Reviews

ThiGMOO by Eugene Byrne

nwhyte's review

http://nhw.livejournal.com/306301.html[return][return]ThiGMOO is about a set of artificial intelligence computer personalities, based on fictional historical constructs, created as part of an academic project. When they are threatened with being closed down and eliminated, they rebel, and plot to take over the world. (The title referes to an Old Labour cliche, This Great Movement Of Ours, which becomes the code word for the AIs' sanctuary and battle plan.)[return][return]I really enjoyed this book. But I'd be very surprised if it was even slightly comprehensible to anyone who either knew nothing about or never found anything to like about the old-style Labour movement in Britain. Like Kim Stanley Robinson, Eugene Byrne wears his heart on his sleeve. Like Charlie Stross and Ken MacLeod, he is dealing with the politics of liberation combined with the consequences of artifical intelligence. But the tone here is gentle satire rather than Robinson's earnest endeavour or the Scotland-based writers' dazzling visions. His targets include earnest academic pagans, readers of and writers for the Daily Mail, old-style communists, New Labour, the President of the United States, mail order brides, the electronic media in general, and soap operas in particular.[return][return]The book is effectively an admission that it would take the intervention of rogue computers to put matters "right". I am just about old enough to remember a time before Thatcher, and Eugene Byrne convinces me to suspend my vague memories of the awful mistakes of the Wilson and Callaghan governments for just about long enough to find some sympathy with his vision of a world that now can never be. Fun, as long as you can cope with the cultural context.