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Jump 225 #1
Infoquake
How far should you go to make a profit?
Infoquake, the debut novel by David Louis Edelman, takes speculative fiction into alien territory: the corporate boardroom of the far future. It's a stunning trip through the trenches of a technological war fought with product demos, press releases, and sales pitches.
Natch is a master of bio/logics, the programming of the human body. He's clawed and scraped his way to the top of the bio/logics market using little more than his wits. Now his sudden notoriety has brought him to the attention of Margaret Surina, the owner of a mysterious new technology called MultiReal. Only by enlisting Natch's devious mind can Margaret keep MultiReal out of the hands of High Executive Len Borda and his ruthless armies.
To fend off the intricate net of enemies closing in around him, Natch and his apprentices must accomplish the impossible. They must understand this strange new technology, run through the product development cycle, and prepare MultiReal for release to the public—all in three days.
Meanwhile, hanging over everything is the specter of the infoquake, a lethal burst of energy that's disrupting the bio/logic networks and threatening to send the world crashing back into the Dark Ages.
With Infoquake, David Louis Edelman has created a fully detailed world that's both as imaginative as Dune and as real as today's Wall Street Journal.
Infoquake, the debut novel by David Louis Edelman, takes speculative fiction into alien territory: the corporate boardroom of the far future. It's a stunning trip through the trenches of a technological war fought with product demos, press releases, and sales pitches.
Natch is a master of bio/logics, the programming of the human body. He's clawed and scraped his way to the top of the bio/logics market using little more than his wits. Now his sudden notoriety has brought him to the attention of Margaret Surina, the owner of a mysterious new technology called MultiReal. Only by enlisting Natch's devious mind can Margaret keep MultiReal out of the hands of High Executive Len Borda and his ruthless armies.
To fend off the intricate net of enemies closing in around him, Natch and his apprentices must accomplish the impossible. They must understand this strange new technology, run through the product development cycle, and prepare MultiReal for release to the public—all in three days.
Meanwhile, hanging over everything is the specter of the infoquake, a lethal burst of energy that's disrupting the bio/logic networks and threatening to send the world crashing back into the Dark Ages.
With Infoquake, David Louis Edelman has created a fully detailed world that's both as imaginative as Dune and as real as today's Wall Street Journal.
421 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2006
30 people are currently reading
1603 people want to read
About the author
David Louis Edelman
8 books101 followersDavid Louis Edelman is a science fiction novelist and web programmer. As the author of the Jump 225 trilogy (Infoquake, MultiReal, and Geosynchron), he has received nominations for the John W. Campbell Award for Best Novel, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Barnes & Noble’s SF Novel of the Year (winner 2006), and spots on best-of-the-year lists by io9, Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, and SFFWorld. Locus magazine called the trilogy "a seminal work of 21st century SF."
Edelman has also programmed websites for the U.S. Army, the FBI, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Jesuit Conference of America, and Rolls-Royce; taught software to members of the U.S. Congress and the World Bank; and directed the marketing departments of biometric and e-commerce companies.
Edelman has also programmed websites for the U.S. Army, the FBI, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Jesuit Conference of America, and Rolls-Royce; taught software to members of the U.S. Congress and the World Bank; and directed the marketing departments of biometric and e-commerce companies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
July 11, 2012
Bleh. And this one had so much promise. The setting is fantastic: it's a futuristic world of cutthroat corporations, and there are some sort of nano-machines in everyone's blood that allows them to run programs on their very body. It's like a software version of cyberpunk augmentations. And there's Primo's, kind of like a futuristic app store, and there's Natch, a rebel CEO who hungers for the top spot.
Sounds pretty great, right? Unfortunately, this book is the poster child for novels not living up to their premise. Natch, for starters, is supposed to be this maverick CEO who is so brilliant at business he's almost insane. Except he's more a jackass than an antihero. He has zero leadership skills, and his brilliant strategies consist of doing what he wants while disregarding the opinions of his entire staff, then claim brilliance when his stupid schemes unexpectedly pay off. Did I mention his employee, Jara, hates his guts, but gets a tingle in her ladyparts whenever he stares at her hard enough? Yeah.
Infoquake promises daring corporate adventures. Well, they got the corporate part down. Most of the novel happens in meeting rooms. OK, so they're futuristic meeting rooms with changeable scenery, but for all the African wildlife or impressionist French paintings they take place in, they're still bloody meetings. Then there's programming sessions, where people connect cables to boxes in 3D using virtual connectors. They do stuff like plug into a super-advanced API by farming it out to junior coders, and they do it in three days without any QA.
The writing is average for most of the book, but sometimes it devolves to pedestrian levels. I'm talking about prose so jarring it pulled me out of the novel. Don't believe me? Here's a few examples:
"Natch focused the full force of his sapphire orbs on Jara."
"Rivers of fear coursed through Horvil's skull."
And my favorite:
"Robby Robby's grin began just below one ear and undertook an impossibly long journey down his chin to reach the other."
So Robby Robby's grin undertook an impossibly long journey down his chin to his... other chin? okaaay...
The premise of the novel would be rife for fantastic vistas and impossible human feats, but what you'll mostly see is people pulling programs like PokerFace in meetings when the author wants to signal they're concealing their intentions.
The novel has no sense of place whatsoever. Because characters can join in virtual meeting rooms, I had no idea whether they were in London, the United States, India, or even the Moon. (I'm not kidding about the Moon, by the way.) A major piece of the novel takes place in India, and there the author has missed the most basic opportunity to research his location. We're told the action takes place in the Indian city of Andra Pradesh; Andhra Pradesh is a state in South India, not a city. "Pradesh" means state, for crying out loud. There's a scene where Natch eats Indian food, which is described in the vaguest of terms as tasting of curry and cumin. The only detail is that they ate a vindaloo dish, a dish that has nothing to do with Andhra Pradesh. It's not the end of the world, but why skimp on a simple Wikipedia search, for crying out loud? The whole plot could have happened in Hyderabad and they could have eaten biryani. There. Is that so hard?
I was expecting some high society adventure, with a CEO character who hovers between psychopath and genius. Instead, I got CEOs who trade insults with the confidence and pomp of WWE wrestlers, and a plot that makes no sense at all.
I guess I should have read Steve Jobs' biography instead.
Sounds pretty great, right? Unfortunately, this book is the poster child for novels not living up to their premise. Natch, for starters, is supposed to be this maverick CEO who is so brilliant at business he's almost insane. Except he's more a jackass than an antihero. He has zero leadership skills, and his brilliant strategies consist of doing what he wants while disregarding the opinions of his entire staff, then claim brilliance when his stupid schemes unexpectedly pay off. Did I mention his employee, Jara, hates his guts, but gets a tingle in her ladyparts whenever he stares at her hard enough? Yeah.
Infoquake promises daring corporate adventures. Well, they got the corporate part down. Most of the novel happens in meeting rooms. OK, so they're futuristic meeting rooms with changeable scenery, but for all the African wildlife or impressionist French paintings they take place in, they're still bloody meetings. Then there's programming sessions, where people connect cables to boxes in 3D using virtual connectors. They do stuff like plug into a super-advanced API by farming it out to junior coders, and they do it in three days without any QA.
The writing is average for most of the book, but sometimes it devolves to pedestrian levels. I'm talking about prose so jarring it pulled me out of the novel. Don't believe me? Here's a few examples:
"Natch focused the full force of his sapphire orbs on Jara."
"Rivers of fear coursed through Horvil's skull."
And my favorite:
"Robby Robby's grin began just below one ear and undertook an impossibly long journey down his chin to reach the other."
So Robby Robby's grin undertook an impossibly long journey down his chin to his... other chin? okaaay...
The premise of the novel would be rife for fantastic vistas and impossible human feats, but what you'll mostly see is people pulling programs like PokerFace in meetings when the author wants to signal they're concealing their intentions.
The novel has no sense of place whatsoever. Because characters can join in virtual meeting rooms, I had no idea whether they were in London, the United States, India, or even the Moon. (I'm not kidding about the Moon, by the way.) A major piece of the novel takes place in India, and there the author has missed the most basic opportunity to research his location. We're told the action takes place in the Indian city of Andra Pradesh; Andhra Pradesh is a state in South India, not a city. "Pradesh" means state, for crying out loud. There's a scene where Natch eats Indian food, which is described in the vaguest of terms as tasting of curry and cumin. The only detail is that they ate a vindaloo dish, a dish that has nothing to do with Andhra Pradesh. It's not the end of the world, but why skimp on a simple Wikipedia search, for crying out loud? The whole plot could have happened in Hyderabad and they could have eaten biryani. There. Is that so hard?
I was expecting some high society adventure, with a CEO character who hovers between psychopath and genius. Instead, I got CEOs who trade insults with the confidence and pomp of WWE wrestlers, and a plot that makes no sense at all.
I guess I should have read Steve Jobs' biography instead.
July 26, 2007
(Much longer full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)
Regular readers of the CCLaP website know that I am a fan of science-fiction; and when it comes to what I like most about the genre, I have to admit that for me it mostly boils down to the concepts, to the grand ideas on display versus the author's writing style or other technical issues. And this of course is something else that regular readers already know, that I see the actual mechanics of writing (grammar, style, plot, etc) as fairly pedestrian topics, the least important part of what makes a writer good or not; since in my opinion it's the one thing about writing that literally anyone can master given enough practice and/or education, versus things like grand concepts and compelling characters that a person is either born with an ability to conjure or not.
It's something to keep in mind while reading through Infoquake, the first novel by Washington-DC web developer David Louis Edelman, which last year became not only a surprise sleeper hit but also a surprise Campbell Award nominee; because make no mistake, some of the ideas Edelman bandies about here are insanely great enough to make your head pop right off your neck, even as he displays only a basic mastery at this point over the actual mechanics of writing a novel, a fact that will drive heavy readers of so-called "literary fiction" a little crazy. It is ultimately a very good example of something I've said here before about genre work, which is what makes genre work both loved and reviled by most; that it delivers in spades everything a lover of science-fiction wants in a great science-fiction novel, but simply never transcends that and into the world of general interest, like the absolute cream of the crop of genre work does. It's a great novel to be sure, an infinitely smart page-turner that will have your brain spinning for days afterwards; but it's obvious that Edelman is still trying to find his mature voice as a writer, something that lovers of great books need to be warned of before diving in.
In fact...
Regular readers of the CCLaP website know that I am a fan of science-fiction; and when it comes to what I like most about the genre, I have to admit that for me it mostly boils down to the concepts, to the grand ideas on display versus the author's writing style or other technical issues. And this of course is something else that regular readers already know, that I see the actual mechanics of writing (grammar, style, plot, etc) as fairly pedestrian topics, the least important part of what makes a writer good or not; since in my opinion it's the one thing about writing that literally anyone can master given enough practice and/or education, versus things like grand concepts and compelling characters that a person is either born with an ability to conjure or not.
It's something to keep in mind while reading through Infoquake, the first novel by Washington-DC web developer David Louis Edelman, which last year became not only a surprise sleeper hit but also a surprise Campbell Award nominee; because make no mistake, some of the ideas Edelman bandies about here are insanely great enough to make your head pop right off your neck, even as he displays only a basic mastery at this point over the actual mechanics of writing a novel, a fact that will drive heavy readers of so-called "literary fiction" a little crazy. It is ultimately a very good example of something I've said here before about genre work, which is what makes genre work both loved and reviled by most; that it delivers in spades everything a lover of science-fiction wants in a great science-fiction novel, but simply never transcends that and into the world of general interest, like the absolute cream of the crop of genre work does. It's a great novel to be sure, an infinitely smart page-turner that will have your brain spinning for days afterwards; but it's obvious that Edelman is still trying to find his mature voice as a writer, something that lovers of great books need to be warned of before diving in.
In fact...
April 17, 2010
If you like the writings of William Gibson or Neal Stephenson, don't overlook this book! Edelman's vision of the future is so complex and rewarding that you'll feel instantly immersed.
As this is book one in a trilogy, there is not much in the way of a grand resolution at the end. But since all three books are out now, that's not much of an issue. You really need to read all three, and by the end of this book, you'll certainly want to! Multireal and Geosynchron flesh out Edelman's world in even greater detail.
There are certain issues that are raised at the end of Infoquake that are not addressed in detail, but rest assured ... the answers await you in Multireal. I was very happy to see the author deal with those issues that are clearly raised by the advent of the Multireal technology, and by the time he deals with the monetization and moral implications of Multireal, you know you're in good hands.
If you've thought of it, chances are Edelman has thought of it too. Certain concepts are not fully explained immediately, but with a little patience, you'll find he elaborates on them in due time. If you feel like you're in over your head, each book has an excellent glossary of the new terms he has introduced, as well as a timeline of events leading up to the present day (in the book).
I can't speak highly enough of this book, and the trilogy in general. I enjoyed it immensely, and though it does sometimes focus on the worlds of business, finance, and politics, I found all of it to be highly entertaining.
It's like Neuromancer meets Wall Street.
As this is book one in a trilogy, there is not much in the way of a grand resolution at the end. But since all three books are out now, that's not much of an issue. You really need to read all three, and by the end of this book, you'll certainly want to! Multireal and Geosynchron flesh out Edelman's world in even greater detail.
There are certain issues that are raised at the end of Infoquake that are not addressed in detail, but rest assured ... the answers await you in Multireal. I was very happy to see the author deal with those issues that are clearly raised by the advent of the Multireal technology, and by the time he deals with the monetization and moral implications of Multireal, you know you're in good hands.
If you've thought of it, chances are Edelman has thought of it too. Certain concepts are not fully explained immediately, but with a little patience, you'll find he elaborates on them in due time. If you feel like you're in over your head, each book has an excellent glossary of the new terms he has introduced, as well as a timeline of events leading up to the present day (in the book).
I can't speak highly enough of this book, and the trilogy in general. I enjoyed it immensely, and though it does sometimes focus on the worlds of business, finance, and politics, I found all of it to be highly entertaining.
It's like Neuromancer meets Wall Street.
August 31, 2008
A remarkable work of future world building. The biotech is very convincing as is the future history that Edelman has constructed. The world may in fact be the most complex and compelling character in the book.
It's surprisingly engrossing for a novel in which (when you boil it down) relatively few things actually happen. I spent most of the time waiting for the inevitable revelation of what was really going on and I had to keep reading to find out.
Hard to avoid the feeling that the whole thing is just set up for the rest of the trilogy though.
It's surprisingly engrossing for a novel in which (when you boil it down) relatively few things actually happen. I spent most of the time waiting for the inevitable revelation of what was really going on and I had to keep reading to find out.
Hard to avoid the feeling that the whole thing is just set up for the rest of the trilogy though.
June 29, 2009
Infoquake has a few interesting ideas - "fiefcorps" as the future of entrepreneurial ventures, "bio/logics" software paired up with nanotech to help people modify or amplify their bodily functions, vestigial government entities reduced to marketing their sign-on promotions and benefits packages to attract clientele. The majority of the novel seems to be a rather long read with little actual content, however.
The main character is the largest problem for the author, as he tries to portray some sort of genius anti-hero and explain how he came to be such an ambitious, morally ambiguous player... however the author's biggest problem is, and continues to be, providing some sort of rationale for why the reader should care. More could have been done with the secondary characters and why they choose to hang around with and work for this emotionally immature tyrant, and this would have possibly shown him to be not necessarily more likable, but maybe worthy of being concerned for.
The plot drags until the end, being a mostly empty tale illustrating the main character's ambitions and sort of how he came to be in the position he's in. Towards the end of the novel, the action picks up and it appears as if something interesting is actually going to happen - and then the main character is dropped out of most of the end sequence with little explanation, as a teaser to further novels I suppose.
I had a hard time grasping what exactly the author was trying to say with this novel, unless maybe it was all a lead-up to the one bit of wisdom at the end that actually stuck out from the rest of the novel, perhaps because it was the clearest, truest statement of a goal or ideal in the entire book:
You see this happen every day. A business triumphs over its rivals and gets stronger. Others become jealous and resentful. Eventually, the company's enemies conspire together to bring it down, or it rots from within. It's the same thing that happens with animals...plans...trees. Why? Because there's some mystical force guiding our actions? No, because too much power concentrated in one place creates stasis. And stasis is anathema to a universe that desires constant motion and change. (379)
Overall Infoquake is well-written, but the characters, plot, and timing could use another revision.
06/14/09 CSL
The main character is the largest problem for the author, as he tries to portray some sort of genius anti-hero and explain how he came to be such an ambitious, morally ambiguous player... however the author's biggest problem is, and continues to be, providing some sort of rationale for why the reader should care. More could have been done with the secondary characters and why they choose to hang around with and work for this emotionally immature tyrant, and this would have possibly shown him to be not necessarily more likable, but maybe worthy of being concerned for.
The plot drags until the end, being a mostly empty tale illustrating the main character's ambitions and sort of how he came to be in the position he's in. Towards the end of the novel, the action picks up and it appears as if something interesting is actually going to happen - and then the main character is dropped out of most of the end sequence with little explanation, as a teaser to further novels I suppose.
I had a hard time grasping what exactly the author was trying to say with this novel, unless maybe it was all a lead-up to the one bit of wisdom at the end that actually stuck out from the rest of the novel, perhaps because it was the clearest, truest statement of a goal or ideal in the entire book:
You see this happen every day. A business triumphs over its rivals and gets stronger. Others become jealous and resentful. Eventually, the company's enemies conspire together to bring it down, or it rots from within. It's the same thing that happens with animals...plans...trees. Why? Because there's some mystical force guiding our actions? No, because too much power concentrated in one place creates stasis. And stasis is anathema to a universe that desires constant motion and change. (379)
Overall Infoquake is well-written, but the characters, plot, and timing could use another revision.
06/14/09 CSL
November 1, 2012
Infoquake is set in a future where the human body is entirely programmable. Everyone has nanomachines in their bodies, and the market for human programs (called bio/logic in the novel) is immensely profitable. The story centers around Natch and his plot to take his nascent bio/logic corporation to the top of the big leagues.
Sadly, the author's narration is extremely inconsistent. Events and organizations are mentioned without much explanation, as if those reading were a part of the world, but the names of the programs are so clumsily named (PokerFace 42--really?) that it totally ruins the immersion (and this occurs a dozen times a chapter).
The characters are pretty one-dimensional. The main character is brilliant and predictably cynical, his best friend/employee is an extremely competent engineer but socially lacking, and his obligatory female employee is secretly (and graphically) in lust with him but hates the fact that she is. Each of these tropes is mentioned like, twice a chapter.
The plot is mostly competent, aside from the non-ending. This is part one of a trilogy, and it shows. Overall the book left me cold. There are two more in the series, but I have no burning desire to read them.
Sadly, the author's narration is extremely inconsistent. Events and organizations are mentioned without much explanation, as if those reading were a part of the world, but the names of the programs are so clumsily named (PokerFace 42--really?) that it totally ruins the immersion (and this occurs a dozen times a chapter).
The characters are pretty one-dimensional. The main character is brilliant and predictably cynical, his best friend/employee is an extremely competent engineer but socially lacking, and his obligatory female employee is secretly (and graphically) in lust with him but hates the fact that she is. Each of these tropes is mentioned like, twice a chapter.
The plot is mostly competent, aside from the non-ending. This is part one of a trilogy, and it shows. Overall the book left me cold. There are two more in the series, but I have no burning desire to read them.
February 2, 2012
Interesting and complex world, great protagonist (though an arrogant bastard) and a bit too much of 'first tome' syndrome. That's Infoquake in a nutshell. The pace is pretty slow (plus a lengthy retrospective) but there is enough happening too keep one interested. Definitely waiting for part two.
December 10, 2014
Infoquake tells the story of a ruthless businessman in the far future and his attempt to do a product launch for a new technology that's going to change the world.
That about describes everything that matters, which doesn't matter a lot to me. I should note here that I'm not spoiling any specific bits that I feel it's worth hiding the review over, but I will be talking generally about how some plot elements crop up and, in my opinion, don't get payoff.
I'm not going to say that this is a bad book... it's just one that is geared very much to tastes that are not mine. Technically I'm not sure there's anything particularly wrong with it, at least anything more than an average first SF novel. I just didn't find the characters terribly sympathetic or interesting, and the exploration of the SF aspects focused on odd areas, and, to a certain extent, an underlying political tone that did not agree with me.
Let's start with the first. The book seems largely to be set in, and to a certain extent, advocate for, a libertarian hyper-capitalist society. That the characters believe certain things doesn't necessarily mean the author shares those beliefs, but here I get the impression he thinks what he's setup is a generally good system. To his credit, though, he also does point out some serious flaws and dangers in the setup, and some benefits in opposing viewpoints. So it's not a political polemic, and if everything else was enjoyable, I could look past it, or even enjoy the alternate viewpoint (Vernor Vinge is an author who manages this).
The biggest problem, though, is the main character, Natch, who seems to be a largely amoral businessman who thinks only of being on top and doesn't much care how he gets there. At first, since the story seemed to be told through his underlings, I thought maybe he was being set up as a semi-antagonist, or at least a virtual force of nature that drives the plots the real protagonists react to, but shortly after the beginning we spend an awful lot of time on his childhood in what I can only assume is an attempt to get you to sympathize with him. It doesn't work. He's too uninterestingly omnicapable and with an unlikeable personality. The other major characters, well, a few of them are okay, but either lack much agency or their opportunities for personal character growth gets sacrificed to showing how awesome (or occasionally how crazy or reckless) Natch is.
A problem almost as big is with the plot itself. The book's titled Infoquake, but that's really only a tiny part of the plot, an unexpected side effect that people fear might happen again, but the book isn't, in an sense, ABOUT an Infoquake. This isn't a big deal. What's more of a big deal is that the new technology that you could argue the plot IS about... gets reduced into the most boring mundane detail of how to get it ready to launch it in the marketplace. It's like if somebody wrote a book about the development of FTL or teleportation that would change the world, but instead of focusing on all the things you could do with it, instead it focused on determining the insurance liablity the company would face if something went wrong. We get a couple descriptions and one example of the technology in action, used in the most mundane and unimaginative context out of all possibilities. To go back to our teleportation example, it'd be like the only actual use of teleportation they showed us was a guy using it to catch the bus he just missed by teleporting to the next stop. This is made more infuriating by the fact that when they revealed what the MultiReal technology was and described it in vague terms, it was the only time I was even a little excited, it finally sound interesting. But it got no payoff. Supposedly it gets some in the sequel. I will never find out from personal experience. Another problem with this approach is that the development of the new technology is essentially a programming problem, but, largely, programming in this new world has changed, described as more an art of manipulating a picture on the screen until it LOOKS just right, rather than actually knowing anything about what you're doing. How future-programming is done may actually be (somewhat) close to how it'll eventually evolve, manipulating large data structures in pre-defined libraries rather than individual variables, but you're telling a story of people pulling all-nighters to code a new product release, you want a better sense that they're actually viscerally connected to it.
The world-building in general is somewhat lacking for me. This is a world set several hundreds of years in the future, but it feels it might as well be 20-30. A few societal changes, some huge technological leaps, but everybody's fundamentally the same (I had hopes that the revolutionary new technology might alter that, but apparently while removing the injustices of nature seem what everybody's interested in, nobody really is at all worried about the injustices of capitalism). The two major developments are the science of bio/logics, which essentially let you run software that monitors and improves the human body, like apps, and the ability to project a sort of holographic representation of yourself into public locations (or private ones, with permission) at a distance and feel like you're there. Neither feels like a lot of improvement for such time, and moreover, I'm never entirely sold on them and all the ways they've changed society. The bio/logic programs, for example, all have unbelievably banal brand names and a version number and all seem to do very minor things, yet there's a cutthroat marketplace and everybody upgrades whenever there's a new version. And yet they're paradoxically so afraid of AI and combining human and machine that one character has only the crudest replacement limbs for an old injury. It just doesn't ring true. There are a few other advancements, but none of them figure much into the story and some of them just seem bizarre (I'm not quite sure, for example, what the benefit is of apartment buildings that collapse during the day when nobody's using them... and how/why has everybody migrated to the same schedule?)
This might be somebody's ideal book, but it's not mine. There ARE some cool ideas, but I have to wade through too much stuff I'm not interested in to get to them, and the things that do interest me, they don't really get paid off in a satisfying degree.
That about describes everything that matters, which doesn't matter a lot to me. I should note here that I'm not spoiling any specific bits that I feel it's worth hiding the review over, but I will be talking generally about how some plot elements crop up and, in my opinion, don't get payoff.
I'm not going to say that this is a bad book... it's just one that is geared very much to tastes that are not mine. Technically I'm not sure there's anything particularly wrong with it, at least anything more than an average first SF novel. I just didn't find the characters terribly sympathetic or interesting, and the exploration of the SF aspects focused on odd areas, and, to a certain extent, an underlying political tone that did not agree with me.
Let's start with the first. The book seems largely to be set in, and to a certain extent, advocate for, a libertarian hyper-capitalist society. That the characters believe certain things doesn't necessarily mean the author shares those beliefs, but here I get the impression he thinks what he's setup is a generally good system. To his credit, though, he also does point out some serious flaws and dangers in the setup, and some benefits in opposing viewpoints. So it's not a political polemic, and if everything else was enjoyable, I could look past it, or even enjoy the alternate viewpoint (Vernor Vinge is an author who manages this).
The biggest problem, though, is the main character, Natch, who seems to be a largely amoral businessman who thinks only of being on top and doesn't much care how he gets there. At first, since the story seemed to be told through his underlings, I thought maybe he was being set up as a semi-antagonist, or at least a virtual force of nature that drives the plots the real protagonists react to, but shortly after the beginning we spend an awful lot of time on his childhood in what I can only assume is an attempt to get you to sympathize with him. It doesn't work. He's too uninterestingly omnicapable and with an unlikeable personality. The other major characters, well, a few of them are okay, but either lack much agency or their opportunities for personal character growth gets sacrificed to showing how awesome (or occasionally how crazy or reckless) Natch is.
A problem almost as big is with the plot itself. The book's titled Infoquake, but that's really only a tiny part of the plot, an unexpected side effect that people fear might happen again, but the book isn't, in an sense, ABOUT an Infoquake. This isn't a big deal. What's more of a big deal is that the new technology that you could argue the plot IS about... gets reduced into the most boring mundane detail of how to get it ready to launch it in the marketplace. It's like if somebody wrote a book about the development of FTL or teleportation that would change the world, but instead of focusing on all the things you could do with it, instead it focused on determining the insurance liablity the company would face if something went wrong. We get a couple descriptions and one example of the technology in action, used in the most mundane and unimaginative context out of all possibilities. To go back to our teleportation example, it'd be like the only actual use of teleportation they showed us was a guy using it to catch the bus he just missed by teleporting to the next stop. This is made more infuriating by the fact that when they revealed what the MultiReal technology was and described it in vague terms, it was the only time I was even a little excited, it finally sound interesting. But it got no payoff. Supposedly it gets some in the sequel. I will never find out from personal experience. Another problem with this approach is that the development of the new technology is essentially a programming problem, but, largely, programming in this new world has changed, described as more an art of manipulating a picture on the screen until it LOOKS just right, rather than actually knowing anything about what you're doing. How future-programming is done may actually be (somewhat) close to how it'll eventually evolve, manipulating large data structures in pre-defined libraries rather than individual variables, but you're telling a story of people pulling all-nighters to code a new product release, you want a better sense that they're actually viscerally connected to it.
The world-building in general is somewhat lacking for me. This is a world set several hundreds of years in the future, but it feels it might as well be 20-30. A few societal changes, some huge technological leaps, but everybody's fundamentally the same (I had hopes that the revolutionary new technology might alter that, but apparently while removing the injustices of nature seem what everybody's interested in, nobody really is at all worried about the injustices of capitalism). The two major developments are the science of bio/logics, which essentially let you run software that monitors and improves the human body, like apps, and the ability to project a sort of holographic representation of yourself into public locations (or private ones, with permission) at a distance and feel like you're there. Neither feels like a lot of improvement for such time, and moreover, I'm never entirely sold on them and all the ways they've changed society. The bio/logic programs, for example, all have unbelievably banal brand names and a version number and all seem to do very minor things, yet there's a cutthroat marketplace and everybody upgrades whenever there's a new version. And yet they're paradoxically so afraid of AI and combining human and machine that one character has only the crudest replacement limbs for an old injury. It just doesn't ring true. There are a few other advancements, but none of them figure much into the story and some of them just seem bizarre (I'm not quite sure, for example, what the benefit is of apartment buildings that collapse during the day when nobody's using them... and how/why has everybody migrated to the same schedule?)
This might be somebody's ideal book, but it's not mine. There ARE some cool ideas, but I have to wade through too much stuff I'm not interested in to get to them, and the things that do interest me, they don't really get paid off in a satisfying degree.
August 20, 2013
3.5 stars
I had a hard time deciding what I feel about this book. Giving a conservative 3.5 stars, despite liking the novel overall.
I just love this work immensely for proving them all wrong - NO, CYBERPUNK ISN'T DEAD! This is the closest any modern novel has ever come to cyberpunk. It not only employs most standard cyberpunk tropes – that of a loner, alienated white male, a low-brow making it big with his virtual skills against the giant mega-corporations - but truly surpasses the outdated genre, clothing it in a fresh, radical, but grounded-in-highly-probable-future-noir technology.
The matrix, cyber-hacking/cracking part of cyberpunk has become so common now, that since the late ‘90s which saw the Web booming and real life bringing the cyberpunk world right at our doorstep, critics vehemently pronounced cyberpunk dead. In a way, they were right – all cyberpunkish novels that emerged were but off-shoots or derivatives of classic cyberpunk – carried forward in terms of themes and social concerns, but diluting the genre.
But this novel brings back futuristic cyberpunk back with a bang! It has kept the cyberpunk feel solidly in its roots, but surpassed the lame imitation of recent so-called cyberpunk novels.
Like the popular-literature sub-genre of espionage thrillers, this one is a business thriller of sorts. Fast-forward to far-future that has the entire world connected to the Data Sea with your mind – you have OCHREs in your bodies, artificial substances that deliver efficient medical treatment on their own before you even notice you’re infected – you can be virtually present in any corner of the world, so no need for travelling – or you can teleport if you are stinking rich. Fine, it is quite predictable.
But then how does it change the configurations of economic/corporate structures, politics and social hierarchies? Natch, one of the privileged kids studying in the Hives strikes out his roots against the ruthless mega-corporations at a young age, against his guardian’s advice – he is a bio/logics master, a science of the human body engineering, and with brute force and sheer cunning, he swiftly climbs the corporate ladder, only to be drawn into a mysterious deal by the progeny of one of the most esteemed inventors of all time, to release a secret, radical technology called Multireal that has been in secret development for more than 16 years, and which sends out waves of disturbance through business and political circles through its probable repercussions – and with that, it becomes a fast-paced techno-business thriller.
I absolutely loved certain aspects of the work – apart from the fact that it has reinvented the sub-genre charmingly. The world-building is neat, exciting, realistic, yet radical enough to draw in the most demanding reader. The characterizations, including that of Natch, too, are credible, interesting and palatable. The plot is well-executed, the numerous yet logical twists and turns smoothly transitioning into an exciting read. Keeps you glued.
But here’s why I rate it so conservatively despite my elated rhetoric – the thing I absolutely hate in any work is a cliffhanger ending. It reads like a book torn into half, and me having the first half of it. This is the first book of the Jump 225 trilogy and it is not always possible to read it in succession – I want every book to be complete in itself, like the Harry Potter series. I absolutely detest half-tales. It is what put me off primarily.
Secondly, the language/narrative sometimes descends into pathetic expressions that come in the way of the riveting plot – forced descriptions that make you cringe at aesthetics of writing made the book slightly more unpalatable, though the plot kept me hooked.
Third, there were some factual errors – not exactly detrimental to the plot since they were errors of research rather than that of logic. Andhra Pradesh (a southern state in India) is consistently spelt as Andra Pradesh and worse, cited as a city, rather than a state. Vindaloo, a Goan curry dish of Portuguese origin, is mistakenly referred to part of Andra Pradesh cuisine. Unpalatable, coming from a well-respected author.
So, temporarily, I rate it thus, and might increase the ratings when I’m done with the trilogy. The other flaws were bearable, but not a cliffhanger ending. I’d rather have a book of monstrous proportions but complete than half-lingering tales split into three novels.
But I still love it, and someday, I’ll read the entire series with glee and in all probability, be pleased enough to raise the rating by a star or so.
I had a hard time deciding what I feel about this book. Giving a conservative 3.5 stars, despite liking the novel overall.
I just love this work immensely for proving them all wrong - NO, CYBERPUNK ISN'T DEAD! This is the closest any modern novel has ever come to cyberpunk. It not only employs most standard cyberpunk tropes – that of a loner, alienated white male, a low-brow making it big with his virtual skills against the giant mega-corporations - but truly surpasses the outdated genre, clothing it in a fresh, radical, but grounded-in-highly-probable-future-noir technology.
The matrix, cyber-hacking/cracking part of cyberpunk has become so common now, that since the late ‘90s which saw the Web booming and real life bringing the cyberpunk world right at our doorstep, critics vehemently pronounced cyberpunk dead. In a way, they were right – all cyberpunkish novels that emerged were but off-shoots or derivatives of classic cyberpunk – carried forward in terms of themes and social concerns, but diluting the genre.
But this novel brings back futuristic cyberpunk back with a bang! It has kept the cyberpunk feel solidly in its roots, but surpassed the lame imitation of recent so-called cyberpunk novels.
Like the popular-literature sub-genre of espionage thrillers, this one is a business thriller of sorts. Fast-forward to far-future that has the entire world connected to the Data Sea with your mind – you have OCHREs in your bodies, artificial substances that deliver efficient medical treatment on their own before you even notice you’re infected – you can be virtually present in any corner of the world, so no need for travelling – or you can teleport if you are stinking rich. Fine, it is quite predictable.
But then how does it change the configurations of economic/corporate structures, politics and social hierarchies? Natch, one of the privileged kids studying in the Hives strikes out his roots against the ruthless mega-corporations at a young age, against his guardian’s advice – he is a bio/logics master, a science of the human body engineering, and with brute force and sheer cunning, he swiftly climbs the corporate ladder, only to be drawn into a mysterious deal by the progeny of one of the most esteemed inventors of all time, to release a secret, radical technology called Multireal that has been in secret development for more than 16 years, and which sends out waves of disturbance through business and political circles through its probable repercussions – and with that, it becomes a fast-paced techno-business thriller.
I absolutely loved certain aspects of the work – apart from the fact that it has reinvented the sub-genre charmingly. The world-building is neat, exciting, realistic, yet radical enough to draw in the most demanding reader. The characterizations, including that of Natch, too, are credible, interesting and palatable. The plot is well-executed, the numerous yet logical twists and turns smoothly transitioning into an exciting read. Keeps you glued.
But here’s why I rate it so conservatively despite my elated rhetoric – the thing I absolutely hate in any work is a cliffhanger ending. It reads like a book torn into half, and me having the first half of it. This is the first book of the Jump 225 trilogy and it is not always possible to read it in succession – I want every book to be complete in itself, like the Harry Potter series. I absolutely detest half-tales. It is what put me off primarily.
Secondly, the language/narrative sometimes descends into pathetic expressions that come in the way of the riveting plot – forced descriptions that make you cringe at aesthetics of writing made the book slightly more unpalatable, though the plot kept me hooked.
Third, there were some factual errors – not exactly detrimental to the plot since they were errors of research rather than that of logic. Andhra Pradesh (a southern state in India) is consistently spelt as Andra Pradesh and worse, cited as a city, rather than a state. Vindaloo, a Goan curry dish of Portuguese origin, is mistakenly referred to part of Andra Pradesh cuisine. Unpalatable, coming from a well-respected author.
So, temporarily, I rate it thus, and might increase the ratings when I’m done with the trilogy. The other flaws were bearable, but not a cliffhanger ending. I’d rather have a book of monstrous proportions but complete than half-lingering tales split into three novels.
But I still love it, and someday, I’ll read the entire series with glee and in all probability, be pleased enough to raise the rating by a star or so.
September 26, 2014
David Louis Edelman, programista z Kalifornii, zadebiutował w 2008 roku powieścią „Infoszok”, pierwszą częścią trylogii „Skok 225”. Nie jest to książka ani do końca dobra, ani też całkowicie kiepska; z potencjałem i kilkoma ciekawie zarysowanymi koncepcjami, a zarazem niewystarczająco doszlifowana i naznaczona piętnem zarówno tomu otwierającego cykl, jak i pierwszego dokonania literackiego autora.
Zaczyna się całkiem obiecująco, najmocniejszymi punktami, jakie oferuje czytelnikom proza Edelmana. Oto świat dość odległej przyszłości, w której króluje bio/logika, nauka z pogranicza genetyki i informatyki, de facto rządząca życiem większości społeczeństwa. Każdy mieszkaniec Ziemi bądź jej kolonii jest w mniejszym lub większym stopniu zmodyfikowany dzięki całej gamie dostępnego oprogramowania, a zajmujące się tworzeniem kolejnych algorytmów feudokorporacje walczą o coraz to nowych klientów i wyższą pozycję w prestiżowym rankingu Primo.
Uniwersum kreowane przez Edelmana jest bogate, dysponuje obszerną historią i szeregiem technologicznych wynalazków. Łączy w sobie cechy dystopii i cyberpunka, a poruszana przez autora problematyka zahacza nieśmiało o kwestię człowieczeństwa zagubioną w zalewie technicznych nowinek. Intryguje także główny bohater, Natch, jeden z mistrzów coraz bardziej znaczącego feudokorpu. To dość antypatyczna postać, nieco socjopatyczna, z determinacją dążąca do wyznaczonego celu, która otaczających ją ludzi często traktuje instrumentalnie. Autorowi udało się wprowadzić do charakterystyki Natcha dwuznaczności, uzasadnić część z jego zachowań, dzięki czemu czytelnik zaczyna kibicować temu antybohaterowi. W tym momencie pojawia się jednak niewprawnie prowadzona, jednowątkowa fabuła — rozrzedzona ponad miarę i dość nijaka.
Nie da się więc ukryć, że autor zaprezentował interesujące pomysły jeśli chodzi o świat przedstawiony i postać protagonisty, ale nie do końca udało mu się je wykorzystać. Rozpoczyna mocnym wprowadzeniem, wraz z kolejnymi rozdziałami akcja jednak rozmywa się, miast przyspieszać. Co gorsza, David Louis Edelman nie zalicza się w poczet wirtuozów pióra. Jego styl jest bardzo prosty, wręcz łopatologiczny, przez co powieść czyta się szybko, ale przywodzi to na myśl pośpieszne łykane zmielonej papki. Do tego dochodzi niezbyt staranna korekta polskiego wydania.
„Infoszok” to tak naprawdę książka-wstęp. Tom nie tworzy zamkniętej całości, jest jedynie preludium trylogii, i to preludium przegadanym, jak gdyby autor na siłę rozwlekał to, co ma do zaprezentowania, by materiału wystarczyło na trzy książki. A szkoda — zarówno opowieść, jak i konstrukcja świata czy bohaterów mają w sobie potencjał, ale kuleje ich niedoszlifowana realizacja. Edelman pozostawia czytelnika swego debiutanckiego utworu z uczuciem zawodu i niedosytu — odbiorca przeczytał książkę, ale tak naprawdę niczego się z niej nie dowiedział i musi cierpliwie czekać na kontynuację, mając nadzieję, że ta do czegoś konkretnego wreszcie doprowadzi.
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Zarówno tę recenzję, jak i wiele innych tekstów znajdziecie na moim blogu: http://oceansoul.waw.pl/ Serdecznie zapraszam!
Zaczyna się całkiem obiecująco, najmocniejszymi punktami, jakie oferuje czytelnikom proza Edelmana. Oto świat dość odległej przyszłości, w której króluje bio/logika, nauka z pogranicza genetyki i informatyki, de facto rządząca życiem większości społeczeństwa. Każdy mieszkaniec Ziemi bądź jej kolonii jest w mniejszym lub większym stopniu zmodyfikowany dzięki całej gamie dostępnego oprogramowania, a zajmujące się tworzeniem kolejnych algorytmów feudokorporacje walczą o coraz to nowych klientów i wyższą pozycję w prestiżowym rankingu Primo.
Uniwersum kreowane przez Edelmana jest bogate, dysponuje obszerną historią i szeregiem technologicznych wynalazków. Łączy w sobie cechy dystopii i cyberpunka, a poruszana przez autora problematyka zahacza nieśmiało o kwestię człowieczeństwa zagubioną w zalewie technicznych nowinek. Intryguje także główny bohater, Natch, jeden z mistrzów coraz bardziej znaczącego feudokorpu. To dość antypatyczna postać, nieco socjopatyczna, z determinacją dążąca do wyznaczonego celu, która otaczających ją ludzi często traktuje instrumentalnie. Autorowi udało się wprowadzić do charakterystyki Natcha dwuznaczności, uzasadnić część z jego zachowań, dzięki czemu czytelnik zaczyna kibicować temu antybohaterowi. W tym momencie pojawia się jednak niewprawnie prowadzona, jednowątkowa fabuła — rozrzedzona ponad miarę i dość nijaka.
Nie da się więc ukryć, że autor zaprezentował interesujące pomysły jeśli chodzi o świat przedstawiony i postać protagonisty, ale nie do końca udało mu się je wykorzystać. Rozpoczyna mocnym wprowadzeniem, wraz z kolejnymi rozdziałami akcja jednak rozmywa się, miast przyspieszać. Co gorsza, David Louis Edelman nie zalicza się w poczet wirtuozów pióra. Jego styl jest bardzo prosty, wręcz łopatologiczny, przez co powieść czyta się szybko, ale przywodzi to na myśl pośpieszne łykane zmielonej papki. Do tego dochodzi niezbyt staranna korekta polskiego wydania.
„Infoszok” to tak naprawdę książka-wstęp. Tom nie tworzy zamkniętej całości, jest jedynie preludium trylogii, i to preludium przegadanym, jak gdyby autor na siłę rozwlekał to, co ma do zaprezentowania, by materiału wystarczyło na trzy książki. A szkoda — zarówno opowieść, jak i konstrukcja świata czy bohaterów mają w sobie potencjał, ale kuleje ich niedoszlifowana realizacja. Edelman pozostawia czytelnika swego debiutanckiego utworu z uczuciem zawodu i niedosytu — odbiorca przeczytał książkę, ale tak naprawdę niczego się z niej nie dowiedział i musi cierpliwie czekać na kontynuację, mając nadzieję, że ta do czegoś konkretnego wreszcie doprowadzi.
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Zarówno tę recenzję, jak i wiele innych tekstów znajdziecie na moim blogu: http://oceansoul.waw.pl/ Serdecznie zapraszam!
March 19, 2023
Far future libertarian programming business thriller where the worldbuilding is unique enough to make up for the fairly weak prose. Reminiscent of Terra Ignota when it's at its best. Drops quickly to pretty boring when most of the characters have almost nothing to do when wannabe superman Natch is offscreen.
January 11, 2011
I read this book a couple of years ago (I think I got it roughly after the paperback dropped) and have been intending to read the other two books in the Jump 225 trilogy since then, but I never got around to it. There have always been other books on my stack.
Then, a few weeks ago, I finished Stephen Baxter's Time (or is it Manifold: Time? I'm honestly not too clear l on it) which reminded me a lot of Infoquake. So I wanted to read the rest of that series. But first, I needed to re-familiarize myself with the events of the first novel. Hence, this re-read.
And a re-read is an interesting place to jump off from reviewing this book. Infoquake is set in a far future with some interesting technologies that have completely shaped the world. In my first read, I spent the first third of the book trying to figure out what everyone was talking about (the author helpfully includes a glossary at the back of the book, but I didn't find it until I was finished with it). That wasn't a problem this time around. I knew who the characters were. I knew what they were doing. And I mostly remembered how they were going to get there.
So this review doesn't come from a place of slow understanding like it would have if I'd written it the first time I wrote it. This time, I think I have a bit more appreciation for the plot and characters.
The author is a computer programmer. And the story revolves around an entrepreneur/programmer and the fantastical programs he and his compatriots build. As a programmer myself, that's a pretty fascinating hook. An exploration of how computer programs might shape the future written by someone who might know what he's talking about? Sold.
I think it delivers on that promise. "Hack the body, and the mind will follow." is printed on the front cover. So what happens when we've hacked the body completely as in the world of Infoquake? The author concludes that we'll be still eat and sleep make love: we'll just do it better. I can't disagree.
Story-wise, I guess you could describe this as a "techno-thriller". Or, as the author puts it on his website, "Dune meets the Wall Street Journal". It's apt. It's a fun story with lots of twists and turns which you can probably see coming, but still provide an entertaining journey.
The computer-y ideas driving the plot are more interesting than the plot itself, though. And the story-telling is rough in some places. But I think that's the sort of thing that the author will grow into as he puts more books under his belt.
As it is, though, I have no real complaints.
Then, a few weeks ago, I finished Stephen Baxter's Time (or is it Manifold: Time? I'm honestly not too clear l on it) which reminded me a lot of Infoquake. So I wanted to read the rest of that series. But first, I needed to re-familiarize myself with the events of the first novel. Hence, this re-read.
And a re-read is an interesting place to jump off from reviewing this book. Infoquake is set in a far future with some interesting technologies that have completely shaped the world. In my first read, I spent the first third of the book trying to figure out what everyone was talking about (the author helpfully includes a glossary at the back of the book, but I didn't find it until I was finished with it). That wasn't a problem this time around. I knew who the characters were. I knew what they were doing. And I mostly remembered how they were going to get there.
So this review doesn't come from a place of slow understanding like it would have if I'd written it the first time I wrote it. This time, I think I have a bit more appreciation for the plot and characters.
The author is a computer programmer. And the story revolves around an entrepreneur/programmer and the fantastical programs he and his compatriots build. As a programmer myself, that's a pretty fascinating hook. An exploration of how computer programs might shape the future written by someone who might know what he's talking about? Sold.
I think it delivers on that promise. "Hack the body, and the mind will follow." is printed on the front cover. So what happens when we've hacked the body completely as in the world of Infoquake? The author concludes that we'll be still eat and sleep make love: we'll just do it better. I can't disagree.
Story-wise, I guess you could describe this as a "techno-thriller". Or, as the author puts it on his website, "Dune meets the Wall Street Journal". It's apt. It's a fun story with lots of twists and turns which you can probably see coming, but still provide an entertaining journey.
The computer-y ideas driving the plot are more interesting than the plot itself, though. And the story-telling is rough in some places. But I think that's the sort of thing that the author will grow into as he puts more books under his belt.
As it is, though, I have no real complaints.
November 29, 2008
I just finished Infoquake and am trying to decide how I feel about it. On the one hand, it has a very unique worldview, which is what got me interested in the first place. The book is set in a futuristic world where programmers work on code for tiny, ability-enhancing machines inside the human body. The book is filled with a ton of other ideas which were often PKD-like in their presentation - mentioned with limited explanation, very interesting in their own right, yet relegated to lesser importance while still creating a rich backdrop for the story. That's all well and good.
On the other hand, the writing doesn't quite do all these ideas justice. The main character is described like this: "That casually athletic physique, the boyish face that would never know gray, those eyes predictably blue as sapphires..." Ugh. How would a face know (or never know) gray, anyway? While not always this bad, the writing is spotty enough to be distracting. The characters are kinda bland and not very likable. The pacing is off, too; some things are sped through while other moments are belabored. Some things are really built up only to fall very flat. I also didn't like the language randomly scattered throughout the book.
Overall, I feel a bit let down by Infoquake. It's too long, with several of the events and descriptions being repetitive and unnecessary. Because it's the first book in a trilogy, there's no real pay-off at the end. While I was into the story enough to want to know the conclusion, I'm not sure I liked it enough to spend time plowing through two more books just to see how it ends up. As an intro to a larger series, the book fails for me. On its own, it was an interesting yet ultimately disappointing read.
On the other hand, the writing doesn't quite do all these ideas justice. The main character is described like this: "That casually athletic physique, the boyish face that would never know gray, those eyes predictably blue as sapphires..." Ugh. How would a face know (or never know) gray, anyway? While not always this bad, the writing is spotty enough to be distracting. The characters are kinda bland and not very likable. The pacing is off, too; some things are sped through while other moments are belabored. Some things are really built up only to fall very flat. I also didn't like the language randomly scattered throughout the book.
Overall, I feel a bit let down by Infoquake. It's too long, with several of the events and descriptions being repetitive and unnecessary. Because it's the first book in a trilogy, there's no real pay-off at the end. While I was into the story enough to want to know the conclusion, I'm not sure I liked it enough to spend time plowing through two more books just to see how it ends up. As an intro to a larger series, the book fails for me. On its own, it was an interesting yet ultimately disappointing read.
August 17, 2013
I'm a big fan of cyberpunk as a genre and as a general concept; some of my favourite books, video games and media in general have been set in cyberpunk worlds, often dystopian. Typically, they revolve around cyber-warfare, oppression and incredible technology.
The world of Infoquake is interesting in that it while it definitely includes the latter of those three, it isn't dystopian. Well it is, slightly, but the distinction is that the novel isn't based on that at all. It's more a general thing that you're sort of aware of while reading, but it isn't the focus of the narrative, nor does it need to be.
Instead of the battle between good and evil, like a lot of cyberpunk fiction Infoquake is firmly rooted in the many shades of grey in between. It follows Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp, fiefcorps being a future amalgamation of research, development and marketing of technological devices which exist within the human body thanks to billions of tiny nanomachines. NPPF quickly gets involved in an enormous, mysterious project, drama ensues.
Infoquake is incredibly well written, with a unique and well-realised world. The characters have just enough characterisation to make you care about them, but not enough that the characters become the main focus of the story. The main focus of the story is always the technology involved, and the world itself.
It was very interesting to read a cyberpunk novel from the point of view of business, something that I'm not aware has ever really been done before. I'm not sure why, the cutthroat world of business seems to go hand-in-hand with the grimness of cyberpunk.
Very good, 4/5, highly recommend.
The world of Infoquake is interesting in that it while it definitely includes the latter of those three, it isn't dystopian. Well it is, slightly, but the distinction is that the novel isn't based on that at all. It's more a general thing that you're sort of aware of while reading, but it isn't the focus of the narrative, nor does it need to be.
Instead of the battle between good and evil, like a lot of cyberpunk fiction Infoquake is firmly rooted in the many shades of grey in between. It follows Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp, fiefcorps being a future amalgamation of research, development and marketing of technological devices which exist within the human body thanks to billions of tiny nanomachines. NPPF quickly gets involved in an enormous, mysterious project, drama ensues.
Infoquake is incredibly well written, with a unique and well-realised world. The characters have just enough characterisation to make you care about them, but not enough that the characters become the main focus of the story. The main focus of the story is always the technology involved, and the world itself.
It was very interesting to read a cyberpunk novel from the point of view of business, something that I'm not aware has ever really been done before. I'm not sure why, the cutthroat world of business seems to go hand-in-hand with the grimness of cyberpunk.
Very good, 4/5, highly recommend.
October 22, 2016
If you are looking for a true to the genre SciFi novel "Infoquake" definitely delivers. David Louis Edelman creates a future universe that is incredibly interesting. Lots of promise on all the fronts. He even delivers history regarding the advancements of Humankind. Biologics is terrible interesting and just how everyone deals with their issues. The characters are rich and interesting. Natch from infancy to being a Fief-Corps Master is a great read. It gives you a great foundation for the future of the series.
I guess you have to mention Multi-Real which is a great way for the series to continue. So much promise. Lets hope it delivers.
This one recommended for SciFi lovers. Don't expect easy answers
I guess you have to mention Multi-Real which is a great way for the series to continue. So much promise. Lets hope it delivers.
This one recommended for SciFi lovers. Don't expect easy answers
July 31, 2010
Movie money is creating a dark place in the science fiction publishing world. While this cash allows writers to quit their day jobs and write full time, it has also inspired a terrible rash of “cinematic” science fiction that isn’t really science fiction at all. Pyr Books has emerged as the antidote to this sickness, and the latest example of this is David Louis Edelman’s INFOQUAKE.
INFOQUAKE is a triumph of speculation. Edelman has foreseen a nanotech future of warring corporations and stock markets of personal enhancement in which both the good and the bad of the present day is reflected with an even hand and startling clarity.
More: http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/sci-f...
INFOQUAKE is a triumph of speculation. Edelman has foreseen a nanotech future of warring corporations and stock markets of personal enhancement in which both the good and the bad of the present day is reflected with an even hand and startling clarity.
More: http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/sci-f...
May 19, 2010
It's ok. I was ready to have my mind f'd by the MultiReal, but that's been put off for the next book. The ending of the book is 2 dudes chatting in a room. It's kind of a 'business thriller'. The highlight was looking up a word in the glossary, and discovering a cool feature of the world.
worldbuilding: 9
plot: 3
characters: 7
penalties:
introspection: -5
flashback: -5
January 29, 2020
Sci-fi at it's best!
I enjoyed reading the interesting new sci-fi concepts in this book! The story telling sound these technologies is also very compelling. Can't wait to complete the remaining books in the series. Hoping they are as good!
I enjoyed reading the interesting new sci-fi concepts in this book! The story telling sound these technologies is also very compelling. Can't wait to complete the remaining books in the series. Hoping they are as good!
Read
July 18, 2008I can't give this book a rating, since I didn't finish it. I had no interest in the characters.
July 4, 2015
Bardzo mi się podoba ten początek trylogii. Tylko dlaczego Fabryka Słów nie raczyła jej skończyć???
Read
December 21, 2022What could high-tech business look like in the future? If Infoquake is anything to go by quite cutthroat. Dominated by bio/logics, a way of programming the body, the world that David Louis Edelman has created is packed full of technology and commentary on consumer society.
I must admit I was wary of Infoquake whilst reading the opening chapters. Who wants to read a book based on making a better way of seeing in the dark? But Edelman knocks it up a gear when we get to explore the past of Natch, a master of bio/logics and person loathed across the Data Sea.
And that is where I was hooked. Edelman creates a team of characters that you want to succeed. Not that Natch is the most likeable character but somehow I wanted him to climb up the business ladder because of Jara, Horvil and Merri.
The technology is fantastic as well as believable, at least in context. You can project yourself anywhere whilst your physical body stays put. Millions of people can gather in the same place at the same time. And most impressive of all you can control your body by programming it.
Infoquake shows how a good sci-fi story can, and should, be. It shows the effect of technology on humanity and focuses on the humanity rather than the technology.
It’s not perfect. Natch isn’t an easy character to sympathise with on occasion but I think that makes him more interesting as you get to see his evolution. Some of the choices of scenes aren’t what I would have chosen. Especially the lack of tension at the end.There aren’t any aliens, any guns, explosions, space ships; just business and technology that’s going to affect millions.
And that makes it very refreshing. The drama is within the characters themselves. I’m looking forward to seeing how Eldelman expands his ideas in the next book of the Jump 225 Trilogy.
I must admit I was wary of Infoquake whilst reading the opening chapters. Who wants to read a book based on making a better way of seeing in the dark? But Edelman knocks it up a gear when we get to explore the past of Natch, a master of bio/logics and person loathed across the Data Sea.
And that is where I was hooked. Edelman creates a team of characters that you want to succeed. Not that Natch is the most likeable character but somehow I wanted him to climb up the business ladder because of Jara, Horvil and Merri.
The technology is fantastic as well as believable, at least in context. You can project yourself anywhere whilst your physical body stays put. Millions of people can gather in the same place at the same time. And most impressive of all you can control your body by programming it.
Infoquake shows how a good sci-fi story can, and should, be. It shows the effect of technology on humanity and focuses on the humanity rather than the technology.
It’s not perfect. Natch isn’t an easy character to sympathise with on occasion but I think that makes him more interesting as you get to see his evolution. Some of the choices of scenes aren’t what I would have chosen. Especially the lack of tension at the end.There aren’t any aliens, any guns, explosions, space ships; just business and technology that’s going to affect millions.
And that makes it very refreshing. The drama is within the characters themselves. I’m looking forward to seeing how Eldelman expands his ideas in the next book of the Jump 225 Trilogy.
September 26, 2010
Imagine, if you will, that your body was home to thousands of nanotechnological devices. These devices are the hardware platform for software that controls anything from your heartbeat to your eye colour—the miraculous field known as bio/logics. With the right programming, you can enhance your senses, expand your memory, or cripple your body.
What if Apple decided which bio/logics programs you could run in your body?
That's the question I couldn't get out of my mind as I read Infoquake. David Louis Edelman has taken the typical cyberpunk route, and his Earth of the future is a fractured map of semi-anarchy. Instead of nation-states with centralized governments, individuals subscribe to L-PRACGs, "Local Political Representative Association of Civic Groups." L-PRACGs vary across a spectrum of governmentalism/libertarianism. People may also belong to creeds, which are sort of the secular successor to religion: organized ethical belief systems. Unlike L-PRACGs, however, many creeds hold actual power. The days of government are gone, and creeds, corporations, and the "Defense and Wellness Council" are the new players.
Bio/logics is the centrepiece of Infoquake. It's a software industry, the workhorse of the economy, and for people like Natch, it's almost a way of life. Anyone with the right equipment can create bio/logics programs and sell them on the Data Sea. There are certain entities that play quality control: Dr. Plugenpatch sets standards that any respectable bio/logics program must meet; the Defense and Wellness Council will act against anything perceived as a serious threat. Nevertheless, "black code" is still out there, and people do get infected. This isn't just a computer virus or a malicious phone app: black code can stop your heart.
So there are some elements who want to see a stronger centralized authority for the administration of bio/logics programs (and there are some elements who want the industry even more de-regulated and de-centralized). This reminds me of a similar ideological battle happening in the software industry today. Apple is by no means the only company guilty of this, but it's certainly the poster-child: only Apple gets to decide what runs on the iPhone. Of course, there are alternatives to the iPhone. But what if there weren't? What if one company had the monopoly over what programs literally ran your bodily functions, controlled what you perceive and remember? That is a very scary scenario.
It's also not quite what Infoquake is about. The theme is present in the conflict between Creed Surina and the Defense and Wellness Council, but the MacGuffin of MultiReal is so much more. It's a new technology, and new technology always scares those invested in the status quo. But it's also a catalyst for discussions about the world Edelman has created.
Which makes it all the more troubling that the first hint of MultiReal, indeed of anything mentioned on the back cover, comes almost halfway into the book! After briefly introducing us to the main characters, Edelman devotes the majority of the first 250 pages to Natch's childhood and backstory. It's all very interesting—indeed, it ended up being the more interesting half of the book—but there is a lot more exposition in Infoquake than need be. And that doesn't include the myriad appendices of terms, timelines, and people. Infoquake has one too many infodumps.
What Edelman has done isn't so much worldbuilding as it is construction of a vocabulary of the future. Dr. Plugenpatch, L-PRACG, hives, creeds, geosynchrons, ConfidentialWhisper, connectible, ROD, OCHRES, Data Sea . . . the list goes on. All this terminology makes this future seem functional. Yes, at times, it is overwhelming, but more because of the concepts than the jargon itself. I never felt overloaded by the terminology—and the glossary is useful—but I did have trouble grokking multi-projections, the nature of the Data Sea, and even bio/logic programming itself. Optical code? I have trouble visualizing in general, so I'm not sure I could even program holographically!
It's possible that my predilection for programming predisposes me toward partiality for Infoquake. I'm not sure how a non-programmer would enjoy it, although I think there's definitely more to the book than just a new way of creating software. This is a brave new world with new rules and new mores. And to see that, you need look no further than Natch.
Nominally our protagonist, Natch is still somewhat of a cipher even after Edelman divulges his backstory. I am still not sure what makes him better than his opponents, except that the narration is biased in his favour. Natch is a shrewd businessman and is as ruthless as many of his competitors. He has no qualms about using dirty tricks to get what he wants. It's one such trick that brings him to the attention of Margaret Surina, who lures Natch and his fiefcorp into taking the reins of the MultiReal project. Even though he has no idea what it is, not even its name, prior to taking the job, Natch has a feeling that this is what he has been looking for his entire life, a purpose, a direction.
I never quite warmed to Natch, and I'm sure this is intentional on Edelman's part, because Natch is not a hero. He's not meant to be a hero. Infoquake isn't about the underdog struggling to free the masses from the thumb of the institution, although that conflict is definitely there. No, Natch is another character in a drama no less than the fate of human society itself. We as readers might not care about what direction Natch pursues, but he might influence the course of the entire human species—MultiReal is that important, and Edelman convinced me of that if nothing else. Natch's world is already so different from ours and posed to get much weirder, yet it's still dealing with the same ideological issues that plague us today.
So I'm conflicted about Infoquake. On one hand, it's a mess of exposition, backstory, and unresolved plot. None of the characters are particularly compelling. On the other hand, there were still times when I couldn't stop reading. The idea bio/logics and its crucial place in society is just so fascinating that it shines despite the book's other flaws. Sometimes one great idea is all you need. But it helps if you have a little more than that.
What if Apple decided which bio/logics programs you could run in your body?
That's the question I couldn't get out of my mind as I read Infoquake. David Louis Edelman has taken the typical cyberpunk route, and his Earth of the future is a fractured map of semi-anarchy. Instead of nation-states with centralized governments, individuals subscribe to L-PRACGs, "Local Political Representative Association of Civic Groups." L-PRACGs vary across a spectrum of governmentalism/libertarianism. People may also belong to creeds, which are sort of the secular successor to religion: organized ethical belief systems. Unlike L-PRACGs, however, many creeds hold actual power. The days of government are gone, and creeds, corporations, and the "Defense and Wellness Council" are the new players.
Bio/logics is the centrepiece of Infoquake. It's a software industry, the workhorse of the economy, and for people like Natch, it's almost a way of life. Anyone with the right equipment can create bio/logics programs and sell them on the Data Sea. There are certain entities that play quality control: Dr. Plugenpatch sets standards that any respectable bio/logics program must meet; the Defense and Wellness Council will act against anything perceived as a serious threat. Nevertheless, "black code" is still out there, and people do get infected. This isn't just a computer virus or a malicious phone app: black code can stop your heart.
So there are some elements who want to see a stronger centralized authority for the administration of bio/logics programs (and there are some elements who want the industry even more de-regulated and de-centralized). This reminds me of a similar ideological battle happening in the software industry today. Apple is by no means the only company guilty of this, but it's certainly the poster-child: only Apple gets to decide what runs on the iPhone. Of course, there are alternatives to the iPhone. But what if there weren't? What if one company had the monopoly over what programs literally ran your bodily functions, controlled what you perceive and remember? That is a very scary scenario.
It's also not quite what Infoquake is about. The theme is present in the conflict between Creed Surina and the Defense and Wellness Council, but the MacGuffin of MultiReal is so much more. It's a new technology, and new technology always scares those invested in the status quo. But it's also a catalyst for discussions about the world Edelman has created.
Which makes it all the more troubling that the first hint of MultiReal, indeed of anything mentioned on the back cover, comes almost halfway into the book! After briefly introducing us to the main characters, Edelman devotes the majority of the first 250 pages to Natch's childhood and backstory. It's all very interesting—indeed, it ended up being the more interesting half of the book—but there is a lot more exposition in Infoquake than need be. And that doesn't include the myriad appendices of terms, timelines, and people. Infoquake has one too many infodumps.
What Edelman has done isn't so much worldbuilding as it is construction of a vocabulary of the future. Dr. Plugenpatch, L-PRACG, hives, creeds, geosynchrons, ConfidentialWhisper, connectible, ROD, OCHRES, Data Sea . . . the list goes on. All this terminology makes this future seem functional. Yes, at times, it is overwhelming, but more because of the concepts than the jargon itself. I never felt overloaded by the terminology—and the glossary is useful—but I did have trouble grokking multi-projections, the nature of the Data Sea, and even bio/logic programming itself. Optical code? I have trouble visualizing in general, so I'm not sure I could even program holographically!
It's possible that my predilection for programming predisposes me toward partiality for Infoquake. I'm not sure how a non-programmer would enjoy it, although I think there's definitely more to the book than just a new way of creating software. This is a brave new world with new rules and new mores. And to see that, you need look no further than Natch.
Nominally our protagonist, Natch is still somewhat of a cipher even after Edelman divulges his backstory. I am still not sure what makes him better than his opponents, except that the narration is biased in his favour. Natch is a shrewd businessman and is as ruthless as many of his competitors. He has no qualms about using dirty tricks to get what he wants. It's one such trick that brings him to the attention of Margaret Surina, who lures Natch and his fiefcorp into taking the reins of the MultiReal project. Even though he has no idea what it is, not even its name, prior to taking the job, Natch has a feeling that this is what he has been looking for his entire life, a purpose, a direction.
I never quite warmed to Natch, and I'm sure this is intentional on Edelman's part, because Natch is not a hero. He's not meant to be a hero. Infoquake isn't about the underdog struggling to free the masses from the thumb of the institution, although that conflict is definitely there. No, Natch is another character in a drama no less than the fate of human society itself. We as readers might not care about what direction Natch pursues, but he might influence the course of the entire human species—MultiReal is that important, and Edelman convinced me of that if nothing else. Natch's world is already so different from ours and posed to get much weirder, yet it's still dealing with the same ideological issues that plague us today.
So I'm conflicted about Infoquake. On one hand, it's a mess of exposition, backstory, and unresolved plot. None of the characters are particularly compelling. On the other hand, there were still times when I couldn't stop reading. The idea bio/logics and its crucial place in society is just so fascinating that it shines despite the book's other flaws. Sometimes one great idea is all you need. But it helps if you have a little more than that.
August 16, 2017
Amazing book! I'm especially glad I ordered the next two books before finishing this one as its ending is absurdly abrupt and inconclusive beyond belief! Seriously, you better just get the next book!
Also, I noticed there was a lot of appendices in the back. I read the timeline and skimmed the glossary before reading the book but I kind of wish I had read the technology parts. I don't know why I didn't! I would definitely recommend doing so!
Although, I really didn't mind having to glean deeper understanding as the book progressed. He does a good job of casually explaining things and filling in background during the story without bogging down the pacing. Early on, there is an extended backstory of Natch and Horvil that was fascinating in its own right.
There was a lot more character study and psychology of characters than I expect from a book like this. I'm not sure it was necessary but that's probably just me...I read for technological exposition not to "get to know the characters". But I must say this Natch character was a strange one that I still don't feel I have any sort of handle on.
But the world-building is really where this book catches you. He did a great job with showing the reader the large historical framework, the political and economic framework on which this story, the pivotal change is being played out. I'm hoping the other books flesh out the gaps because I still don't understand what the everyday ordinary people DID with themselves all day to make money! There certainly was a tiered socio-economic class system with the "disses" at the bottom. That bottom was lightly touched on with Natches mother, but what constituted middle class?
I'm really looking forward to the next book! I like this world, for all its tensions!
Also, I noticed there was a lot of appendices in the back. I read the timeline and skimmed the glossary before reading the book but I kind of wish I had read the technology parts. I don't know why I didn't! I would definitely recommend doing so!
Although, I really didn't mind having to glean deeper understanding as the book progressed. He does a good job of casually explaining things and filling in background during the story without bogging down the pacing. Early on, there is an extended backstory of Natch and Horvil that was fascinating in its own right.
There was a lot more character study and psychology of characters than I expect from a book like this. I'm not sure it was necessary but that's probably just me...I read for technological exposition not to "get to know the characters". But I must say this Natch character was a strange one that I still don't feel I have any sort of handle on.
But the world-building is really where this book catches you. He did a great job with showing the reader the large historical framework, the political and economic framework on which this story, the pivotal change is being played out. I'm hoping the other books flesh out the gaps because I still don't understand what the everyday ordinary people DID with themselves all day to make money! There certainly was a tiered socio-economic class system with the "disses" at the bottom. That bottom was lightly touched on with Natches mother, but what constituted middle class?
I'm really looking forward to the next book! I like this world, for all its tensions!
March 19, 2020
Great premise but I ended up skimming half way through and barely finished it. Very VERY corporate which was the appeal at first, corporate sci fi, but it just fell flat. Characters needed work, the main guy Natch did not live up to the quoted genius CEO hype.
Token sidekick girl who’s still into him. An old rivalry that didn’t go anywhere after all the back story...
All the technology and systems were in place, there’s even like 5 appendix sections in the back about history and how the tech works.
I was initially impressed with the author’s background: built websites for the fbi and product marketing for bio companies, like whoa he’s gotta know some things...but alas I am here with a 2 star review. I was hoping there would be enough I liked to read the sequels but now I can’t imagine what they even entail as it was such a chore to finish this one.
Token sidekick girl who’s still into him. An old rivalry that didn’t go anywhere after all the back story...
All the technology and systems were in place, there’s even like 5 appendix sections in the back about history and how the tech works.
I was initially impressed with the author’s background: built websites for the fbi and product marketing for bio companies, like whoa he’s gotta know some things...but alas I am here with a 2 star review. I was hoping there would be enough I liked to read the sequels but now I can’t imagine what they even entail as it was such a chore to finish this one.
July 1, 2017
Such wasted potential in the writing, characters, and story. Reads like it was edited by letting kids smash the plotline out of a pinata. Characters were unrelatable and we never get to know any one of them. Random deus ex machina cut off plotlines just as things get interesting. What's with the careless sprinkling of Asian language and culture? Did anyone involved with this publication even try to find out what a bodhisattva is?
I would read short stories by Edelman, or another book with a better editor.
I would read short stories by Edelman, or another book with a better editor.
April 24, 2020
This is an impressive first novel by an author who has clearly picked up Robert Heinlein's knack for writing character-driven plots with plenty of hard science fiction. I would also credit him for his attention to detail. He obviously has written a detailed historical time-line, an economic, philosophical and political model, and combined that with some plausible forecasts of where technology will take us. It is not quite up to the world-creating detail of Frank Herbert's Dune, but it is a good start. I enjoyed it.
May 12, 2021
Enjoyable enough. There are a few things here that I didn’t understand, and rereading those sections didn’t make it any easier. Not going into detail as it would be spoilery. In a nutshell, the focus of this book is on the creation and marketing of programs that hack the various functions of the human body. These programs allow you to control every aspect of your health or even your mood. And yet there are still fat people. One would think that would be the first thing fixed. Anyway, a pretty solid book.
March 4, 2019
Not bad, not great. The focus on engineering and business is not an angle i see much in sci-fi. It's kind of the opposite of a cyberpunk story in that it's about the powerful corporations wielding power and executing strategies, instead of focusing on the have-nots surviving on the fringes of society. I tend to avoid serialized novels, but may give the sequel to Infoquake a chance. Hopefully Edelman builds on his core characters, who are pretty flimsy in this volume.
May 17, 2020
Myślę, ze książkę warto przeczytać. Moim zdaniem nie jest to super świetna zapierająca dech opowieść, ale pomysł na fabule fajny, fajnie wykreowany świat na którego temat możemy się wiele dowiedzieć podczas lektury.
May 28, 2017
I was a little put off by some of the too-Jar-Jar-Binksian names, but it gets better as you read it.
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