In this story (I'll not go into a very deep analysis of the book, the internet has a huge amount of people who've done this already.), we have what is categorized as a cyberpunk type story. The language of this story is indeed textured to achieve the feeling of cyberpunk. But the story goes beyond a simple trippy tale and explores the possibility of an information virus that can affect the human mind as well as computers. We get ancient Sumerian mythology and many interesting technology predictions.
One example of technological prediction is Google Earth. In the virtual office where Hiro Protagonist has received some free killer software, one of the programs is called Earth. And it's a mapping software of the Earth with hyperlinks, streetview; just about everything that Google Earth does is very much like the description given in the story. The novel was published in 1991, fully 14 years before the Google Earth beta.
I like the various descriptions the author uses that also make a sly comment on present society. Check this out:
Once she gets over the shock of it and settles into a routine, she starts looking around her, watching the other fish-cutting dames, and realizes that this is just like life must be for about 99 percent of the people in the world. You're in this place. There's other people all around you, but they don't understand you and you don't understand them, but people do a lot of pointless babbling anyway. In order to stay alive, you have to spend all day every day doing stupid meaningless work. And the only way out of it is to quit, cut loose, take a flyer, and go off into the wicked world, where you will be swallowed up and never heard from again.
1 comment:
I have read and listened to this book. An excellent read.
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