(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. ( )

I genuinely liked this book! Not just because I got a review copy way back last summer when Librarything had them. I finally got a chance to read it, and was quite pleasantly surprised.

Infoquake takes place in a far-ish future earth society that has done away with war and has adopted a single government. Our primary concern is with a relatively young upstart "feifcorp" (company) who program biologic programs. That is, programs that run on the nano-hardware swimming through our bloodstreams. Essentially everyone is filled to the gills with nano-processors, and the whole biologic market (which, honestly, reminds me quite a bit of the Apple App store) is full of programs you can buy (lease?) that run on that hardware. There are programs for every sort of thing, but they somehow all have short catchy names followed by a version number. (Jump 255 is one example.)

There is lots to like about this book, plot, character and milieu (setting) are all top notch (the main character's name is Natch... ha!) ...but a satisfying ending is not one of those things. Essentially, this is very much the first in a series. (I ordered the second book last night.) I don't think the third (final) novel has been released yet. Normally, that would be enough to keep me away, but I had to read the book (review copy), and even though I have no idea when the third will be released, I'm glad I did. ( )

Although I never received my ER copy of this book, I recently found a copy to read. It's time to return it and I haven't finished, so this is something of a temporary review.

The writing had a pleasing directness and I was immediately drawn into an Earth future that is still recognizable for its corporate shenanigans, but with futuristic technology.

Having worked in a large corporation and taken part in California/New York realtime meetings staring at a monitor showing the East Coast participants, I can appreciate the evolution of business meetings. The fact that I could identify with this future environment so well also worked against it at this time for me. I'm already saturated with real news of corporations trying to stay afloat and edge out competition in this economic recession. However, Edelman has set up such an interesting set of characters, technologies, and corporate processes that I'll be back to finish the book.

Infoquake is the first volume of Edelman's Jump 225 trilogy. It introduces an interesting world, in which the most significant event since our time is the invention of bio-logics, a form of software programming that gives us control of our
bodies, from nanobots that regulate our health to cosmetic improvements and extensions such as PokerFace v.83.

Our main character is Natch, leader of a fiefcorp (think
software start-up) intent on reaching the pinnacle of his profession. Natch is a pretty nasty guy, although he occasionally manages to inspire others with his vision and persistence. We see some of his upbringing and the traumatic events that shaped his personality. His apprentices are fortunately more personable and easy to care about.

Edelman's depiction of bio-logic programming, using programming bars within a 3-D workbench, apparently concerned primarily with drawing connections between objects, is an interesting extrapolation from contemporary techniques. His "data sea" seems a logical extension of the internet. Characters are able to interact with it mentally, although I'm not sure if that's a product of bio-logic or if it has to be learned.

Overall I found Infoquake to be an interesting, if not compelling, read. There are some stylistic annoyances,
such as Edelman's constant referral to characters by their roles rather than their names, which serve no discernable purpose and were serious distractions. As the first volume of a trilogy, the book is concerned primarily with setting the stage and introducing the characters and their world; there is only the beginning of a story arc. Not sure whether I'll continue reading. ( )