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maxed's review against another edition
3.0
Funny in a way, but waaaaay too cliched. The antagonist is a walking cliche, and one very boring and lacking interesting motivation, and the combat episodes are more suited for a bad Hollywood movie about "cyberspace" than more-or-less serious sci-fi, which tries to raise some questions about progress and humanity. Still, some jokes in this book were good, and the ending, at least, is not as bland as the middle.
thestarman's review against another edition
2.0
VERDICT: ~2 stars for me, but readers who like uber-fantastical, comic-book level SciFi with little actual "science" may dig this book.
PLOT: Dead girl's digitized brain versus emerging A.I.
IN SHORT: 10% SciFi, 90% Fantasy. As ambitious as it is ridiculous. It's the kind of writing where terms like "nano" or "crypto" are thrown around willy-nilly, and fantastical battles take place in cyberspace realms. I think it was also supposed to be funny, but it wasn't my kind of humor.
AWARDS: Exponentially more weird/silly the longer you read.
CONSIDER THESE SIMILAR-ISH BOOKS (my rating/GR rating)
[b:The Holy Machine|6445765|The Holy Machine|Chris Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347663277l/6445765._SY75_.jpg|1104623] by Chris Beckett (3.7/3.57)
[b:Uncanny|34663065|Uncanny|Sarah Fine|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500656216l/34663065._SX50_.jpg|55829697] by Sarah Fine (4/3.96)
[b:The Unseen World|26530317|The Unseen World|Liz Moore|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1444265408l/26530317._SY75_.jpg|46521425] by Liz Moore (4.4/4.11)
[b:The Last Day|3024380|The Last Day|Glenn Kleier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391812835l/3024380._SX50_.jpg|91417500] by Glenn Kleier (4.0/4.07)
PLOT: Dead girl's digitized brain versus emerging A.I.
IN SHORT: 10% SciFi, 90% Fantasy. As ambitious as it is ridiculous. It's the kind of writing where terms like "nano" or "crypto" are thrown around willy-nilly, and fantastical battles take place in cyberspace realms. I think it was also supposed to be funny, but it wasn't my kind of humor.
AWARDS: Exponentially more weird/silly the longer you read.
CONSIDER THESE SIMILAR-ISH BOOKS (my rating/GR rating)
[b:The Holy Machine|6445765|The Holy Machine|Chris Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347663277l/6445765._SY75_.jpg|1104623] by Chris Beckett (3.7/3.57)
[b:Uncanny|34663065|Uncanny|Sarah Fine|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500656216l/34663065._SX50_.jpg|55829697] by Sarah Fine (4/3.96)
[b:The Unseen World|26530317|The Unseen World|Liz Moore|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1444265408l/26530317._SY75_.jpg|46521425] by Liz Moore (4.4/4.11)
[b:The Last Day|3024380|The Last Day|Glenn Kleier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391812835l/3024380._SX50_.jpg|91417500] by Glenn Kleier (4.0/4.07)
djotaku's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a great example of why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover...or title. I got it as part of a Storybundle deal and passed it over a few times. It just didn't quite feel like something I would enjoy. BOY WAS I WRONG! For me, this book was everything that [b:Ready Player One|9969571|Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)|Ernest Cline|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1500930947s/9969571.jpg|14863741] was not. In fact, I'd say that TIRoSG was more like Mel Brooks early parodies while RPO was more like the Scary Movie and its ilk type of parodies. RPO seemed content to say, "Look, a reference for late Gen X/Early Millenials!" While TIRoSG tells a great, mostly unique story while paying homage to that which came before it. Some of those are overt - the author calls out Pratchett early on. Others are more implicit like the writing style (similar to early Neal Stephenson) or later cyberpunk elements that recall Gibson while not (to my knowledge) aping it. (The last chapter also recalls stories by Asimov and Clarke) The language of the characters and the parodies of I haz cheezeburgers type things are minimal enough that I don't think it'll end up dating the book in the future.
So it had the write writing style and tone. It was also a great story of personal growth of the characters, including many of the side characters. Many of the tech changes that the world goes through seem even more likely today than they did when the book was first written. Like more and more fiction is starting to realize - we're slowly being automated out of jobs without the world of plenty envisioned by Star Trek. On my way back home from a trip (during which I was reading this book on the plane) I wanted to pre-order some Olive Garden takeout since we'd cleaned out the fridge before our trip. The phone call reminded me twice at least (maybe 3 times) that I could cut a human out of the loop by using the web to order. And stores are trying to get more aggressive about both self-checkout and RFID-based walkouts. Also, the eventual political story is SO much more plausible today that it's scary! Like I wanted to stop reading because I could see it happening for real.
There are only two things that kept it from 5 stars for me. The book is divided into parts 1 and 2, but I think it might have made more sense to divide it into more parts. Because I kept getting to what seemed like narrative dead ends, but knew I had a lot more book to go. But the following chapter would spring in a completely new direction. So just for a bit more cohesion. The other thing was the latter 1/4 (I didn't actually measure, but it seems to be about this much) of the book that involved a lot of cyber battles. Anderson was probably just paying homage to cyberpunk books and movies which, themselves, were paying homage to the metaphorical fights that Professor X would have on the thought planes with villains. (Or like Inception symbolizing the safe to contain secret information) But given the two entities that were battling, it seemed...like the metaphor wouldn't truly make sense given what they were doing to each other. Maybe I was just too tired, but I kept falling out of the story in the last few chapters because of it.
That said, I thought it was well-told with engaging characters. Also, the story works very well and the ending makes sense, even if it is slightly early Stephenson-esque. If you like the narrative style of Douglas Adams or early Stephenson and enjoy SF, you'll have a good time with this one.
So it had the write writing style and tone. It was also a great story of personal growth of the characters, including many of the side characters. Many of the tech changes that the world goes through seem even more likely today than they did when the book was first written. Like more and more fiction is starting to realize - we're slowly being automated out of jobs without the world of plenty envisioned by Star Trek. On my way back home from a trip (during which I was reading this book on the plane) I wanted to pre-order some Olive Garden takeout since we'd cleaned out the fridge before our trip. The phone call reminded me twice at least (maybe 3 times) that I could cut a human out of the loop by using the web to order. And stores are trying to get more aggressive about both self-checkout and RFID-based walkouts. Also, the eventual political story is SO much more plausible today that it's scary! Like I wanted to stop reading because I could see it happening for real.
There are only two things that kept it from 5 stars for me. The book is divided into parts 1 and 2, but I think it might have made more sense to divide it into more parts. Because I kept getting to what seemed like narrative dead ends, but knew I had a lot more book to go. But the following chapter would spring in a completely new direction. So just for a bit more cohesion. The other thing was the latter 1/4 (I didn't actually measure, but it seems to be about this much) of the book that involved a lot of cyber battles. Anderson was probably just paying homage to cyberpunk books and movies which, themselves, were paying homage to the metaphorical fights that Professor X would have on the thought planes with villains. (Or like Inception symbolizing the safe to contain secret information) But given the two entities that were battling, it seemed...like the metaphor wouldn't truly make sense given what they were doing to each other. Maybe I was just too tired, but I kept falling out of the story in the last few chapters because of it.
That said, I thought it was well-told with engaging characters. Also, the story works very well and the ending makes sense, even if it is slightly early Stephenson-esque. If you like the narrative style of Douglas Adams or early Stephenson and enjoy SF, you'll have a good time with this one.
fredurix's review against another edition
2.0
I wish I could say I loved this, because the concept is great: The life-story of the world's first uploaded conciousness, and the influence she has on the world. There's a solid core of excellent science fiction here.
The problem is mainly that that it's so overspiced with geeky pop-culture references it ends up dominating everything. Look, I enjoy seing references to things I like enjoy, and used well that can help making characters relatable. However, when overdone it reduces them to meme-machines, and this story falls dangerously close to that line. Another issue is the reliance on cool imagery, to a large extent rooted in World of Warcraft-inspired style. It's well done and evokative, but too often it's excessively descriptive, in a way that makes me wish this was a comic book/graphic novel or a movie. Told in a visual format, this could have been a joy to behold. As a work of written fiction it sadly gets a bit too tedious and long-winded and lacking in depth.
The problem is mainly that that it's so overspiced with geeky pop-culture references it ends up dominating everything. Look, I enjoy seing references to things I like enjoy, and used well that can help making characters relatable. However, when overdone it reduces them to meme-machines, and this story falls dangerously close to that line. Another issue is the reliance on cool imagery, to a large extent rooted in World of Warcraft-inspired style. It's well done and evokative, but too often it's excessively descriptive, in a way that makes me wish this was a comic book/graphic novel or a movie. Told in a visual format, this could have been a joy to behold. As a work of written fiction it sadly gets a bit too tedious and long-winded and lacking in depth.
ibri's review against another edition
4.0
Good read. Takes a bit to get exciting but the beginning is still interesting.
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