it's difficult grouping books together (and harder still to find snappy titles for the categories) - these are fiction with a technical angle.
[originally reviewed for slashdot, reformatted here]
the gulf war was the first geek war: an armada of high-tech computerised killing machines from the world's greatest military power, sent to destroy the towel-heads. action at a distance. remote control. technical superiority. overwhelming firepower. smart weapons. surgical precision carpet bombing. primetime tv. cnn. we have the technology...
this book is about technical alienation.
this angry book is about an alienated technician - a senso - trying to separate the real from the virtual. it explores the problems technology (and the unequal distribution of technology) has created. consider, for an example, the information content of today's media information.
if that sounds too intellectual don't worry: there's plenty of violence, drugs, drink, death, and laughs.
at the start of the book the "hero" has placed a woman in the opposite building under surveillance. as he watches her it's soon clear that he is obsessed less with sex than with technology, mortality, and his video camera. he uses hardware, particularly his handicam, as a shield to separate himself from reality.
on the aircraft carrier, heading to the gulf, his job is to listen for submarines. faced with a difficult situation - he loses the signal - he hacks a false detection. but as the war grows closer he begins to find himself in situations he is less able to control, or understand. situations where technology offers no protection.
by the final chapter he is terrified, his life depending on technology that he no longer trusts...
at times, this book is very funny.
the humour sharpens some serious criticism of war (the details describe the gulf war, but the conclusions are general), america (of which britain - i am british - is a small, unmentioned colony), technology, surveillance, simulation, and information.
the aardvark is ready for war also raises questions that aren't often addressed on slashdot. it suggests you step back from the excitement and ask - if only for a moment - what we are losing as we rush to embrace more technology.
aside from the vicious moral comedy, there are some fascinating technical details. is that really how they detect submarines? the author was in the us navy for nine years (it says here) so either it's true, or he knows his bullshit (and if this picture of navy life is accurate, then i guess it might be the latter).
there's not much to criticise: you could ask for better characterisation (some convincing female characters?); perhaps the laughs could be a bit thicker on the ground, especially near the start; more continuity in the plot, maybe. but there's only going to be one catch-22 this century, and it's already been written.
maybe here, near the end of my review, i should also point out that reading the book will place any offensive language - "towel heads" for example - in context.
an alternative to reading heller again. a history book for technophiles. a wake-up call for the digital generation?
(maybe i'm showing my age by assuming that everyone has read joseph heller's book catch-22. if not, well, now you know what i'm referring to above (and read it!)).
previous latest addition here.
the last science fiction book i read was gibson's neuromancer, some time in the '80s. the cover of snow crash says that it is the equivalent for the '90s. certainly the two are very similar - both are set in societies similar to today's, but with a stronger emphasis on technology, urban decay, and smatterings of japanese culture.
snow crash takes itself less seriously and probably isn't as well written (although neither book is, in my humble opinion, a masterpiece). neuromancer's big idea was neural computer interfaces, in snow crash the philosophy is more ambitious: ideas are viral (c.f. dawkin's memes) so language (and, apparently, conscious thought), being both a concept and a result of inherent mental structures, is susceptible to physical and conceptual viral attack.
the exploration of these ideas goes a lot wider. too wide. the book includes so many references that i was reminded of foucault's pendulum. unfortunately, stephenson can't match eco's intellectual muscle, so it's not even impressively boring.
and while i'm complaining i should also mention the lack of female secondary characters (the glass ceiling remains - every high status character is male), the occasional loss of storylines (or was i just skipping too much boring stuff?), wheels with expanding spokes that would suffer from varying angular velocity, a virtual world whose authors are unable to write teleport code, and a baddie who never bothers to finish the job, making the hero's life much easier.
so why is it an interesting book? because it's interesting to see what makes a popular geek novel:
so if you're an average (i.e. rich) american teenager hoping for a car next birthday, feel a bit lonely and socially confused, have a dad who keeps moaning about tax and foreign countries with anti-american trade policies (and his male boss), and you think computer gaming/internet is cool and admire programmers but haven't actually written much code, then this book should push all your buttons at once.
otherwise, it's fun to skim (at least the good guy wins and the cyborg doggies are a cute touch).
(i was honestly hoping for more. the author's essay on the command line, which you can pick up on the 'net, is impressive, witty and thought-provoking (at least, for the first half or more). maybe his next book will be better?)
now this is science fiction for software engineers. instead explaning 256 there's a comment that implies the software was written in a language with automatic garbage collection!
this is not great literature - i had no empathy for the characters - but it is full of careful thinking and clever ideas. unfortunately, it's difficult to discuss the book without revealing those ideas, so forgive me if this review is particularly stilted.
egan explores how intelligent autonomous software agents interact with their environment (the associated software and hardware). at the same time he raises (but has the good taste not to openly shout about) a wide range of other topics, including many world qm, creationism, language, immortality and personal identity. for example, if you could change yourself, would you still be you, and if you could copy yourself, is killing still murder?
to cover as wide a range of ideas as possible there is an unfortunate but necessary jolt near the middle of the book - it reminded me of a cartoon in which a scientist is writing on a blackboard: to the left one group of equations, to the right another group of equations, in the middle the words "a miracle occurs". but it is worth the cost - just when you wonder how much more can be said a major constraint is removed and a whole new set of ideas are revealed.
if you've read my other reviews you've probably noticed that i rarely mention science fiction. i gave up on the genre many years ago, and every time i try the latest "hot tip" i remember why. but this book is an exception - might even persuade me to read another by the same author...
if you're a programmer that doesn't normally read sci-fi, and you have half a day to kill (i read quickly - this is a pretty long book), read this.
[a big thanks to jonathan coupe for recommending this author.]
previous latest addition here