As in the prequel, Spin State, the plot seems unnecessarily convoluted. I found myself thinking there has to be a quicker way to resolve the problems the characters were facing, and there was... but had to wait 200 pages till it happened. The relationship between Earth and the Ring seems alittle implausible. Still, Catherine Li as well as Cohen are memorable characters... although you never really get to know Cohen as anything more than a melancholic dandy. ( )

Good, but not as good as Spin State (the earlier book, which is only marginally related to this one through the characters of AI Cohen and Catherine Li). It has an interesting future view of the Middle East conflict as well.

Paranoia, with clones.

Just no color levels.

A rather different book than the first in this series. Spin State had a heavy focus on the quantum. Spin Control has a heavy focus on information, and problems with complex systems.

These include spies, so a lot of distrustful spooks hurling accusations (or weapon fire) at each other.

There'sa colonoly to worry about, a killer virus, and more.

Li, the focus of the first book, only appears in parts, so big fans of hers are likely to be a little disappointed, I think.

The spy story thread focuses on the situation in Israel (and, of course, Palestine), where people have been trying to fight wars with AI. Apparently AI minds suffer from the mental problems associated with war even more severely than people, so this particular subplot is the most interesting part of the book - coming to the fore towards the latter, and strongest part of the novel.

A decent book, but not as good as the first one.

The events at the end perhaps leave this open for Moriarty to take a jump ahead in time in this future history she is sketching with another book.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/03... ( )

Outside the plot, this is an amazing look at what people do with the information they have, the information they think they have, and with the information they know they don't have. Also, an amazing variety of definitions can be applied to the word "people" in that sentence - which is delightful.

That we get this interaction along with dangers, and emotional entanglements, of all sorts just makes it that much more satisfying a read. ( )

A better book and more comprehensible than his previous offering "Spin State"...certainly no as much techno-speak nor as confusing. However, there are some plot holes that one can drive a shuttle thru...

*SPOILERS FOLLOW*

...like, how did Arkady and Arkasha get back from Novalis?
What did happen to the rest of the survey team, especially the pregnant Bella?
What exactly was being bid for? If the virus was the item and Arkady was the carrier, doesn't it seem a bit pointless? And if Arkady had some sort of knowledge of the virus, since all three parties were able to thoroughly interrogate him privately, again, what were they bidding for?
Cohen and Li, at the end of "Spin State", were practically one consciousness, but after just three years, they are nearly separate. What happened?

Despite these problems, I did enjoy this novel more than the first and would read Mr. Moriary's next offering, if only to find out what's next. ( )

http://www.strangehorizons.com/review...

This is a future spy story, a loose sequel to Moriarty's earlier Spin Control; its setting alternates between an unsuccessful research mission by a crew of cloned scientists to the planet Novalis, and the process of selling the secret they discover to the highest bidder in a 26th-century Jerusalem. The two settings are truly memorable, the alien planet - which, as it turns out, is not quite alien enough - with the crew of clones from the space-based Syndicates, struggling with their professional and personal tensions, balanced well against the convincing sordidness of the dying earth with mutual paranoia of Israeli and Palestinian security services, each (rightly) convinced that they have traitors within their own ranks. There are some gems of description and characterisation along the way; this was the only book on the short-list where I found myself reading the best lines out loud to my wife.

However, the huge amount of technical vocabulary supporting the book's themes of biology and artificial intelligence got very distracting after a while, especially since the plot of potential betrayal and counter-betrayal is already fairly heavy going. In addition, I have to wonder if a far future Middle East will be as similar to today's Jerusalem as Moriarty depicts it here; consider how much the region, unlike some, has changed since the sixteenth century, and then add centuries of peaceful coexistence to come between the Israeli and Palestinian states, followed by a sudden return to conflict. If we take the Middle East of Spin Control as an ironic reflection on today's situation, then it is indeed a thought-provoking exercise, but one that comes at the expense of the credibility of the rest of the future universe as extrapolation rather than parable. ( )