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3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
A book with some really thought provoking concepts for sure. I had to stop reading a few times and think about the role of emotion and how we deal and process it a few times when I was reading this book. There are some mind melting meta-cognition moments in it, but those are the fun part.
The not fun part? I kept getting the feeling like I had skipped a page or something. Most books I don't have to go back and reread, but this one was like that at times. I would go back and re-read things and as it turns out, I didn't miss anything.
The last time this happened: the last time I read Charlie Stoss. Don't get me wrong. I like him and have bought a lot of his stuff. But after reading a number of his books, I am always left with a similar feeling. The concepts are great. The characters are interesting. But it is like the editor went in and deleted out things randomly and Charlie didn't go back and make sure the story still made sense. I know it is co-written, but it is also not like the whole book was like this. The funny thing, the whole time I was reading it, I thought the book was written by Neil Gaiman and Doctorow. So to me, this isn't a case where I pre-judged it in some way. I only figured it out when I got to the end and realized that I had it wrong.
Not that these are real spoilers, but just in case someone cares I'll tag the following notes as spoilers:
I have no idea why the main character "Huw" liked "Bonnie". Their whole soulmate thing made basically no sense and never does. Bonnie is involved in fucking Huw over and then they are like madly in love. Retarded.
Also, both fight scenes with "Doc" are just . . . dumb. It is like they are fighting and then it is over for some reason. There wasn't a good reason why they were over. Like, some hidden gun was pulled out at the last second and a miraculous shot saves the day. Incapacitated and then not. And don't give the the rootkit thing. She was checked for that supposedly. Just weird.
The not fun part? I kept getting the feeling like I had skipped a page or something. Most books I don't have to go back and reread, but this one was like that at times. I would go back and re-read things and as it turns out, I didn't miss anything.
The last time this happened: the last time I read Charlie Stoss. Don't get me wrong. I like him and have bought a lot of his stuff. But after reading a number of his books, I am always left with a similar feeling. The concepts are great. The characters are interesting. But it is like the editor went in and deleted out things randomly and Charlie didn't go back and make sure the story still made sense. I know it is co-written, but it is also not like the whole book was like this. The funny thing, the whole time I was reading it, I thought the book was written by Neil Gaiman and Doctorow. So to me, this isn't a case where I pre-judged it in some way. I only figured it out when I got to the end and realized that I had it wrong.
Not that these are real spoilers, but just in case someone cares I'll tag the following notes as spoilers:
Also, both fight scenes with "Doc" are just . . . dumb. It is like they are fighting and then it is over for some reason. There wasn't a good reason why they were over. Like, some hidden gun was pulled out at the last second and a miraculous shot saves the day. Incapacitated and then not. And don't give the the rootkit thing. She was checked for that supposedly. Just weird.
Lost interest in the plot, and the characters didn't appeal to me
It's quite a fun read, but I usually dislike humorous books because I find the jokes too obvious. This goes in the opposite direction, indulges in a little too much fan service by making jokes about Marxism, libertarianism, video games and software engineering. I bought this because the initial premise was intriguing, in a post singularity earth, the singularity keeps spamming us with awesome technology, unfortunately much of it is useless or worse extinction level event harmful, so juries have to investigate these Trojans. Unfortunately, this interesting idea is jettisoned almost immediately for a caper story that ultimately falls flat whenever it pauses for breath.
Like fantasy and Tolkien, this is one of those SF books that uses the same basic toolkit as many others to make its aftermath-of-a-21st-century-singularity world. (I'm most familiar with Ken MacLeod's stuff, but I'm sure there's plenty of others doing similar things.)
It's quite pacy and there's some fun extrapolations of the toolkit pieces, plus some clunky satire on typical Boing Boing bugbears like Facebook and EULAs and so on. Entertaining enough, but without the weight to keep me reading the final few pages.
It's quite pacy and there's some fun extrapolations of the toolkit pieces, plus some clunky satire on typical Boing Boing bugbears like Facebook and EULAs and so on. Entertaining enough, but without the weight to keep me reading the final few pages.
I found the book read to me, especially in the first half, like a parody. I was prepared for things to be strange, but many of the strangeness didn't seem to have any weight. It got better in the second half, but every now and again it would revert back to its goofiness for sake of goofiness.
Not the strongest outing for either author, but enjoyable nonetheless. They do manage to tell a story that seamlessly integrates both of their strengths and ideas, but the plot felt rushed, the interesting metaphysical questions only shallowly examined.
Mindbendingly interesting, and requiring a nerd card for admission, I've never read anything that required such a deep background in so much and demanded this level of flexibility in terms of adjusting to the changes and multiple interior arcs of the protagonist. The narrative jumpiness of the Illuminatus books are co-opted here, as are many of the best elements of Sewer, Gas & Electric, and the broad undercurrent of Doctorow's whole philosophy is on full, peacock-like display. If this book suffers from anything, it's that many of the characters are slaves to the relentless pace of the story and so are not very fleshed out, and so occupy parts of the scenery, instead of being finished constructions. It's brilliant and horrifying and sometimes irritating and totally worth the time.
funny
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I didn't really connect with this book as I didn't really like the main character.
I have read and enjoyed a few Stross books before, but never any by Doctorow, so was looking forward to this one.
Huw is infected with a technovirus, and his hope to be part of a tech jury defending against the singularity patent office is cut short. He is dragged over to America, which has a really odd version of the church there, and returns to the jury knowing he is the last hope for the universe.
It is packed full of ideas, from parallel memories, uploaded humans, gender changes and a mix of sophisticated tech and steampunk tech. All good stuff, or so you would think, but the characters and the plot really didn't work for me. Some of the time I wasn't completely sure what was going on, and I didn't really get the whole point of it in the end.
Huw is infected with a technovirus, and his hope to be part of a tech jury defending against the singularity patent office is cut short. He is dragged over to America, which has a really odd version of the church there, and returns to the jury knowing he is the last hope for the universe.
It is packed full of ideas, from parallel memories, uploaded humans, gender changes and a mix of sophisticated tech and steampunk tech. All good stuff, or so you would think, but the characters and the plot really didn't work for me. Some of the time I wasn't completely sure what was going on, and I didn't really get the whole point of it in the end.
not the best work of either writer, but i got a nice kick out of seeing their vision of post-singularity life in the data cloud