A raucous blast of hard-edged sci-fi blended with a sort of piratical boardroom saga. Got it as an Early Review copy, didn't know what to expect, and really enjoyed it. Part one of three, will try to read the next one soon. ( )

"Horvil now understood the need for the large workspace; the program took up every square centimeter and extended halfway to the ceiling like a Gothic castle. Connection strands stretched from module to module in startling and intricate patterns, some circumnavigating the whole mass several times. Even an observer who knew nothing about bio/logic coding could lose himself for hours studying the beautiful detail, the interplay of colors, the endless number of aesthetic themes that replicated across the surface of the program. Horvil had seen entire nervous system simulators that were less complex."

In the near-ish future, software that enhances the human mind is a major industry. A frenetic form of market capitalism reigns, and a small team of bright coders can make their fortunes quickly. Natch, Horvil, and Jara, our protagonists, are one such group. They're trying to get famous (except for Natch, who's already infamous for incidents in his youth), compete with the big firms, and invent the next big thing. They're doing well enough at this, if not taking the markets by storm, when they're approached by the secretive woman whose family has single-handedly, come up with almost all of the major technological breakthroughs that have shaped the world, and many of the political and regulatory systems that manage it as well.

This should have been a book I loved. It's big -- five hundred pages in paperback, for book one of a trilogy -- and the world is detailed and consistent. Edelman throws a lot of science, economics, politics, and technology into his setting, and for the most part it's convincing. Hard science fiction, with thoughtful world-building? Yes, please. That sort of thing is right up my street.

And yet, the book doesn't grip the way it should. Shortly after finishing it, I'd forgotten much of the detail, and had to re-read it for this review.

Part of the problem is with the central character of Natch. A charismatic, driven entrepreneur, it's he who drives almost all of the narrative. He drags his colleagues from one scheme to another, often against their better judgment. But the way he does this doesn't ring true. He gives his stirring speeches, dreams his dreams, comes up with the money, and the others follow him. But most of the time he hasn't actually told them what his schemes really are. Jara and the others go along with far too much, considering the bollocks he's constantly feeding them.

Which is possibly the bigger problem. Not only do the characters have little idea what's going on, neither does the reader. We're halfway through the book before Natch is approached by Margaret Surina with her mysterious new technology. He gets involved in trying to sell it and bring it to market, and the power struggles that this involves. But what exactly is this new technology, how does it work, and what will it be good for? That's not at all clear until near the end of the book (and not entirely so, even then).

This leaves a book that's curiously devoid of hooks to draw the reader in. There's an awful lot that happens, but it never seems to add up to much.

Perhaps the next volumes will improve on this. Certainly the writing is good enough that I'll carry on with the series. I'm just not as eager to as I'd expect to be. ( )

ZB9

(Amy) One thing I talk a lot about in this booklog is "believability", by one metric or another. In fiction, it is a relevant measure of a book to describe how convincing the characters and the plot are in helping one to suspend one's disbelief and thereby become immersed in the story. In speculative fiction, the world and its rules are added to the list. Well, Infoquake succeeded very well in the character arena, and the plot is sketchy at best until near the end, but does not ring false in any particular fashion. The world and its rules, however, make very little sense to me. By about two-thirds of the way through the book, I had managed to assemble for myself a sort of mental cheat sheet I could refer back to, with working definitions of concepts and so on, but it never did click for me. I guess two out of three ain't bad?

Nonetheless, I found the concept of bio/logic programming and this weirdly pseudolibertarian future solid and interesting enough that I plan to read on in the trilogy. I really rather have to read further, as when I came to the end of the book, I was reminded of the time in my youth when our dog, upon seeing our new glass patio door for the first time, charged toward this glimpse of freedom at full sprint until her skull bounced off of it with a resounding "BONG". This book, it does not end. It merely stops.

Of course, the 60-odd pages of appendices at the back didn't help to prevent my shock at the book being over so abruptly, as by pagecount-estimation I had actually thought there'd be plenty of verbiage left to wrap up all remaining plot threads. This does not, as I remarked at the time, bode particularly well for the next installment, but perhaps the remaining plot threads are . . . fractal. It happens.

Oh, and speaking of those appendices, it turns out one of them is a glossary. It never occurred to me to check for a glossary rather than assemble the aforementioned mental cheat sheet, but for any of you who pick the book up on this nebulous recommendation, or at least after seeing it, it might help leave you less confused than I was. Note to the author, however: If your non-foreign-language-including book requires a glossary, you get a C at incluing, at best.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ze... ) ( )

This book takes place many years after the collapse of civilization. A group of sentient computers called the Autonomous Minds rebelled against mankind in the Autonomous Revolt. Now, Earth is dominated by bio/logics, the science of programming the human body.

The programs have names like Eyemorph 1.0, DeMirage 24.5, Poker Face 83.4b and AntiSleepStim 124.7. The average person has thousands of such programs in their bodies, courtesy of microscopic robots placed at or before birth. Natch is a master of bio/logic programming, who has risen to the top with little more than brains and sheer determination.

For many years, Margaret Surina, ancestor of Sheldon Surina, the inventor of bio/logics, has hinted about this new technology called MultiReal. She enters into a partnership with Natch and his fiefcorp to bring it to market immediately. It can take months to understand and develop a new technology, get it approved by Dr. Plugenpatch (a set of databases that constitute the quality control system), keep it away from the competitors, and then bring it to market. Natch and his colleagues have to do it in three days. The reason for the very short time frame is to also keep MultiReal away from the Defense and Wellness Council. It’s a secret and unaccountable government organization that handles all military and intelligence affairs.

This is an excellent piece of writing. Cyberpunk fans will love it. Is there such a thing as "business cyberpunk?" This is also a really good book about the mixing of business and technology. The "cyber-" part is not too technical, and this is very highly recommended. ( )