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Geosynchron (The Jump 225 Trilogy #3)

by David Louis Edelman (Goodreads Author)

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 242 ratings · 32 reviews

The Defense and Wellness Council is enmeshed in full-scale civil war between Len Borda and the mysterious Magan Kai Lee. Quell has escaped from prison and is stirring up rebellion in the Islands with the aid of a brash young leader named Josiah. Jara and the apprentices of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp still find themselves fighting off legal attacks from their compe...more

Paperback, 508 pages

Published February 23rd 2010 by Pyr

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Dec 08, 2010 Alan rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Lovers of complexity (and acronyms) for their/its own sake

Recommended to Alan by: Concept, rather than execution

Despite the grand sweep and richly-detailed future history of David Louis Edelman's "Jump 225 Trilogy" as a whole, and also despite the fact that I'd read and rather enjoyed the first two volumes (Infoquake and Multireal), I found this one a bit of a slog, actually.

In broad outline, the story is set on and near a future Earth where electronic computing reached a singularity and imploded some centuries ago. The Autonomous Revolt did away with the city-spanning artificial intelligences who rebelle...more Despite the grand sweep and richly-detailed future history of David Louis Edelman's "Jump 225 Trilogy" as a whole, and also despite the fact that I'd read and rather enjoyed the first two volumes (Infoquake and Multireal), I found this one a bit of a slog, actually.

In broad outline, the story is set on and near a future Earth where electronic computing reached a singularity and imploded some centuries ago. The Autonomous Revolt did away with the city-spanning artificial intelligences who rebelled against their programming, sending the orbital colony Yu hurtling into New York City and sparking eight years of war—only to have humanity promptly replace the departed AIs with organically-based, nanometer-scale technology ("bio/logics") that proceeded to take over far more of daily life than the silicon variety ever managed.

350 years after The Reawakening, almost all of humanity is Connectible, infused or perhaps infested at the cellular level with tiny devices called "OCHREs" that regulate and enhance everything from sleep to eating to communication to orgasm. OCHRes are named after the "Osterman Company for Human Re-Engineering"—this trilogy has more tin-eared acronyms than any modern-day bureaucracy, and some of 'em (I'm looking at you, "L-PRACG") are even worse!

When the series started, its protagonist Natch was an up-and-coming young programmer of such devices, using a novel interface in which code is objectified as three-dimensional shapes, to be squeezed and molded like clay—a neat conceit, I'll grant. MultiReal, another neat conceit, is a particular bio/logic program that allows its user to manipulate reality at the quantum level, choosing among sheaves of probability to, for example, ensure that a projectile hits its target or that the user avoids an attack.

Geosynchron picks up long after Natch's rise to prominence as a programmer, though, and after his involvement with MultiReal goes awry. Natch is the protagonist, but he's not necessarily intended to be a hero—or, at least, not a hero without flaws. His opponents, too, are complex individuals with motivations of their own, which is a good thing.

So why didn't I like it more? For one thing, Geosynchron is not a standalone novel; you really do need to have read (and retained a lot about) the first two novels in this series in order to make any sense of what's going on here. Perhaps that's why I had a hard time getting into this final installment; I left it too long between books. There is a synopsis in the Appendices, but it didn't seem to help much. Geosynchron's a darker book than its predecessors, too, and perhaps that's another reason why I did not get into it as much.

I would recommend reading the Afterword, though, if you make it through the rest of the series; in it, Edelman goes a long way toward explaining why the trilogy is the way it is. Which is... well, it ends up being okay, I guess, although it left me feeling rather flat.
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Apr 12, 2010 Leslie M. rated it 4 of 5 stars

I tore through this one in a cross-country plane flight and a weekend, just like the previous two in the trilogy.

The only bad thing I think I can say about this trilogy is this: There's so much there that it strains to fit in a trilogy. Even worse, the author sounds burned out on the world he built, so no more stories in the immediate future. Can't blame him, though; it sounds like he's been working on these books for long enough.

There's a lot of great worldbuilding in the first and second books...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, speculative-fiction

The final book of the Jump 225 trilogy is darker than the previous 2, which are absolute requirements to reading this one. I don't think it's the best of the series (I really liked MultiReal), but the ending is so perfect and inventive that I have to give it to Edelman. I've read so many series, or even books (I'm look at you, Neal Stephenson) that are so awesome up until the end that I can really appreciate something of this scope ending well.

But enough about the ending.

The major negative thing...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Nigel rated it 5 of 5 stars

The rather surprising conclusion to the trilogy is high on moral quandary and low on all-out action or boardroom shenanigans or Natschian trickery and manipulation. Oh it's there all right. We have an all-out battle, we have Natch on a space habitat stamping out a drug just to see what happens, we have clever political maneuvers between the Unconnected, the fiiefcorp and the Committee factions, but these are all preamble to a colossal and terrible choice thrust on Natch by Margaret Surina, and e...more

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Feb 23, 2012 Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, sci-fi-fantasy

This is the third book in Edelman's Jump 225 series and I enjoyed each one of them and will buy to add to my collection. The books are set in the future when health-fixing nanobots are the norm and people can project a version of themselves anywhere in the world and universe.

In this future, Edelman focusses on its economy, of which there are two main indexes - Memecorps(that subscribe to a certain set of ideals and rely on private or government sponsorship) and Fiefcorps (that trade on the free...more

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Aug 27, 2011 Wordwizard rated it 4 of 5 stars

I may have to buy this trilogy.

As things fell together toward the end, I was a little mixed-up; a LOT comes together and a lot changes, and while the change is believable, it's sometimes hard to pin down how, where, when, or why the people changed as they did. (This is part of what makes it believable.)

Throughout the whole series, there have been a few metaphors or turns of phrase that arrested me. I think it was through that that I realized this wasn't actually all that pulpy: it's pretty dang...more

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Jan 31, 2011 James Williams rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. You know how Back to the Future is fantastic, BttF II is really good, and BttF 3 is good? Jump 255 is like that, only the first one is merely good and then it's downhill from there.

The first book had some interesting ideas: what will business and computer programming and such look like in the future? As a computer programmer myself (and one who gets paid by a business! Parallels!), I found this rather fascinating.

The second book didn't add much: but it's the middle book of a trilogy. It's not...more

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Jun 03, 2011 Aaron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2011

So I'm giving the final book of the trilogy four stars, even though I don't think it is significantly better than the first two books, both of which I gave three stars to. The book is deserving of four stars simply for the incredibly detailed future world Edelman has created and the concepts that he conveyed in the books, which I'm sure I will be contemplating for quite a while. The future of capitalism, democracy, technology, biology, software, marketing, the news media, and entertainment were...more

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Jul 30, 2010 Ryun rated it 4 of 5 stars

With INFOQUAKE, David Louis Edelman showed that there is definitely a place on the science-fiction shelves for a novel that dispatched with the conventional tropes of the genre and gave readers a book that replaced starships with free markets and favored backroom corporate strategy over laser battles.

With MULTIREAL, the second book of his “Jump 225″ trilogy, Edleman showed that he was no one-hit wonder, carrying the story to further Byzantine depths and creative heights. Now, he wraps up the se...more

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Mar 31, 2010 Nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, first-reads, 2010

When I first received the email that I would be getting the third book in the Jump 225 Trilogy, I was worried. First, because the name of the book, Geosynchron, made it seem like one of those weird sci-fi books where the names of people and cities are so far-fetched I would completely miss the whole plot of the story because I was too busy trying to remember if I, in fact, had met this person before (see my review on The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin). The second reason I was worried was because, not...more

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Feb 18, 2010 Mihai rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, completed-series, read-2010

Great story, full of interesting ideas. While some of the writing is weak, suffering from anachronisms (Escher references in a world living after an AI revolt that trashes pretty much the entire planet? People have forgotten how to write, for crying out loud) or forced characterizations, I am more than willing to overlook these for the sheer entertainment value provided by the entire Jump 225 trilogy.

Looking forward to Possibilities 3.0!

I would also add this, since it's popular nowadays: the dil...more

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Apr 29, 2010 Jason Pettus rated it 5 of 5 stars

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Science-fiction trilogies are notoriously tricky things, precisely because of their dual nature: they only succeed when telling a unified uber-story that effortlessly flows from one book to the next, yet each of those novels need to be decent standalone books as well, in that it's so infinitely easier to...more (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Science-fiction trilogies are notoriously tricky things, precisely because of their dual nature: they only succeed when telling a unified uber-story that effortlessly flows from one book to the next, yet each of those novels need to be decent standalone books as well, in that it's so infinitely easier to simply stop reading a trilogy after book one than to put down a thousand-page single volume 300 pages in. And indeed, for three years now, the jury's been out as far as the fate of David Louis Edelman's "Jump 225" trilogy, his fiction debut whose first volume, 2007's Infoquake, garnered him a surprise Campbell Award nomination, a trilogy I have a soft spot for because of Infoquake being one of the first books I ever reviewed here; as I mentioned for example in my write-up of volume two, 2008's MultiReal, the three-book arc seemed to be treading on decent if not traditional ground, although with none of us able to say how it would end up until seeing volume three, this year's Geosynchron, for ourselves. But now that I finally have read that concluding title, I'm happy to say that things end with a rather literal bang, with Edelman turning in a book that nicely answers all lingering questions from his expansive universe, yet stands alone as a much better volume than either of the first two; and this is always such a great thing to see, after watching so many other SF trilogies end on a whimper instead.

Those who are interested might want to first read the 500-word summary of the Jump 225 universe I did for my review of the original Infoquake; but in a nutshell, our story takes place at least several hundred years after our own times, a future history which includes an apocalyptic war against sentient machines that decimated billions of humans, then a "Second Dark Age" when nearly all technology was banned, and the world's survivors ruled by oppressive nation-sized religious/military organizations. This then eventually led to a second Renaissance (or "The Reawakening" as it's known to them), in which the old theories behind both democratic checks and balances and dot-com-era capitalist entrepreneurialism were re-discovered, and suddenly worshipped as passionately as the citizens of the Enlightenment worshipped the ideas of the ancient Greeks; and the whole reason this era of humanity got kick-started in the first place was because of the legendary Surina family, inventors of a three-pronged system called Bio/logics, in which millions of nanobots are introduced to a human body then programmed with a whole series of free-market applications for making that body work better (everything from apps regulating heart rates to ones that change eye color), ushering in a whole new period of scientific advances, eventually leading to such miracles as five-sense virtual remote traveling, high-speed maglev lines now circling the globe, and even honest-to-God teleportation, even if it's so expensive that hardly anyone can afford to use it.

Edelman's trilogy itself, then, tells the story of one of these entrepreneurial nanobot programmers, a charming assh-le named Natch (think Jason Calacanis except thinner and better-looking, not a surprising comparison because of the author's background in web entrepreneurialism himself); the actual storyline first follows the saga of Natch and his team rising to the top of the Bio/logics market, which then brings him to the attention of the latest member of the Surina bloodline, who like all her ancestors has come up with her own invention for changing the course of humanity, a system of programs that supposedly manipulate these inner-body nanobots into literally predicting the future. (And in fact this is the weakest part of the entire trilogy, the fact that this "MultiReal" technology doesn't hold up to even a moderate amount of reader scrutiny; for example, if playing a game of tennis, these programs are supposed to be able to cycle through the millions of choices available to your opponent during any particular microsecond of their latest racket swing, determine which will most likely happen, then automatically direct the nanobots in your own body to perform the exact most perfect countermove faster than you can even consciously think, a cool idea but that becomes riddled with problems once you start thinking about it in any level of detail.) The second volume of the trilogy, then, is mostly about the myriad of issues that surround this MultiReal technology -- how safe it is, how to best introduce it to humanity, how to best keep it out of the hands of their competitors, and how this may or may not relate to the growing number of massive psychic "infoquakes" the human race has been experiencing more and more. (And please know that there are dozens of other inventive details regarding Edelman's universe that I'm leaving out for the sake of brevity, including the "pharisees" of southeast Asia who don't believe in using Bio/logics, the various philosophy-based nation-states that have largely supplanted governmental organizations, the constant state of cold war they are all in as a result, and lots more.)

The good news, though, is that Geosynchron largely ignores most of the smaller details from the first two books, in order to examine the much trippier story of what happens to Natch as the first private beta-tester of this MultiReal system; and this is a blessing, frankly, in that Edelman had by the end of volume two already exhausted most of the possibilities inherent in this "wetware dot-com age of the future" milieu he created for the trilogy's beginning, and also in that I was finding myself even then growing increasingly annoyed at the cutesy, instantly dated "CyberThis, CyberThat" terms he had invented for every little thing going on. Thankfully, Edelman seemed to understand as well that such elements had been almost completely played out, so takes the story in volume three in a much grander direction, really delving into the sociological issues that would come with a technology like this, examining what such a thing would really mean in practical terms for the very future of the human race, and whether such a thing could be legitimately called an evolutionary shortcut. And in the meanwhile, Edelman really pushes himself linguistically as well, using the side effects of this experimental technology as an excuse to tell Natch's story in a non-linear fashion, with the scenes that take place in his head jumping instantly from childhood to adulthood and back again, the author finally displaying the kind of maturity in his personal style that I had been publicly hoping for during the first two volumes.

It all adds up by the end to a rather remarkable thing, a final volume that is far and away better than the two that came before it; and like I said, this is unusual and welcome for a SF trilogy, in that most trilogies of note tend to have a spectacular first volume instead (which of course is why they got noticed in the first place), with returns then more and more diminishing with each subsequent title. Now that I've read the entire thing myself, I can confidently state that the "Jump 225" trilogy is one that new readers can look forward to getting better and better as it continues, and is I think a good sign that Edelman has a long career still ahead of him, after this fluke-like debut that garnered him so much attention so quickly. The entire trilogy comes highly recommended today, and especially this spectacular ending to it all.

Out of 10: 8.9, or 9.5 for science-fiction fans (less)

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Dec 27, 2009 Liviu rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010_release_read, review_fbc, genre-sf, series_read, read_2009, t2_recommended_2010

The whole Jump 225 series is probably the best that mundane sf has to offer and remain truly appealing to me, but this volume which is the first to go into true sense of wonder however briefly makes me wish the series would start here...

I started the book a bit concerned since while I loved Infoquake a lot in 2006 and found its world building excellent, by 2009 it seemed if not dated, but barely on the cutting edge - sure we do not have yet bio-logics and infinite energy but the all-around-conne...more

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Apr 05, 2011 Justin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011, science-fiction, pyr

Brilliant. I've never written an author after finishing a book/series and I felt compelled after this. Of course Edelman is a DC metro area resident so I felt extra compelled, but I couldn't help but offer him my compliments.

I loved the Jump 225 series. Edelman's wrote a novel an exciting novel that had almost no action. The political and financial wrangling were riveting. It was reminiscent of Abraham's Long Spring Quartet in that regard.

I highly recommend the series. I'm Pro-Natch.

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Apr 22, 2010 Brian rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 21, 2010 Peter rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, cyberpunk

This is probably my favourite novel of the Jump 225 trilogy. It finally resolves all of the plot lines and questions generated through the previous two books and, through many twists and turns, brings them to a satisfying conclusion. I especially liked the ending but won't spoil it for anyone reading this review. :)

Geosynchron has quite some character development in it, as well as a quick pace that keeps you reading. We learn some more about parts of the Jump 225 world that were not explored in...more

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Sep 11, 2012 Kirk added it

This trilogy had some great storytelling. I love the creative vision of future tech & human evolution. That being said, I found the ending somewhat disappointed. and, of course, that has everything to do with how unsatisfying I find most time travel stories. because at its heart, that what Multireal actually is.

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Dec 18, 2010 Jeanne Boyarsky rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 31, 2011 Tim Thraeryn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic-sci-fi

The final book of the "Jump 225" trilogy, following the events in "MultiReal". The action is still heavy in this book, but the ending is a little less compelling than I imagined. It's still a fine end to an excellent, fast-paced, page-turning and information-packed trilogy.

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Sep 02, 2010 Eric rated it 1 of 5 stars

This trilogy is maddening. Somewhere deep down inside there's a really exciting single volume struggling to get out. But it's buried in pages and pages of padding and endless arguments between the characters. The first two volumes are little more than extended setups for the third one, and by then the twists and turns of the plot start to feel too contrived. It's hard to believe an editor actually went through this without asking the author to tighten it up at least by half. The story really wou...more

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Aug 21, 2012 James added it

I really enjoyed this trilogy. I think, ultimately, this is where I would want Biomedical Engineering to go towards in the future.

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May 11, 2012 Scott Soefje rated it 4 of 5 stars

While the first book in this series was by far the best, I like the way this book brought it all to a conclusion. A conclusion that I found very satisfying. As an avid sci fi/fantasy reader, I found this series entertaining and enjoyable because of the unique setting and the well thought out world. I do think we are not that far from basic bio/logic type processes. But the best part was the world was established and the story centered on the business and politics in the world. I would highly rec...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Christopher King rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Leaves some questions unanswered, but I'm not disappointed in the least.
Best science fiction series I've read in a very long while.

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Aug 12, 2010 Karlo rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: scifi, own

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 09, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have some disappointment with this book, and the trilogy in general, but I cannot elaborate without massive spoilers, so I won't. Even so, the Jump 225 trilogy contains a plethora of wonderful ideas in an inventive, enthralling, and original future setting. These novels truly contain a great deal of food for thought. I would recommend the series, which begins with Infoquake, to those who enjoy speculative fiction.

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Apr 23, 2010 Christopher rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, sf-2010

I stopped reading at around 75 pages, so this isn't fair at all, but the novel seemed to combine Philip K. Dick's sense of realism (e.g. _Ubik_) with William Gibson's plot construction (e.g. _Mona Lisa Overdrive_). Right, that's not good. _Geosynchron_ isn't a pastiche of either of those influences, but insofar as it's reminiscent of both, it mostly reminds me of their bad parts. Maybe it gets better.

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May 21, 2011 iamjacksfingers rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: cyber-punk

Ugh. What a mess. The greatness of the first two books are totally undone by the cavalcade of ridiculousness that is this one.

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Mar 13, 2010 Andron rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

Best book of 2010 so far! Very satisfying end to a challanging and intelligent trilogy. I especially liked Natch's journey from a selfish fiefcorper to becoming a selfless entrepreneur in the end. This trilogy just has to be part of every well equipped book collection.

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Jul 09, 2010 Jeff Raymond rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-sci-fi, books-i-own

This might be my favorite sci-fi series. I think I can say that after finishing this up – it has everything that I look for in sci-fi, and I mean everything. If you a) like sci-fi and b) haven’t read the Jump 225 trilogy, stop being shameful.

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Oct 04, 2010 Anastasia rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: cyberpunk

I missed the infectious energy of the first book. This felt like a grim march towards the end, and I barely finished it.

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About David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman's first novel Infoquake was called "the love child of Donald Trump and Vernor Vinge" by Barnes & Noble Explorations and later named their Top SF Novel of 2006. Infoquake was also nominated for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel, and he has been nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2008.

His second novel, MultiReal (the sequel to Inf...more

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Geosynchron (The Jump 225 Trilogy #3)

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