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beth_dawkins's review against another edition
3.0
Have you ever woke up in the morning, and wished someone else would go to work for you? In this book someone does. People make copies of themselves, and send them out to do the things they don’t want to do. They have specialized colors for different things that determine the copy’s (dittos) function. Once they have spent their day doing their originals chores, they go home so the original can inload the memories. The story surrounds a PI, Morris. He is after a renowned criminal, when he is hired by Ritu, the daughter of one of the partners that came up with the ditto technology, to find her father.
The story is told through Morris’s eyes and his dittos. Through their eyes the reader discovers a very odd world. People have become addicted to experiences that they could never preform in their own bodies. Plots and stories of every kind are reenacted, and then inloaded. The most interesting is that Morris’s girlfriend works part time in wars. Wars are not fought by people anymore, but dozens of fighting formed dittos. It seemed every past time that I could have imagined was there, and more. The world was probably one of the most interesting things about the book. It also begs the question- What would you do if you didn’t have to risk your own body?
The plot started out very strong, and easy to follow, but towards the last half of the book confused me. I found it harder to keep up with what was going on, and feeling like I cared less. It has its moments of technological discussion that made me feel a little lost. Also Morris becomes a very in depth guy, while that is not a problem, it becomes one when his narrative and thought processes start to take up a large amount of pages. Because of this I started to feel bogged down, and a little lost in the pages.
There are not that many side characters, but of the few Pal is the most interesting. He is wheel chair bound, and his dittos are a little crazy, or maybe he is just a little crazy. The other characters , especially the two females either fell flat, or were not in the story enough to matter.
The story offers a very stunning world, but the plot fell off for me. It is off to a good start, but starts to become a slow read towards the end. I felt a strong lack of tension as the ending approached, and not enough excitement when secrets were becoming uncovered. Despite this I have to give the story props for the world, and the basic idea of soul copies. It offers the reader a huge amount of what if questions. This story would make some great discussion questions. I will leave you with one – Would you make a copy of yourself?
The story is told through Morris’s eyes and his dittos. Through their eyes the reader discovers a very odd world. People have become addicted to experiences that they could never preform in their own bodies. Plots and stories of every kind are reenacted, and then inloaded. The most interesting is that Morris’s girlfriend works part time in wars. Wars are not fought by people anymore, but dozens of fighting formed dittos. It seemed every past time that I could have imagined was there, and more. The world was probably one of the most interesting things about the book. It also begs the question- What would you do if you didn’t have to risk your own body?
The plot started out very strong, and easy to follow, but towards the last half of the book confused me. I found it harder to keep up with what was going on, and feeling like I cared less. It has its moments of technological discussion that made me feel a little lost. Also Morris becomes a very in depth guy, while that is not a problem, it becomes one when his narrative and thought processes start to take up a large amount of pages. Because of this I started to feel bogged down, and a little lost in the pages.
There are not that many side characters, but of the few Pal is the most interesting. He is wheel chair bound, and his dittos are a little crazy, or maybe he is just a little crazy. The other characters , especially the two females either fell flat, or were not in the story enough to matter.
The story offers a very stunning world, but the plot fell off for me. It is off to a good start, but starts to become a slow read towards the end. I felt a strong lack of tension as the ending approached, and not enough excitement when secrets were becoming uncovered. Despite this I have to give the story props for the world, and the basic idea of soul copies. It offers the reader a huge amount of what if questions. This story would make some great discussion questions. I will leave you with one – Would you make a copy of yourself?
crackle's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
4.75
shodank's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Starts out marvelous, then gets a little tedious to read in the last few chapters.
imitira's review against another edition
3.0
Another one that I recall loving from long ago, but unable to quite work out why on the re-read. The first half is great, the ham-handed characterization entirely befitting the world-building, but it's about twice as long as it ought to be (and I remember it being). The last third is excruciatingly exposition-laden, with a couple feeble threads of action woven through for relief. Memorable ideas, though.
tenzilkem's review against another edition
4.0
Brin is one of my favorite authors, and I'm enjoying this one so far. Quite an interesting world he's created, as usual.
nwhyte's review against another edition
Very enjoyable, the story of a detective in a world where you can upload and download copies of yourself to and from short-lived golem-like duplicates, though with some flaws in the execution.
sara_gabai's review against another edition
3.0
finally finished reading! this book needs a good editor!
tiggum's review against another edition
1.0
I don't think I've ever changed my opinion on a book quite so dramatically while reading it. Half way through I loved almost everything about it - some of the language use is irritating, eg. "the maestra", "ditective", etc. - but otherwise it's a neat noir-style detective story in a setting that allows for some interesting twists.
By the 80% mark I wasn't so sure about it. Probably only a three-star book. By 90% I was down to one star and just powering through so I could say I finished it. So how does it all go wrong? Well, I should have taken the occasional technical details in the early parts as a warning; the cloning technology is dumb and makes no sense. It could have been left unexplained and it would have been fine. And if everything hadn't gone off the rails as it did I could even have overlooked the dodgy sci-fi. But it turns out the nature of the technology is what the whole climax is based on. Stop reading now if you don't want to know.
Souls are real. That's how it works. It's not a metaphor or a slang term or even ambiguous. It's literally human souls animating the clones, and the whole plot ends up being about the villain trying to become god by eating a whole lot of souls, and then the protagonist kind of does become god but not really. Also there's a time travel paradox and the whole thing is just dumb and bad and absolutely ruins what started out as a really neat premise.
Fuck this book.
By the 80% mark I wasn't so sure about it. Probably only a three-star book. By 90% I was down to one star and just powering through so I could say I finished it. So how does it all go wrong? Well, I should have taken the occasional technical details in the early parts as a warning; the cloning technology is dumb and makes no sense. It could have been left unexplained and it would have been fine. And if everything hadn't gone off the rails as it did I could even have overlooked the dodgy sci-fi. But it turns out the nature of the technology is what the whole climax is based on. Stop reading now if you don't want to know.
Souls are real. That's how it works. It's not a metaphor or a slang term or even ambiguous. It's literally human souls animating the clones, and the whole plot ends up being about the villain trying to become god by eating a whole lot of souls, and then the protagonist kind of does become god but not really. Also there's a time travel paradox and the whole thing is just dumb and bad and absolutely ruins what started out as a really neat premise.
Fuck this book.
survivalisinsufficient's review against another edition
4.0
I was a little wary of this one, because I loved the Uplift books, but hated The Postman and some of his other stand-alones. In this one, people can make clay copies of themselves that have an imprint of their soul, memories, etc. I enjoyed it (although I didn't rush through it or anything). One of the best things this type of scifi does is make you think about how a new technology would be used, and I thought he did a decent job with that.
sondosia's review against another edition
2.0
I could barely get through this. The plot started off promising but quickly veered into something you'd see in a really wacky dream--a talking ferret, some pendulum that turns you into a god, a chick with multiple personality disorder who's become a criminal mastermind, hidden bio-weapons, etc.
That said, the universe Brin has created is undoubtedly a compelling one.
However, in addition to the ridiculous plot, the writing style is AWFUL. There are random italics and exclamation points all over the place, and the narration is basically stream-of-consciousness. However, my suspension of disbelief was completely ruined because this stream of consciousness narrator constantly makes references to the technology around him that normally people wouldn't. For instance, I wouldn't say something like, "I got up from my bed, which has a mattress specially designed to mold itself to my body shape, and entered my bathroom. I decided to check my weight on the scale, which automatically sensed when I stepped on it and almost instantly showed me my weight. I then turned on the water to take a shower, glancing at the display specially calibrated to show the temperature of the water." That would be ridiculous. If Brin wanted to wax poetic about the intricacies of the technology in the world he's created, he shouldn't have used first person. It just sounds ridiculous that way. Furthermore, there were frequent grammatical errors. Where's this guy's editor?
All in all, I guess the story itself was interesting enough (though I didn't understand the ending at all), but slogging through the awful writing style wasn't worth it. This guy needs to go back to grammar school.
That said, the universe Brin has created is undoubtedly a compelling one.
However, in addition to the ridiculous plot, the writing style is AWFUL. There are random italics and exclamation points all over the place, and the narration is basically stream-of-consciousness. However, my suspension of disbelief was completely ruined because this stream of consciousness narrator constantly makes references to the technology around him that normally people wouldn't. For instance, I wouldn't say something like, "I got up from my bed, which has a mattress specially designed to mold itself to my body shape, and entered my bathroom. I decided to check my weight on the scale, which automatically sensed when I stepped on it and almost instantly showed me my weight. I then turned on the water to take a shower, glancing at the display specially calibrated to show the temperature of the water." That would be ridiculous. If Brin wanted to wax poetic about the intricacies of the technology in the world he's created, he shouldn't have used first person. It just sounds ridiculous that way. Furthermore, there were frequent grammatical errors. Where's this guy's editor?
All in all, I guess the story itself was interesting enough (though I didn't understand the ending at all), but slogging through the awful writing style wasn't worth it. This guy needs to go back to grammar school.