Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson

It takes no great skill to decode the world system today. A tiny percentage of the population is immensely wealthy, some are well off, a lot are just getting by, a lot are suffering. We call it capitalism, but within it lies buried the residual pattern of feudalism and older hierarchies, basic injustices framing the way we organize ourselves. Everybody lives in an imaginary relationship to this real situation; and this is our world. We walk with scales on our eyes, and only see what we think.

And all the while on a sidewalk over the abyss. There are islands of time when things seem stable. Nothing happens but the rounds of the week. Later the islands break apart. When enough time has passed, no one now alive will be still be here; everyone will be different. Then it will be the stories that link the generations. history and DNA, long chains of the simplest bits -- guanine, adenine, cytosine, thymine -- love, hope, fear, selfishness -- all combining again and again, until a miracle happens

and the organism springs forth!

p. 313

What a concept - relating  stories and DNA - chains of the simplest bits linking the generations! WOW!