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socprof 's review for:
Infinite Detail
by Tim Maughan
It's interesting that, like Robert Harris's Second Sleep, Infinite Detail takes as its premise the collapse of the Internet (here, as a result of cyber terrorism), to explore what's left in the wreckage of global capitalism. Where Robert Harris took England back to a theocratic monarchy, Tim Maugham gets us to some form of communautarism. We follow several characters who, before the collapse, were all involved in some ways with the designing of a local, decentralized, network they crafted to escape the ubiquitous surveillance society that David Lyon has written about for decades now. However, none of them can escape the collapse, the subsequent rise of half-baked governance and militias. The characters all take different trajectories: one decides to run the community the old fashioned way, one becomes a sort of revolutionary against the militias, while the designer of the local network runs in search of his US boyfriend. The problem is that that's pretty much it. That's the book. This feels a bit light on content, which is a shame, with such a great premise.