “boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer” (wiki). It is most commonly referred to when talking about black holes. But what about as a science fiction metaphor, Butler uses it when talking about Akin’s preconception of Lilith’s DNA. She writes “there was something beyond the nucleotides that he could not perceive – a world of smaller particles that he could no cross into” (257). The outside observer, Akin, could not understand and in turn alter the DNA at a lower level than the nucleotides and this frustrated him. It is this point at which we know is there but cannot reach, at least to the outside observer, that presets an interesting metaphor. Science fiction in some ways expects the reader to accept certain truths about its world or the technology in it. This is its event horizon, or as Butler puts it, it is “beyond [our] perception” and that “[we know] of it only through shadowy ungraspable feelings” (257). Neuromancer has a similar reference to an event horizon: “Yeah. He said I wouldn’t understand, an’ I was wastin’ my time. Said it was, was like…an event. An’ it was our horizon. Event horizon, he called it” (234). The point at which we can never return from plays into the theme of the unknown. It plays into the theme of humanity and crossing borders. Once the humans have crossed the horizon and mated with the ooloi; they can never escape and never go back.
