Helpful Score: 5
This was an exhausting, but rewarding, book to read. It is incredibly dense, with lots and LOTS of stuff going on at all times. I had to take breaks and read entire other books between spates of this one. The frenetic pace and sheer density of Cool Stuff in his worldbuilding reminded me of Neal Stephenson, especially Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon.
Helpful Score: 2
From the book itself:
"An old-fashioned book, covering 3 generations, living through interesting times... A work of postmodern history, the incoherent school at that - how do you document people who fork their identities at random, spend years dead before reappearing on the stage, and have arguments with their own relativistically preserved other copy? ... I thought that perhaps as a narrative hook I'd make the offstage viewpoint that of the family's robot cat."
Yep. That about sums it up.
(That quote is not from the blurb, btw, but from within the text.)
It's an ambitious book - but, overall, an annoying one. It's so self-consciously uber-hip, saturated with today's geek-speak. Although it aims to be a sort of "accelerated future-history," it already feels dated. The story - such as it is - really takes a back seat to the concepts - which could be OK, except that the concepts are really quite unbelievable, to the point of being uninteresting.
"An old-fashioned book, covering 3 generations, living through interesting times... A work of postmodern history, the incoherent school at that - how do you document people who fork their identities at random, spend years dead before reappearing on the stage, and have arguments with their own relativistically preserved other copy? ... I thought that perhaps as a narrative hook I'd make the offstage viewpoint that of the family's robot cat."
Yep. That about sums it up.
(That quote is not from the blurb, btw, but from within the text.)
It's an ambitious book - but, overall, an annoying one. It's so self-consciously uber-hip, saturated with today's geek-speak. Although it aims to be a sort of "accelerated future-history," it already feels dated. The story - such as it is - really takes a back seat to the concepts - which could be OK, except that the concepts are really quite unbelievable, to the point of being uninteresting.
Helpful Score: 2
This was an exhausting, but rewarding, book to read. It is incredibly dense, with lots and LOTS of stuff going on at all times. I had to take breaks and read entire other books between spates of this one. The frenetic pace and sheer density of Cool Stuff in his worldbuilding reminded me of Neal Stephenson, especially Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon.
Helpful Score: 1
Cutting edge high-tech Sci-fi, especially of interest to those who like computers and are interested in the Singularity.
Helpful Score: 1
This was an odd novel... It clearly shows its roots as a series of connected short stories; each of the first three chapters especially --- they all have a clear narrative arc with satisfying conclusions when they finish. It isn't until later in the book that things start to actually look like a novel.
The book also has an odd metamorphosis, as the narrative starts in the near future and then moves along to post-singularity humanity. Kind of by definition, that means that I can relate to the people in the start of the book, but by the end there's so much hand-waving about how things work, that that ability to relate has faded significantly. It wound up giving me an odd response at the end of the book: while I was still very interested in the story, I really wanted it to hurry up and end!
Ultimately, it was a good read, and I think Stross actually did a good job extrapolating out what the future might hold, even if it is mostly hand-waving. He makes interesting characters (for the most part), and kept finding ways to keep his humans puzzling out their issues.
It wasn't my favorite Stross book, but it was solid. 4/5 stars.
The book also has an odd metamorphosis, as the narrative starts in the near future and then moves along to post-singularity humanity. Kind of by definition, that means that I can relate to the people in the start of the book, but by the end there's so much hand-waving about how things work, that that ability to relate has faded significantly. It wound up giving me an odd response at the end of the book: while I was still very interested in the story, I really wanted it to hurry up and end!
Ultimately, it was a good read, and I think Stross actually did a good job extrapolating out what the future might hold, even if it is mostly hand-waving. He makes interesting characters (for the most part), and kept finding ways to keep his humans puzzling out their issues.
It wasn't my favorite Stross book, but it was solid. 4/5 stars.
