May
27
Infoquake
“Infoquake” by David Louis Edelman (2006) – 5/5 stars
Wow.
This book was considerably better than I was expecting. The short-form review is easy to put as “The way William Gibson should have learned to write”.
This is a fusion of cyberpunk and SciFi, focusing on a future that’s heavily involved with nanites and the internet. It’s cyberpunk because it uses madeup terms without explanation, focuses on minute details of technology, and has a highly tech-oriented focus… but it’s SciFi because it looks at larger issues like humanity, robots/AI, social relationships, etc. A good mix.
It follows a few characters from the inside perspective, and jumps around on the timeline a little bit… but it works well. After the initial shock and confusion of the first chapter or two, which Edelman obviously intends the reader to feel, the book is highly coherent and solid in a way I’ve learned to not expect from the cyberpunk genre.
The plot turns quickly on it’s head a few times in the book, but manages to do so without frustrating the reader. However, the overarching plot becomes visible about halfway through the book – only to not have a resolution.
Without ruining the ending, I’ll say this: don’t expect things to come to a close in the book. It’s as if he wrote the full book, and split it arbitrarily in half… it’s not clean like the separations of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series.
My only other criticism is that the name of the trilogy, “Jump 225″, is only briefly mentioned… and it has nothing to do with the trilogy. Maybe he’s being meta-cyberpunk here though.
All in all, an awesome read, and I’m preparing to start the sequel!
