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Archform: Beauty (Archform: Beauty #1)
by
L.E. Modesitt Jr. (Goodreads Author),
David G. Hartwell
Four centuries in the future, the world is rich—nanomachines watch the health of the wealthy and manufacture food and gadgets for everybody—but no utopia, as we see in the lives of five very different people: a singing teacher, a news researcher, a police investigator, a politician and a ruthless businessman. Alternating the voices and experiences of these five characters...more
Mass Market Paperback, 1st Mass Market Edition, 352 pages
Published
May 18th 2003
by Tor Books
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A music teacher who deplores the degradation of music. A police lieutenant dealing with an inexplicable series of suicides connected with the new music -- or is it two different series from different causes? A news station researcher whose analysis of the numbers leads him to at least one deadly plot. A senator with an actual sense of responsibility. A crime lord who would do anything, anything, to enhance his family's position. And is the 4th mutation of ebola, currently sweeping the world, an ...more
Took me forever to read this book, only because I was in information school and it's kind of about information technologies. So it was a bit of an overload on information philosophy. Even so, pretty neat book. It's about five characters that are all unrelated that eventually become intermingled. Kind of like a Tarantino movie but way nerdier. Sci-Fi rules. :P
This is pretty good science fiction story, with the plot advanced by five alternating viewpoint characters. It all ties up to a satisfying conclusion, though it seems a bit rushed and comes together almost too-smoothly at the very end. The only big problem I had was that the author goes overboard in the use of made-up "future-words" to the extent that I almost completely lost what was happening in some sections. Still, the good characterization made it a worth-while read.
Three centuries in the future from several perspectives/narrators with a detective and a journalist trying to solve corporate crimes.
didnt really get into this one (or possibly i've read it before). didnt finish it.
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L. E. (Leland Exton) Modesitt, Jr. is an author of science fiction and fantasy novels. He is best known for the fantasy series The Saga of Recluce. He graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts, lived in Washington, D.C. for 20 years, then moved to New Hampshire in 1989 where he met his wife. They relocated to Cedar City, Utah in 1993.
He has worked as a Navy pilot, lifeguard, del...more
More about L.E. Modesitt Jr....
He has worked as a Navy pilot, lifeguard, del...more
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“Words evolve, perhaps more rapidly and tellingly than do their users, and the change in meanings reflects a society often more accurately than do the works of many historians. In he years preceding the first collapse of NorAm, the change in the meaning of one word predicted the failure of that society more immediately and accurately than did all the analysts, social scientists, and historians. That critical word? 'Discrimination.' We know it now as a term meaning 'unfounded bias against a person, group, or culture on the basis of racial, gender, or ethnic background.' Prejudice, if you will.
The previous meaning of this word was: 'to draw a clear distinction between good and evil, to differentiate, to recognize as different.' Moreover, the connotations once associated with discrimination were favorable. A person of discrimination was one of taste and good judgment. With the change of the meaning into a negative term of bias, the English language was left without a single-word term for the act of choosing between alternatives wisely, and more importantly, left with a subterranean negative connotation for those who attempted to make such choices.
In hindsight, the change in meaning clearly reflected and foreshadowed the disaster to come. Individuals and institutions abhorred making real choices. At one point more than three-quarters of the youthful population entered institutions of higher learning. Credentials, often paper ones, replaced meaning judgment and choices... Popularity replaced excellence... The number of disastrous cultural and political decisions foreshadowed by the change in meaning of one word is truly endless...”
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More quotes…
The previous meaning of this word was: 'to draw a clear distinction between good and evil, to differentiate, to recognize as different.' Moreover, the connotations once associated with discrimination were favorable. A person of discrimination was one of taste and good judgment. With the change of the meaning into a negative term of bias, the English language was left without a single-word term for the act of choosing between alternatives wisely, and more importantly, left with a subterranean negative connotation for those who attempted to make such choices.
In hindsight, the change in meaning clearly reflected and foreshadowed the disaster to come. Individuals and institutions abhorred making real choices. At one point more than three-quarters of the youthful population entered institutions of higher learning. Credentials, often paper ones, replaced meaning judgment and choices... Popularity replaced excellence... The number of disastrous cultural and political decisions foreshadowed by the change in meaning of one word is truly endless...”
