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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This epistolary novel about nerdy programmers working for Microsoft in the '90s suprised me. I wasn't sure I would like it (or even really understand it, since I'm not a computer nerd) but it was very funny and also quite touching. It's written in the form of PowerBook diary entries; the narrator's random observations about work, his housemates, and their day-to-day lives made me chuckle. Although this book may seem silly at first, it carries a poignant throughline about the narrator's little brother, who died in a tragic accident during their childhood, leaving a deep void in his family's hearts. There were a couple moments that brought tears to my eyes. I've never read anything quite like this and I'm really glad I got to know these characters.
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
It's as if you had Silicon Valley in the 90's. Incredibly funny and pertinent at times when mentioning the privatization of the private. Coupland is a nerd with a big ole heart that comes of as sappy at times, which I love.
it didn't pack the same punch reading it in 2018, the world and internet has moved on.
imaginitive writing, with characters with depth and choc full of observations and dark humour.
The story fizzled out but I don't think that was the main point.
interesting, entertaining but not quite as good as I thought it would be and I believe that's because I read it in 2018
imaginitive writing, with characters with depth and choc full of observations and dark humour.
The story fizzled out but I don't think that was the main point.
interesting, entertaining but not quite as good as I thought it would be and I believe that's because I read it in 2018
funny
reflective
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It has his funny moments and feels like a very neat snapshot in time prior to the dot-com crash. Can be dull, as it really is just a man monologuing, but the characters are written in a way to make you genuinely care about them. The narrative has a very 90's "what's the point of this?" plot that seemed to be so popular at the time. Think Empire Records, but as a book about computer nerds.
This book is very much a snapshot in time, and although parts of it are amusingly pinned to the pre-dotcom 90s (interactive multi-media products?) the core of the book is about the relationships between a group of young geeks working together and it holds its own in 2015 quite well.
Reading this did lead to a lot of reflection on things that have changed over the last twenty or so years- this book is pre-google, pre-smart-phone era and the group has the same sorts of ongoing discussions and debates that we had in my twenties that simply don't happen anymore- someone googles the question and the discussion is shut down.
This is probably Coupland's most accessible book, but it does suffer from a very Coupland-esque non-ending.
Here's a good flavor of the book. These are the narrators notes from a conference:
Reading this did lead to a lot of reflection on things that have changed over the last twenty or so years- this book is pre-google, pre-smart-phone era and the group has the same sorts of ongoing discussions and debates that we had in my twenties that simply don't happen anymore- someone googles the question and the discussion is shut down.
This is probably Coupland's most accessible book, but it does suffer from a very Coupland-esque non-ending.
Here's a good flavor of the book. These are the narrators notes from a conference:
“29 Steps: My Trip
to the
Interactive Multimedia Seminar”
by Daniel Underwood
1)
Some people believe that the suspension of disbelief is destroyed by interactivity.
2)
The people who attend “Multimedia Seminars” aren’t the same people who design games. Their shirts are ironed, they carry unscuffed leather attaché cases, they’re infinitely earnest and they look like they work for Prudential-Bache and Kidder-Peabody. These suits are all bluffing now, but soon enough they’ll “get it” and they will become “visionaries.”
3)
Narratives (stories) traditionally come to a definite end (unlike life); that’s why we like movies and literature — for that sense of closure —because they end
4)
The stakes for multimedia may actually turn out to be embarrassingly small in the short run — like Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, or Hasbro cranking out board game versions of The Partridge Family, The Banana Splits, and Zoom.
5)
With interactivity, one tries to give “the illusion of authorship” to people who couldn’t otherwise author.
Thought: maybe the need to be told stories is like the need to have sex. If you want to hear a story, you want to hear a story — you want to be passive and sit back around the fire and listen. You don’t want to write the story yourself.
6)
This sick thing just happened: I had this moment when I looked up and everyone had been picking at the baby zits on their foreheads and everybody’s forehead was bleeding! It was like stigmata. So gross. Even Karla.
7)
“There’s an endemic inability in the software industry to estimate the amount of time required for a software project.” (*TRUE*!)
8)
Networked games, like where you have one person playing against another, are hot because you don’t have to waste development dollars creating artificial intelligence. Players provide free AI.
9)
The 8 Models of Interactivity (as far as I can see)
i) The Arcade model
Like Terminator: kill or be killed.
ii) The Coffee Table Book model
Enter anywhere/leave anywhere; pointless in the end; zero replayability factor.
iii) The Universe Creation model
I built you and I can crush you.
iv) The Binary Tree model
Limited number of options; reads from left to right; tightly controlled mini-dramas.
v) The Pick-a-Path model
Does our hero smooch with Heather Locklear, or not — you decide! Expensive. Unproven entertainment value. Audiences don’t pay money to work.
vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents: half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.
vii) The Agatha Christie model
A puzzle is to be solved using levels, clues, chases, and exploration.
viii) Experience Simulation models
Flight simulators, sport games.
10)
I wonder if we oversentimentalize the power of books.
11)
Studios in Hollywood are trying to sucker in writers by burying multimedia rights into the boilerplate of contracts. It’s intellectual gill-netting. They say they’ve “always been doing it historically”… assuming “since July” means historically.
12)
The extraordinary cost of producing multimedia games theoretically is supposed to exclude little companies from entering the market, but it’s the little companies, I’m noticing, that are coming up with all of the “hits.” Hope for Oop!.
13)
Karla and I met this cool-looking woman at lunch, Irene, and so we had coffee with her before the afternoon session began. It turns out she’s a makeup artist for multimedia movies, and she wants to get into production herself. Karla said, “Gee, you look really tired,” and she said, “Oh — I’ve been working double shifts every day for two weeks.”
So I asked her, “What kind of things are people filming for multimedia games?” and she said, “It’s always the same… Sir Lancelot, Knights of the Round Table, thrones, chalices, damsels. Can’t somebody come up with something new? My Prince Arthur wig is getting all tired-looking.” I suggested she use a Marilyn Monroe wig.
14)
Ideally in a game you have hardheaded adventures, but at the end you get a glimpse of the supernatural.
15)
In Los Angeles everyone’s writing a screenplay. In New York everyone’s writing a novel. In San Francisco, everyone’s developing a multimedia product.
16)
There’s a different mental construction in operation when you’re playing tennis as opposed to when you’re reading a book. With adrenaline-based competitive sports, the thought mode is: “I want to kill this fucker. “It’s the spirit of testing yourself; accomplishment. You are gripped. Suspension of disbelief is not an issue
17)
A multimedia product has to deliver $1 per hour’s worth of entertainment or you’ll get slagged by word-of-mouth.
18)
The great Atari gaming collapse of 1982 (*sigh* I remember it well).
19)
Games are about providing control for nine year olds… “the bigger and neater the entity I can control, the better.”
20)
Multimedia has become a “packaged goods” industry now. The box copy is more important than the experience. But how do you write cool sexy box copy for a game like Tetris? You can’t.
21)
Cool term: “Manseconds”: (Ergonomic unit of measurement applied to keyboards, joysticks).
22)
“Embedded intelligence”: (Intelligence buried in the nooks and crannies of code and storyboard design).
23)
Last year at a Christmas party up in Seattle, there were all these little kids — all highly sugared and on the brink of hysteria — but instead of screaming, they sat complacently by the TV playing SEGA games. The games were like “Child Sedation Devices.” It was spooky.
Susan was there. She said, “Just think, in 50 years these same kids will be sitting at the switches of our life-support systems figuring out a way to play a game by biofeedbacking our failing EKGs. Me, I seem to remember that when I was younger, overly sugared brats were sent down into the basement to fend for themselves, like Lord of the Flies.”
24)
How will games progress as 30somethings turn into 50somethings? (“Cardigan: The Adventure”)
25)
Flight Simulation games are actually out-of-body experience emulators. There must be all of these people everywhere on earth right now, waiting for a miracle, waiting to be pulled out of themselves, eager for just the smallest sign that there is something finer or larger or miraculous about our existence than we had supposed.
26)
“The replayability problem “(Engineering a desire for repetition).
27)
I think “van art” and Yes album covers were the biggest influence in game design.
28)
I wonder if I’ve missed the boat on CD-ROM interactive — if I’m too old. The big companies are zeroing in on the 10-year-olds. I think you only ever truly feel comfortable with the level of digitization that was normal for you from the age of five to fifteen. I mean sure, I can make new games workable, but it won’t be a kick the way Tetris was. Or will it?
29)
In the end, multimedia interactive won’t resemble literature so much as sports.
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes