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Whole Wide World
Winner of both the Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick Awards, Paul McAuley has emerged as one of the most thrilling new talents in science fiction, acclaimed for his richly imagined future worlds as well as for his engrossing stories and vivid, all-too- human characters. Now he gives us a gripping and unforgettable thriller of the day after tomorrow--when the world and the Web are one.
London, in the aftermath of the Infowar. Surveillance cameras on every street corner, their tireless gaze linked to a cutting-edge artificial intelligence system. Censors zealously patrolling the Internet. A talented, young woman murdered before the cybernetic gaze of eager voyeurs.
A policeman sidelined to a backwater computer-crimes unit seizes on the chance to contribute to this high-profile murder case, but soon finds himself entangled in a web of high-tech intrigue. Why was Sophie Booth's murder broadcast over the Internet? What is the link between her brutal killing and London's new surveillance system? Who is the self-styled Avenger, and why does he communicate only by e-mail?
Whole Wide World is a compelling cyber-conspiracy thriller set in a world where information is the universal currency, and some people will do anything to be able to control it . . . .
London, in the aftermath of the Infowar. Surveillance cameras on every street corner, their tireless gaze linked to a cutting-edge artificial intelligence system. Censors zealously patrolling the Internet. A talented, young woman murdered before the cybernetic gaze of eager voyeurs.
A policeman sidelined to a backwater computer-crimes unit seizes on the chance to contribute to this high-profile murder case, but soon finds himself entangled in a web of high-tech intrigue. Why was Sophie Booth's murder broadcast over the Internet? What is the link between her brutal killing and London's new surveillance system? Who is the self-styled Avenger, and why does he communicate only by e-mail?
Whole Wide World is a compelling cyber-conspiracy thriller set in a world where information is the universal currency, and some people will do anything to be able to control it . . . .
- GenresScience FictionFiction
399 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2002
3 people are currently reading
110 people want to read
About the author
Paul McAuley
229 books422 followersSince about 2000, book jackets have given his name as just Paul McAuley.
A biologist by training, UK science fiction author McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction, dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternate history/alternate reality, and space travel.
McAuley has also used biotechnology and nanotechnology themes in near-future settings.
Since 2001, he has produced several SF-based techno-thrillers such as The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, and White Devils.
Four Hundred Billion Stars, his first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988. Fairyland won the 1996 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 1997 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel.
A biologist by training, UK science fiction author McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction, dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternate history/alternate reality, and space travel.
McAuley has also used biotechnology and nanotechnology themes in near-future settings.
Since 2001, he has produced several SF-based techno-thrillers such as The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, and White Devils.
Four Hundred Billion Stars, his first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988. Fairyland won the 1996 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 1997 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 10, 2012
Stylish, Gripping Near Future Crime Cyberpunk Fiction
Raymond Chandler meets William Gibson in one of the finest science fiction novels of recent years, courtesy of acclaimed British science fiction author Paul McAuley. This is more than a film noirish detective novel akin to the best from the likes of Raymond Chandler combined with elements of cyberpunk from William Gibson and his fellow "mirrorshades" cyberpunk fiction scribes. It is a thoughtful, often disturbing, look at surveillance and privacy; these are themes not normally found in much science fiction, with cyberpunk frequently taking the lead in these issues. However, until now, these subjects have not been presented in such a forceful, mesmerizing tale.
A fortyish detective in the London police department becomes involved in a murder investigation of a young college student, whose uncle is the inventor of the surveillance technology ADESS. This robotic technology has greatly reduced crime at the expense of personal liberty and privacy. His odyssey will take him to illicit porn dealers and computer hackers involved in a conspiracy to blackmail the deceased girl's uncle through the streets of London, and finally, to the distant data haven of Havana, Cuba and a climatic encounter with the man responsible for the girl's death. Meanwhile he is beset with fear over his girlfriend's safety when she becomes yet another pawn in the killer's bloody intellectual chess game with him. This stylish, extremely well-written novel should be regarded as one of the finest examples of contemporary science fiction, and deserves the "whole wide world" as its potential audience.
(Reposted from my 2004 Amazon review.)
Raymond Chandler meets William Gibson in one of the finest science fiction novels of recent years, courtesy of acclaimed British science fiction author Paul McAuley. This is more than a film noirish detective novel akin to the best from the likes of Raymond Chandler combined with elements of cyberpunk from William Gibson and his fellow "mirrorshades" cyberpunk fiction scribes. It is a thoughtful, often disturbing, look at surveillance and privacy; these are themes not normally found in much science fiction, with cyberpunk frequently taking the lead in these issues. However, until now, these subjects have not been presented in such a forceful, mesmerizing tale.
A fortyish detective in the London police department becomes involved in a murder investigation of a young college student, whose uncle is the inventor of the surveillance technology ADESS. This robotic technology has greatly reduced crime at the expense of personal liberty and privacy. His odyssey will take him to illicit porn dealers and computer hackers involved in a conspiracy to blackmail the deceased girl's uncle through the streets of London, and finally, to the distant data haven of Havana, Cuba and a climatic encounter with the man responsible for the girl's death. Meanwhile he is beset with fear over his girlfriend's safety when she becomes yet another pawn in the killer's bloody intellectual chess game with him. This stylish, extremely well-written novel should be regarded as one of the finest examples of contemporary science fiction, and deserves the "whole wide world" as its potential audience.
(Reposted from my 2004 Amazon review.)
April 11, 2017
A detective cyber-noir which has all the gumshoe elements and an acceptably complex plot. It's a bit wordy in places, and mostly ten years too dated. Interesting to see McAuley try his hand at noir, and with tighter editing it could have been much better.
Definitely worth reading if you're a McAuley fan
Definitely worth reading if you're a McAuley fan
December 4, 2010
The writing style was frequently repetitive and predictable. Never has a character darted into so many bars for a lager and a cigarette in so few pages. It was if pubs and the attendant pints of lager and cigarettes were the only bridging mechanism that the author knew to employ to move the plot forward. Curiously, some of the technologies - foretold when the book was published in 2002 and projected to come to pass some distance in the future - have already come to pass, such as the functional equivalent of the iPad, for example.
October 5, 2009
Enjoyable near future (as seen from 2001) detective thriller featuring the classic washed-up cop who can't let go of his past or the case that appears to be his last chance to restart his career.
Worth a read if you can get past the tech guesses that didn't quite come off, which are minor and not really that intrusive (I never thought i'd see the word modem again...)
Worth a read if you can get past the tech guesses that didn't quite come off, which are minor and not really that intrusive (I never thought i'd see the word modem again...)
July 11, 2016
Writing cutting edge novels depicting the technology of the future and how it will shape the world is always kind of a dicey affair. If you're right then chances are it will be years before anyone hails you as a visionary genius, if they even remember you got it right first. And if you're wrong, then everyone will definitely remember your attempt and make fun of you for being so out of touch, techno-grandpa. The best you can probably do as an author is replicate the feel of what the near future might be like and most reasonable people will understand that its' fiction and forgive the differences. "Neuromancer" didn't get anything about the future right but the oppressive atmosphere and reliance on "jacking" into the net is what sticks with people more than wondering if William Gibson had a crystal ball.
McAuley is a fairly careful writer and even though this was written in 2002 he keeps the technological leaps low-key and focuses more on extrapolating what issues might arise from those new advances. In this case, privacy, which I'm sure won't feel relevant at all to anyone these days. About the only glaring thing missing from his future scenario are smart phones and criminals taking selfies at crime scenes with hashtags that say "guiltyascharged4life". But you can decide for yourself if that's a good or a bad thing.
In this scenario our narrator is a police officer that thanks to an incident in his past that wasn't his fault but got misinterpreted in a way that got everyone mad at him (mostly because all the witnesses died, although most of them would have lied about what happened anyway) and so now he spends the rest of his policing days nursing a bum leg and filling out paperwork in a minor department that tracks down illegal information and people who have things like banned music or videos (in this future, decency acts have passed making large amounts of overseas movies and music illegal to possess, although if its anything like here they could probably just arrest the entire country including themselves and feel pretty confident they managed to nab most of the offenders) and is looking to get shut down at some point as advances in police work make them redundant. But then a case where he gets farmed out to another department thanks to his computer skills falls into his lap, where a young college student is found murdered while naked and tied to a chair. It turns out she was also into webstreaming and its quite possible that her murder was witnessed by somebody. Which is good because the killer has covered his trails fairly well. Oh, and after a while seems to be taunting our hero.
What McAuley is essentially doing is a police procedural like you'd find on TV but with slightly more brains and some new gadgets. London appears to have a surveillance system that can track you pretty much anywhere and everyone else has some nifty computer programs that make either hacking a snap or retrieving data off wiped hard drives easier than you'd think. But the focus seems to be both on the actual investigative work and the vagaries of attempting to solve cases in this near-future world, whether its the wrangling between the different departments all looking to justify their neat toys (the acronym "NCIS" pops up so much you start expecting Mark Harmon and his steely yet comforting gaze to swoop in and save the day, but alas, it won't be that simple) or the the limitations that exist when people go off the grid or know how to make the grid work for them.
The mystery itself winds up becoming more complicated than it should be, with our narrator pinpointing someone as the culprit fairly early on, even if the motive is somewhat obscure and pretty much sticking with that theory throughout the rest of the novel. And while its a welcome change of pace from the TV police procedural method of dragging random people in and accusing them of committing the crime until the hour is almost up and they find the right person, his insistence that he has the right person even when its not totally clear makes you think you're either being faked out fairly obviously or he's just fairly lucky (if you've ever seen "Zero Dark Thirty" and watched as Jessica Chastain's character stubbornly insists she's right based on gut feeling and winds up being so, then that's pretty much what happens here). But it does suck some of the suspense out of the novel, which is probably why he widens the motives to a conspiracy/political aspect, which doesn't entirely work, at least it didn't for me. Because of that it slightly hollows out the emotional center of the book, since the conflict between hero and villain never gains the resonance it needs to feel really personal and the political background never reaches the chilling levels it needs to in order to feel like "it could happen here".
Where he greatly succeeds is with the narrator, whose voice comes through strongly as he attempts to navigate the narrow path between solving the crime and not getting himself further in trouble. McAuley gives him enough personal problems to keep him busy when he's not tracking down an elusive murderer, including a girlfriend on an overseas trip evaluating their relationship and the aforementioned past incident taking place during a wide scale riot where he tried to help against corrupt officers and wound up being branded a coward because of it since no one was around to tell the real story (this part feels a lot like Paul Grist's comic series "Kane", where shooting his on-the-take partner that no one knew was on the take has made everyone hate him) and that sense of working in a hostile environment with his so-called colleagues gives the novel a welcome Philip Marlowe, especially as the narrator realizes everyone is mad at him already and stops caring about what he says to them.
In that sense, the plot and its resolution are almost secondary to how well McAuley handles the pacing and the characters. In a cast where dozens of police officers from different departments are all constantly intersecting, McAuley does his best to make everyone distinctive even when their appearances are brief and he's got a snappy way with dialogue that keeps everything humming along nicely. Even when the stakes don't seem as important as the characters think they are, the book remains a real pleasure to read, without any real lulls or snags. It goes down so easily, in fact, you almost wish that McAuley showed a little more imagination here. If this had come from anyone else I might have been thought it was decent but having read his older works (older than this, at least, considering its fourteen years old) and seeing what his imagination is capable of, you can't help but wonder if he banged out this one for the SF beach reading crowd that likes a smattering of the stuff without going all full nanotechnology and spaceships. Its good and its quick and while I support any author's right to want to try something different, the truth is if you like this, you need to explore the rest of his works but he's capable of far more interesting and thought provoking work than this. But for a long weekend read, its not bad at all.
McAuley is a fairly careful writer and even though this was written in 2002 he keeps the technological leaps low-key and focuses more on extrapolating what issues might arise from those new advances. In this case, privacy, which I'm sure won't feel relevant at all to anyone these days. About the only glaring thing missing from his future scenario are smart phones and criminals taking selfies at crime scenes with hashtags that say "guiltyascharged4life". But you can decide for yourself if that's a good or a bad thing.
In this scenario our narrator is a police officer that thanks to an incident in his past that wasn't his fault but got misinterpreted in a way that got everyone mad at him (mostly because all the witnesses died, although most of them would have lied about what happened anyway) and so now he spends the rest of his policing days nursing a bum leg and filling out paperwork in a minor department that tracks down illegal information and people who have things like banned music or videos (in this future, decency acts have passed making large amounts of overseas movies and music illegal to possess, although if its anything like here they could probably just arrest the entire country including themselves and feel pretty confident they managed to nab most of the offenders) and is looking to get shut down at some point as advances in police work make them redundant. But then a case where he gets farmed out to another department thanks to his computer skills falls into his lap, where a young college student is found murdered while naked and tied to a chair. It turns out she was also into webstreaming and its quite possible that her murder was witnessed by somebody. Which is good because the killer has covered his trails fairly well. Oh, and after a while seems to be taunting our hero.
What McAuley is essentially doing is a police procedural like you'd find on TV but with slightly more brains and some new gadgets. London appears to have a surveillance system that can track you pretty much anywhere and everyone else has some nifty computer programs that make either hacking a snap or retrieving data off wiped hard drives easier than you'd think. But the focus seems to be both on the actual investigative work and the vagaries of attempting to solve cases in this near-future world, whether its the wrangling between the different departments all looking to justify their neat toys (the acronym "NCIS" pops up so much you start expecting Mark Harmon and his steely yet comforting gaze to swoop in and save the day, but alas, it won't be that simple) or the the limitations that exist when people go off the grid or know how to make the grid work for them.
The mystery itself winds up becoming more complicated than it should be, with our narrator pinpointing someone as the culprit fairly early on, even if the motive is somewhat obscure and pretty much sticking with that theory throughout the rest of the novel. And while its a welcome change of pace from the TV police procedural method of dragging random people in and accusing them of committing the crime until the hour is almost up and they find the right person, his insistence that he has the right person even when its not totally clear makes you think you're either being faked out fairly obviously or he's just fairly lucky (if you've ever seen "Zero Dark Thirty" and watched as Jessica Chastain's character stubbornly insists she's right based on gut feeling and winds up being so, then that's pretty much what happens here). But it does suck some of the suspense out of the novel, which is probably why he widens the motives to a conspiracy/political aspect, which doesn't entirely work, at least it didn't for me. Because of that it slightly hollows out the emotional center of the book, since the conflict between hero and villain never gains the resonance it needs to feel really personal and the political background never reaches the chilling levels it needs to in order to feel like "it could happen here".
Where he greatly succeeds is with the narrator, whose voice comes through strongly as he attempts to navigate the narrow path between solving the crime and not getting himself further in trouble. McAuley gives him enough personal problems to keep him busy when he's not tracking down an elusive murderer, including a girlfriend on an overseas trip evaluating their relationship and the aforementioned past incident taking place during a wide scale riot where he tried to help against corrupt officers and wound up being branded a coward because of it since no one was around to tell the real story (this part feels a lot like Paul Grist's comic series "Kane", where shooting his on-the-take partner that no one knew was on the take has made everyone hate him) and that sense of working in a hostile environment with his so-called colleagues gives the novel a welcome Philip Marlowe, especially as the narrator realizes everyone is mad at him already and stops caring about what he says to them.
In that sense, the plot and its resolution are almost secondary to how well McAuley handles the pacing and the characters. In a cast where dozens of police officers from different departments are all constantly intersecting, McAuley does his best to make everyone distinctive even when their appearances are brief and he's got a snappy way with dialogue that keeps everything humming along nicely. Even when the stakes don't seem as important as the characters think they are, the book remains a real pleasure to read, without any real lulls or snags. It goes down so easily, in fact, you almost wish that McAuley showed a little more imagination here. If this had come from anyone else I might have been thought it was decent but having read his older works (older than this, at least, considering its fourteen years old) and seeing what his imagination is capable of, you can't help but wonder if he banged out this one for the SF beach reading crowd that likes a smattering of the stuff without going all full nanotechnology and spaceships. Its good and its quick and while I support any author's right to want to try something different, the truth is if you like this, you need to explore the rest of his works but he's capable of far more interesting and thought provoking work than this. But for a long weekend read, its not bad at all.
November 7, 2013
After reading McAuley's White Devil's, I was lured into thinking that complexly crafted, parallel stories converging, hard SF post-cyberpunk would be typical of this author. A novel with computers/Internet as the technology--wouldn't that be similar?
It wasn't. In this book, McAuley has set a traditional detective story in the near-future. England, following an Information War, in which cybersecurity and government spying on people is rampant. Had I read this when it came out, the idea of the US as championing Internet freedom while England became a police state would have seemed silly. Until Snowden's revelations that England is the far bigger invader of privacy--now it seems prescient.
And yes, there is reasonably careful attention to computerese detail. However, this is a detective story. One could very easily strip away the thin veneer of science fiction and you'd still have a near-identical story.
That being said, it's a good detective story. It starts with a murder and a cop following it. This cop was disgraced, unable to get authorities to believe the truth of his actions during the Info War, and banished to an obscure computer crimes unit. But this murder was a computer crime--the victim was engaged in live action Internet porn. The detective follows his lead through organized crime, through hackers, through government officials, through debauched rich folks. First person, like most good detective fiction.
I liked the main character, I liked a few of the villains.
If you're looking for a good detective story, I recommend this one.
It wasn't. In this book, McAuley has set a traditional detective story in the near-future. England, following an Information War, in which cybersecurity and government spying on people is rampant. Had I read this when it came out, the idea of the US as championing Internet freedom while England became a police state would have seemed silly. Until Snowden's revelations that England is the far bigger invader of privacy--now it seems prescient.
And yes, there is reasonably careful attention to computerese detail. However, this is a detective story. One could very easily strip away the thin veneer of science fiction and you'd still have a near-identical story.
That being said, it's a good detective story. It starts with a murder and a cop following it. This cop was disgraced, unable to get authorities to believe the truth of his actions during the Info War, and banished to an obscure computer crimes unit. But this murder was a computer crime--the victim was engaged in live action Internet porn. The detective follows his lead through organized crime, through hackers, through government officials, through debauched rich folks. First person, like most good detective fiction.
I liked the main character, I liked a few of the villains.
If you're looking for a good detective story, I recommend this one.
December 7, 2008
The problem with having a near-future thriller set so close to the present, is that the discrepancies between the book's 2010 and the real 2008 become a bit too obvious. However, they are not so glaring that you can't see them as plausible if the intervening couple of years had zigged instead of zagged. Just reinterpret "data spike" as "usb drive" or "SD card" and almost everything still fits. Certainlly, the concerns and issues around the surveillance state, freedom of information, and hypervisibility are just as relevant, and in many the same ways.
Otherwise, it's a pretty traditionally styled noir police procedural detective novel. But as I was reading, I couldn't help but wonder what someone like Cory Doctorow thought of it.
Otherwise, it's a pretty traditionally styled noir police procedural detective novel. But as I was reading, I couldn't help but wonder what someone like Cory Doctorow thought of it.
August 13, 2012
I really enjoyed the mix of science fiction and mystery. The science fiction aspect was interesting since the technology was just enough in the future to be different, but still close enough that I could believe we'd get it any day now. Adding the murder mystery to the mix was very interesting and fun!
December 21, 2014
A murder mystery set in the near future. The detective is a heavy drinker and smoker with a secret in his past. The victim is a young woman of questionable morals. This is a noir novel with a heavy dose of Internet. Rather familiar, with a main character I didn't find engaging, and too many supporting characters that didn't support. Not a bad novel, but I can't recommend it.
April 5, 2009
Apart from the occasional laps into Raymond Chandler style narrative and Sweeney style characters, this was an enjoyable book, and could serve as a sombre warning of the perils of our surveillance society and the new "opportunities" it gives to tech savvy criminals.
Read
August 22, 2008Whole Wide World by Paul J. McAuley (2003)
June 20, 2011
Well-written, near future noir, with a payoff at the end that takes on wider social issues. It made me glad not to live in Britain, with its ubiquitous CCTV network.
June 2, 2014
This is primarily a pretty good detective story.
It's set in a cyberpunkish near future, with some ripped-from-the-headlines
concerns about privacy and the surveillance state.
It's set in a cyberpunkish near future, with some ripped-from-the-headlines
concerns about privacy and the surveillance state.
September 4, 2016
i didn't bother finishing it
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