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tedpikul's review
adventurous
dark
tense
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? No
3.5
mezentine's review
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
A quaint historical artifact
ninj's review
3.0
Set in 2023, written 35 years ago, the internet is more pervasive, multinationals have more sway, data transactions and privacy and data havens are prominent issues. Laura from Rizome balances family life with her corporate aims, navigating politicians and shady groups to benefit herself and the company. Interesting world building, with a lot of eco elements and a mix of ideals both at group and individual levels.
That said, the writing to start with seemed ... clunky. Either it picked up or I got through it, and the discussion on where the world was going and what people wanted out of it got fairly interesting around a third of the way in. That said, I lost a lot of interest and connectivity around the middle of the novel, and it was mostly a push-through a disconnected slump at that point. However, the last third really picked up, was quite cohesive, fleshed out some backstory, and brought in some characters and storylines that flowed well and wrapped up the novel nicely.
That said, the writing to start with seemed ... clunky. Either it picked up or I got through it, and the discussion on where the world was going and what people wanted out of it got fairly interesting around a third of the way in. That said, I lost a lot of interest and connectivity around the middle of the novel, and it was mostly a push-through a disconnected slump at that point. However, the last third really picked up, was quite cohesive, fleshed out some backstory, and brought in some characters and storylines that flowed well and wrapped up the novel nicely.
heliopteryx's review
4.0
The most accurate portrayal of modern day technology, specifically the internet, that I have ever read from a book published in the 80s. There's no depiction of the Net as an approximation of a physical space, it's much more like the real world internet, a tool of mass, rapid communication.
At first, there's an odd sense that this book could have been published just recently, but the geopolitics extrapolated straight from the Cold War make it show its age a bit.
I hadn't read a cyberpunk book from the perspective of a corporate before. At first I thought the style of organization in the main corporation was made up, but it's a real thing, referred to as economic democracy in the book, but worker cooperatives in the modern day. Ocean Spray, the cranberry company, is an example of one such corporation.
At first, there's an odd sense that this book could have been published just recently, but the geopolitics extrapolated straight from the Cold War make it show its age a bit.
I hadn't read a cyberpunk book from the perspective of a corporate before. At first I thought the style of organization in the main corporation was made up, but it's a real thing, referred to as economic democracy in the book, but worker cooperatives in the modern day. Ocean Spray, the cranberry company, is an example of one such corporation.
jupiterjens666's review
4.0
That was really something. A post-cyberpunk interrogation of post-colonialist white-savior interventionist politics that never stopped surprising.
sell0mat's review
5.0
Czytanie cyberpunku z 1988 dziejącego się w ~1924 roku jest jak czytanie alternatywnej historii.
jonathanfs's review
4.0
I was looking for a classic near-future cyberpunk book and happened to read this one in the futuristic year of 2022 in which it was set. The predictions about technology were fun and not all that far off the mark. Sterling's societal and political predictions were impressively complex and creative. His fixation on his characters' racial and gender traits felt clunky by today's standards, but I think he was trying to be progressive and respectful for his time. I liked his writing style and am looking forward to trying his others.
thomcat's review
3.0
This book predicts a lot (data havens, digital currency, smart watches) with a forgettable plot.
I'm sure I read this in the 90s, but barely remember any of it. A great description I read elsewhere is "cyberpunk from the corporate side", and that seems a good fit. Sterling spends a lot of pages describing various near-future tech, though this tech often fails to advance the plot in any way. Just over half way through it becomes a suspenseful thriller, and finishes with observations on government.
The author definitely had a good feel for the near future.
I'm sure I read this in the 90s, but barely remember any of it. A great description I read elsewhere is "cyberpunk from the corporate side", and that seems a good fit. Sterling spends a lot of pages describing various near-future tech, though this tech often fails to advance the plot in any way. Just over half way through it becomes a suspenseful thriller, and finishes with observations on government.
The author definitely had a good feel for the near future.
steveab's review
4.0
I reread this after many years. Didn't love it quite as much as the first time though, though still a great story. For the late 1980s, author Bruce Sterling anticipated many facets of the modern information age. Global information network, cyber crime, cyber terror, changing roles for women, desolation of Africa, corporate neo-liberalism, deadly drones, nuclear terrorists, shifting balance of power away from the West.
Laura Webster makes for an intriguing and admirable character, pulled from liberal idealist PR type work into the world of global intrigue. She toughens through a series of encounters and incident, meets lots of colorful characters, and finds the has a role to play in saving the world. A wild ride.
Laura Webster makes for an intriguing and admirable character, pulled from liberal idealist PR type work into the world of global intrigue. She toughens through a series of encounters and incident, meets lots of colorful characters, and finds the has a role to play in saving the world. A wild ride.
nwhyte's review
http://nhw.livejournal.com/1080154.html[return][return]A really good read, set in an early 21st century future but written in 1988. It is of course not intended as a work of prediction, but it's impossible not to read it in that way now - yes, end of Cold War; no, didn't see collapse of communism; yes, video-recorders obsolete; yes, non-state actors capable of major damage to industrialised society; no, rogue states on the whole not providing havens for "data piracy". The passages explaining how fax machines operate seem particularly quaint - were they really so unusual back in '88? But on the whole, this was an interesting envisioning of the future we are now in.[return][return]The central character, Laura Webster, is taken on a tour of the underside of her world - I hoped at first that the "islands" theme would be consistently maintained, as she starts on Galveston Island in Texas, then goes on to Grenada and then to Singapore, disaster following her as she goes. But she then ends up in the desert of northern Africa, which is about as far as you can get from being an island. (Though that is perhaps too literal - she is certainly pretty isolated in Mali.) I would have preferred also if a bit more of the climax had happened on-screen, as it were, given how much of the setting depends on the concept of the Net, the wired world in which everything is observed by anyone who wants to observe it. But these are fairly minor quibbles - it's a great story of a world which, twenty years ago, was just coming into existence and now is pretty much here.[return][return]Bechdel test: a very easy pass, as Laura has numerous female peers. She also talks to her baby daughter, if that is allowed to count.