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A review by greeniezona
Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal
4.0
I've been keeping my eye out for speculative fiction novellas and novellettes on my trips to the library with the kids, and this one certainly looked interesting. The tension of a book as tiny as this is always will it feel like it does enough world-building and question answering to feel complete? Or will it feel like if it had just been a little bit longer it would have been more satisfying?
This book rides that line. There are a few world aspects I'm still feeling fuzzy enough on to want a little clarification, but that lack of explanation at least makes sense given the conceit of the story -- it is an account of an experience the narrator recently had, typed up for an unknown buyer on commission. Part of that conceit includes the idea that the story is being written on a typewriter, and typos are intrinsically part of the document.
Anyway, for such a short book, it functions on multiple levels. One of which being the nature of our dependency on our cyborg extensions -- computers to record and remember and reproduce things for us. In this story's future, this capability is advanced to the point that your LiveConnect can reproduce anything you've heard or seen for a given memory. When the connection to that system is suddenly interrupted, how does the brain's ability to create, interpret, and play back memories compare?
I spent most of this book with a very visceral desire to punch a certain character in the face, and for that reason I am glad that the book was short.
Interesting ideas. Well worth the read.
This book rides that line. There are a few world aspects I'm still feeling fuzzy enough on to want a little clarification, but that lack of explanation at least makes sense given the conceit of the story -- it is an account of an experience the narrator recently had, typed up for an unknown buyer on commission. Part of that conceit includes the idea that the story is being written on a typewriter, and typos are intrinsically part of the document.
Anyway, for such a short book, it functions on multiple levels. One of which being the nature of our dependency on our cyborg extensions -- computers to record and remember and reproduce things for us. In this story's future, this capability is advanced to the point that your LiveConnect can reproduce anything you've heard or seen for a given memory. When the connection to that system is suddenly interrupted, how does the brain's ability to create, interpret, and play back memories compare?
I spent most of this book with a very visceral desire to punch a certain character in the face, and for that reason I am glad that the book was short.
Interesting ideas. Well worth the read.