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Trouble and Her Friends

by Melissa Scott (Goodreads Author)

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 479 ratings · 37 reviews

Less than a hundred years from now, the forces of law and order crack down on the world of the computer nets. The hip, noir adventurers who get by on wit, bravado, and drugs, and haunt the virtual worlds of the Shadows of cyberspace, are up against the encroachments of civilization. It's time to adapt or die.

India Carless, alias Trouble, got out ahead of the feds and settl...more

Paperback, 379 pages

Published June 15th 1995 by Tor Science Fiction (first published May 1994)

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Aug 11, 2011 Jessica Strider rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pros: 'realistic' internet, relevant (net coming under government control/interference, environmental problems)

Cons: grammar tense shift from the real world (past tense) to the net and character's thoughts (present tense) was distracting

Pro/Con: very involved story (you have to pay close attention), slow paced, two lesbian love scenes (both are short and less involved than what you'll find in a traditional romance novel)

Trouble walked away from her life as a cracker and her girlfriend, when the...more Pros: 'realistic' internet, relevant (net coming under government control/interference, environmental problems)

Cons: grammar tense shift from the real world (past tense) to the net and character's thoughts (present tense) was distracting

Pro/Con: very involved story (you have to pay close attention), slow paced, two lesbian love scenes (both are short and less involved than what you'll find in a traditional romance novel)

Trouble walked away from her life as a cracker and her girlfriend, when the Evans-Tindale law passed, making net crimes prosecutable in the real world with harsh penalties.

Three years later, a new cracker's using the name Trouble and forces the real Trouble out of retirement.

For a book dealing with the internet and computers, the technobabble's surprisingly easy to comprehend. It's a book that requires attention, but I'm not the most well versed when it comes to computers and had no difficulty following the story. Having said that, it's possible people more in the know will pick up on errors regarding cracking and net use that I didn't notice.

One thing I really like was how, though there were real world consequences for things that happened on the net (sore fingers from trying to crack IC(E) security systems due to the nerve pulse they give off) there was no 'you have to make it back to a home port before you can get off the net' (like in the Matrix or Tekwar). Though other crackers considered it a lack of skill to use it, users could hit an emergency disconnect.

I also liked that there were societal divisions on the net between those who were light and shadow (ie, criminals and cops/regular users), on the dollie (connection slot that only allowed data transfer) and those on the wire (brainworm connection that translated data as sensations and illusions).

The protagonists are both unapologetically lesbian. Given that the book was originally published in 1998 I thought it was great that the author felt no need to apologize for or justify their sexuality. And while they're discriminated against, they manage to form communities, both on and off the nets. And for those of you who are curious, there are two quick but complete love scenes. If you've read a modern romance novel you've probably read more explicit stuff already.

The book was a fairly slow read, as the plot and technology were fairly involved. My only complaint was with the verb tense changes between narration and thoughts and again between the real world and the net. I found the switches distracting and caused me to lose my place in the story.

Well ahead of its time, Trouble And Her Friends is an interesting, relevant read.
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Feb 06, 2011 Naamen rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's good to go back to books from my adolescence that have not been visited by the suck fairy. This was most likely the first cyberpunk novel I ever read and definitely the first that I remember. When the lawlessness of the net is lost, when the wild frontier is gone, when you have lawmen who don't understand the net but still feel they have the right to police it - what do you do? Trouble knows what do to, leave in the middle of the night taking all of her equipment and not saying a word to he...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Topher rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

I first read this book years ago, before I ever became a computer security consultant. Its a phenomenal book - I'd put it up there with Shockwave Rider and True Names for influencing my career decisions in a weird sort of back - but I just couldn't find it into the allocated space for moving across the country. There are a lot of themes going on in this that I either didn't remember or just didn't get the first time through - lots of what it means to be an outsider, whether or not a blackhat can...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Jordan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, cyberpunk, own, glbt

Pretty decent cyberpunk with mainly LGBT characters and a look at gender and identity on the net. After reading so much supernatural romance and bad teen love triangles lately, some queer sci-fi was a nice break. I was particularly interested by how the characters used "it" as the pronoun for all crackers (basically hackers) whose gender was not known off the nets. Usually, as the book points out, a male gender is assumed. I was reminded of the scene from The Matrix where Neo is surprised to fin...more

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Apr 16, 2011 Shellie (Layers of Thought) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: sci fi lovers

Recommended to Shellie (Layers of Thought) by: Tor

Shelves: spec-fic-science-fiction, element-glbt, blog-reviews, award-winners, read-in-2011, spec-fic-sf-steam-cyber-punk

Original review post at Layers of Thought.

A futuristic science fiction novel with underground “noir-ish” themes, which takes the reader on a journey via internal biological internet connections into an intriguing online world.

Trouble is well known online as one of the best and most notorious “crackers”. She is a future version of a hacker, where cracking is breaking through IC(E) – the acronym for the complex security systems which simulate actual ice. Intriguingly, web users have connections to...more Original review post at Layers of Thought.

A futuristic science fiction novel with underground “noir-ish” themes, which takes the reader on a journey via internal biological internet connections into an intriguing online world.

Trouble is well known online as one of the best and most notorious “crackers”. She is a future version of a hacker, where cracking is breaking through IC(E) – the acronym for the complex security systems which simulate actual ice. Intriguingly, web users have connections to the web via “dollie ports” and “brain worms” giving a “virtual reality” experience to being online, where one smells color.

A story set in a dystopian US where things have gone environmentally sour, the beaches are so polluted that visiting them is toxic. Political factions have set in place laws which make “cracking” illegal and dangerous. As the stakes become higher, Trouble disappears in an effort to protect herself.

What brings her out of hiding is that someone is using her name. Not happy (neither are some significant powers that be), she emerges to set things right. As Trouble lives up to her name - she and her friends have an interesting and not entirely safe romp into an online and real-world futuristic adventure.

Trouble and Her Friends is cyberpunk. It is a subgenre which is characterized by a high tech dystopian environment with characters that are of marginal class standing. It is also said to have a “noir-ish” feel. Which are perfect descriptions for this science fiction novel.

Melissa Scott uses many intriguing science fiction concepts - for example the “dollie ports” and “brain worms” which actually hook the user up to the net through implants into the body. Beyond the nerdy bits she also has included romance (lgbt), virtual sex (nicely done), and the experience of traveling the net via internally hard wired brain connection with some excellent results.

I could not imagine a writer being able to tell you about a virtual web experience as it occurs in Trouble’s world. But she does – and very well at that. Scott uses a technique that toggles between real world and internet experiences, using italicized letters for the virtual world travels and normal text for the real world experience.

Despite the description, the book is very accessible and is actually a mystery thriller set in a darker future time. There are strong female characters (another favorite element) and it has some realistic science (another one too). I will be looking at this author and this subgenre more. This is an impressive novel with a redemptive ending. I give it 4 stars.(less)

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Jun 15, 2012 Alexandra rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011

So... I've been meaning to write this review since August, when I read it. I've therefore managed to get to it before a year is out, if only just. Which is good. But the reason it's taken me so long is because there are so many things I wanted to say! ... and of course I've forgotten most of them. Because that's the way these things work. I did make a little list of notes as I went, so this is going to be a somewhat disjointed review as I write those notes and try to remember what I meant by the...more So... I've been meaning to write this review since August, when I read it. I've therefore managed to get to it before a year is out, if only just. Which is good. But the reason it's taken me so long is because there are so many things I wanted to say! ... and of course I've forgotten most of them. Because that's the way these things work. I did make a little list of notes as I went, so this is going to be a somewhat disjointed review as I write those notes and try to remember what I meant by them. Bear with me?

Firstly, this is a really really great book. Seriously. I went and bought two or three more Scott books pretty much immediately (the fact I haven't managed to read them yet says nothing about Scott and everything about my teetering TBR pile). It has plot, it has characters, it has a brainworm... for me, this is like the pinnacle of cyberpunk. This is what it should do. The plot has action and intrigue and nice twisty bits; I quite enjoyed the description of being on the brainworm and participating in the net. The characters are nicely varied, and Trouble herself is complex and sympathetic and compelling. The blurb makes it sound like a techno-western (Trouble as "the fastest gun on the electronic frontier") and while I'm not entirely sure it works, I think I can see where it's going.

As I was reading, I had this really awesome revelation about how it connects being a cracker to gender, and how old-school crackers don't like the idea of the brainworm because it allows bodily experience within (what is effectively) virtual reality or the internet. And I thought - hey, woman dealing with physicality, which men so often don't do! ... yeh, turns out this was by no means something that I noticed all on my own, but something that was in my head because Helen Merrick had pointed it out in The Secret Feminist Cabal... which is the main reason why I wanted to read Trouble in the first place. Oh, so meta. And so dumb.

Anyway, for a book published in 1994 it's a bit depressing that, in this indeterminate time in the future, women and homosexuals are not still equal. Scott also says some interesting things about inequality and the willingness or desire to have the physical experience: "it was almost always the underclasses, the women, the people of colour, the gay people, the ones who were already stigmatised as being vulnerable, available, trapped by the body, who took the risk of the wire" (p128-9).

There's also a pessimism in Scott's thoughts on how society will view the net: with suspicion, is the answer. She imagines fairly rigorous policing of it, both externally and internally (maybe because of that same notion of the 'wrong' people hanging out there?); the net is scary, in need of tight controls - slowed down, checked thoroughly - so that mainstream upright society isn't threatened.

It's awesome. Cyberpunk and gender stuff and a ripping story. Awesome mix. (less)

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Mar 16, 2011 Erika rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally reviewed here:

http://jawasreadtoo.wordpress.com/201...

I am reviewing a copy provided by the US publisher.

Science Fiction sometimes runs the risk of becoming dated. Technology advances so quickly today that it’s illuminating to consider iPods, camera phones, and the iPad were only released within the last decade. While not impossible to predict what the future may bring, even as close as a few years from now, it’s a tricky balancing act between what we want to advance and what actually...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Laura Rainbow Dragon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

India Carless, a.k.a. Trouble has tried to go straight. When the law cracks down on the wild frontier of cyberspace with an aggressive new bill which makes it possible for computer hackers to be convicted of armed robbery, Trouble knows that it's time to get out. Trouble was the best of the netwalkers, but the net had gone crazy now. What she once saw as high adventure is now simply suicide, so Trouble walks away from it all.

Away from the shadow world of the netwalkers -- professional hackers wh...more India Carless, a.k.a. Trouble has tried to go straight. When the law cracks down on the wild frontier of cyberspace with an aggressive new bill which makes it possible for computer hackers to be convicted of armed robbery, Trouble knows that it's time to get out. Trouble was the best of the netwalkers, but the net had gone crazy now. What she once saw as high adventure is now simply suicide, so Trouble walks away from it all.

Away from the shadow world of the netwalkers -- professional hackers who operated in the grey areas of the old laws, cracking virtual IC(E) - Intrusion Countermeasures (Electronic) - and outwitting the syscops of major corporations to steal data for a lucrative commission. Away from her friends in the netwalker community. Away from her professional partner and lover, Cerise. Trouble abandons everything she knows and forges a new, "legitimate" life for herself as the network administrator for a small artists' co-op.

Back to using her real name but living more of a lie as India Carless than she ever did as Trouble, India tries to convince herself that she is happy in her mundane but safe existence as a syscop -- almost legal, save for her occasional continued use of the "brainworm", illegal technology used to enhance the VR experience of the nets which Trouble had hardwired into her brain back in her hacker days. Life could be a lot worse.

Then Trouble resurfaces on the nets, but it's not India Carless. Someone has stolen her old cyber-identity and is cracking some major IC(E)s in a style not dissimilar to Trouble's old modus operandi, save that this Trouble brags loudly and widely about its work -- an indiscretion that could get the real Trouble into some real trouble indeed.

Thus, Trouble is drawn unwillingly back into her old life to defend her name and the life she has now. Many old friends from her hacker days -- including ex-lover Cerise -- resurface to help route out this new Trouble as well, and Trouble and her friends are launched into the most dangerous mission of their lives.

The heroines of Trouble and Her Friends are smart, savvy and sexy, and Melissa Scott creates a fascinating cultural mosaic in the near-future world which they populate. Scott's depiction of virtual reality cyberspace is intelligent and cohesive as is her vision of real space. The boundaries and crossovers between the two realms are also well thought out. VR is not just a gimmick in this novel but an integral and interesting part of the story, and the integration into VR made possible by the "brainworm" renders the action in the VR passages every bit as riveting and meaningful as the real space passages.

Strong characters, strong environments, strong story, Melissa Scott shows mastery of it all in Trouble and Her Friends. (less)

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Jul 07, 2012 Brad rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi

Picked this up for almost free when Borders was going out of the business. And since I am in a cyberpunkian frame of mind this is a good time to read this book.

In the end I thought this was a standard science fiction cyberpunk thriller. Had some cool descriptions to describe the computers and network elements but there was not a lot of action. This was more of a musing on technology and relationships. Not what I was expecting from having read the description on the back of the book.

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Sep 20, 2012 Gedvondur rated it 1 of 5 stars

I read this book years ago. Utter garbage. The writing and characterization was really poor, and the entire thing fell flat. The only fresh thing about this book was the gay/lesbian angle, but that by itself was not enough to save this one. There is much better cyberpunk out there than this. I imagine if I had read it as a teenager, I might have liked it. As an adult, it was crap.

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May 30, 2011 Vasha7 rated it 3 of 5 stars

A gentler sort of cyberpunk. Setting features dystopian corporations and virtual reality, not wildly implausible. Not a whole lot of violence; straightforward language and storytelling style. Quite adequate plot though not original. Most appealing aspect is the likable characters. The romance between Trouble and her partner Cerise is sweet!

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Mar 19, 2012 Sandie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-group, fiction, cyberpunk, science-fiction

A cyberpunk novel with a female author and female main character. I read the book for a group I was in while at Xavier, the date read is my best guess.

India Carless is running a small network for an artists' co-op when someone steals her name for criminal hacking. She goes after them.

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Feb 11, 2011 Tamahome is currently reading it · review of another edition

22/379 - checking out this lesbian cyberpunk reprint, no sightings of the former yet

31/379 - I know this is picky, and the story hasn't really picked up yet, Trouble the main character hasn't appeared, but I'm noticing a habit of the author, that she likes to use a lot of commas.

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Sep 20, 2008 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: cyber-punk, sci-fi

A typical cyberpunk novel. The thing is I like the genre (debates of it being dead or not aside).

I like this book the characters were memorable and the story a a strong addition to the genre. Scott pick up the ability to depict a bleak future of corporate dominance and continue weaving more into this story.

I have read this book several times and find it a keeper as part of my library. That being said I not sure I would recommend this as a casual read. Most readers like the hero to kick ass and...more

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Jan 31, 2011 Leah added it

Shelves: fiction

Again, it doesn't hold up as well as it did years ago when I first read it, especially now that I have some idea of what powers the cyberworld that Trouble and Cerise walk. Still, it has a visceral appeal, and nostalgia. It also amazes me how big a difference a dozen years can make when it comes to technology. It struck me as significant that all the connections made throughout the story are hardwired - there's no wireless. The detectives don't even appear to carry cell phones!

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May 13, 2012 Cian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, scifi-fantasy, lgbtqixyz

Fun queer cyber punk thriller. The queer politics in the novel are very representative of the time it was published, which will make it either a fun read or very dated, depending on your attitude.

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Jan 02, 2011 Drianne rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf, lesbian, fiction, books-i-own

I really don't like cyberpunk. I just don't find virtual adventures that exciting. And I don't want to have a brain connection to the Internet, thank you very much. Still, yay, lesbians.

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Jul 19, 2009 Lyle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, the-innovation-inspired-me, want-it-on-my-desert-island

it has its faults but it makes my imagination soar, i wish so much i could experience the internet the color-drenched flow-ful way that Melissa Scott describes

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Dec 30, 2008 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: done

Nice little 'cyberpunk' novel. Good characters and good mystery. Read it some time ago and re-read parts before donating to local library.

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Sep 19, 2008 Tarn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Cyberpunk. Cyberlespunk, I guess. An excellent little read - if a bleak future for all of us, at least people can still be quirky characters. The plot, a troublemaker-goes-'straight'-then-gets-blamed-for-crimes-someone -else-commits-and-must-reclaim-her-name is a bit predictable, but none the less interesting for it. After all, if staid plots were boring, who would read murder mysteries?
Fascinatingly, the author portrays almost all the characters as living in a world were folks hate and belittle...more

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Dec 07, 2009 Melaina Eller rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the few sci-fi books that I've enjoyed... and immensely, at that!

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Mar 25, 2011 Marianne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This book was incredibly meaningful to nineteen-year-old me.

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Oct 26, 2011 Amber rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: cyber-punk, queer-studies

My favorite cyber punk book of all time. A must read.

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Jun 13, 2010 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well-done and highly memorable queer cyberpunk novel.

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Mar 30, 2011 Moonyean rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of her best.

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May 26, 2012 Macha rated it 3 of 5 stars

3 & 1/2 stars.

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Nov 17, 2012 Shelby added it

loved it

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May 26, 2012 Bennie Minor rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: cyberpunk

Take a William Gibson short story, next remove most of the action, then add 350 pages of narrative and you have Trouble and Her Friends. Not gonna go over it in detail, but what a disappointment, she really didn't have any friends as described in the title. It picked up in the end but it was too little too late.

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Apr 19, 2013 Xdyj rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: o, q, fa

The plot about Internet regulation seems interesting and somehow premonitory, but the author borrowed too much from classic cyberpunk like those by William Gibson, especially the awesome yet impractical VR and the concept of ICE.

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Sep 19, 2011 Sumayyah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Very slow start.

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About Melissa Scott

Scott studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, and earned her PhD. in comparative history. She published her first novel in 1984, and has since written some two dozen science fiction and fantasy works, including three co-authored with her partner, Lisa A. Barnett.

Scott's work is known for the elaborate and well-constructed settings. While many of her protagonists are gay, lesbia...more

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