Kim Miller
I did not relate well to this at all. I mostly read a book in a few days, this one took three weeks as the prose was so unattractive that I'd read for a bit and put it down until tomorrow or the next day. It was very unmotivating.
The first half is a non-stop series of jump cuts as characters are introduced, and as we try to come to grips with understanding one it jumps to the next. The story revolves around the various attempts to hack into the mind/thinking of people and to share their minds in a cyberpunk network world of increasing fantasy. One of the characters makes advertising pieces just by thinking of them and uploading those images into the network. Another is a business executive who is trying to take over the network of financial gain, and hoodwinks the advertising guy into becoming part of the plan. Others are friends or associates of these two.
A major part of the story is the development of 'sockets' whereby probes are set into a person's brain and wires plugged into them for easier connection into the network. This is fraught with problems.
The language tries to reflect a punkish patois but these people are middle aged, not the teen or twenty somethings of a world where language is fluid and on a downhill trajectory.
The story doesn't do a great deal until the 70% mark when there is a disaster. One socketed man has become a human virus in the network and everywhere the viral damage spreads and causes chaos. The remainder of the book is made up of the other characters trying to stop him and limit the damage. It tends to fizzle out at the end.
I did not relate well to this at all. I mostly read a book in a few days, this one took three weeks as the prose was so unattractive that I'd read for a bit and put it down until tomorrow or the next day. It was very unmotivating.
The first half is a non-stop series of jump cuts as characters are introduced, and as we try to come to grips with understanding one it jumps to the next. The story revolves around the various attempts to hack into the mind/thinking of people and to share their minds in a cyberpunk network world of increasing fantasy. One of the characters makes advertising pieces just by thinking of them and uploading those images into the network. Another is a business executive who is trying to take over the network of financial gain, and hoodwinks the advertising guy into becoming part of the plan. Others are friends or associates of these two.
A major part of the story is the development of 'sockets' whereby probes are set into a person's brain and wires plugged into them for easier connection into the network. This is fraught with problems.
The language tries to reflect a punkish patois but these people are middle aged, not the teen or twenty somethings of a world where language is fluid and on a downhill trajectory.
The story doesn't do a great deal until the 70% mark when there is a disaster. One socketed man has become a human virus in the network and everywhere the viral damage spreads and causes chaos. The remainder of the book is made up of the other characters trying to stop him and limit the damage. It tends to fizzle out at the end.