nueromancer a la carte

I'm not quite done with Nueromancer. I've got maybe another 50 pages to go, so I'm almost there. I contemplated just finishing before writing the blog, but then I kind of realized that the thing I wanted to write about was happening now, and not 50 pages from now.

Let me say that so far this book is the best of the three we've read. It's got technology that almost seems more fantastic than anything in the prior two mainly because it seems achievable, and it seems practical. Sure, flying kittens is a wonderful thing, and they probably look majestic under a rainbow, but compared to being able to “jack in” to the internet and see concrete representations for mostly abstract things sounds a whole lot more useful, and as I mentioned, a lot more likely. It's because it seems more likely that the technology seems more fantastic than Deepness specifically. For example: copying a person's consciousness into a computer simulation, and mechanical implants both sound like things being actively developed today. It also feels like McCleod borrowed extensively from this book for his cyberpunk espionage portion of Cosmonaut Keep.

The problem I have is that there have been a few parts of this book where I'll be reading, and reading every word (not every other paragraph or every other page as was the case in both the space opera books), and genuinely enjoying what I'm reading, then all of a sudden, I don't know what's happening. I flip backwards a few pages and reread what I've read, and sure enough, I just don't have any idea what's happening. I can't say if this is a flaw in me, or with the book, but I'm curious to see if anyone else experienced something similar. It's particularly frustrating because in a book like Deepness, I read maybe 70% of it, but I felt like (and our discussions confirmed it) like I understood 100% of what was happening, at least as far as recorded events are concerned. Here, I'm reading 100%, but sometimes I feel like I understand 40% of what's happening. As I said; frustrating.

The other two things that do stand out about this book, however, are much better characterizations than the space operas, and better writing overall (despite the lost feeling). The characters feel more believable and like autonomous individuals compared to the past two books where they mostly felt like hollow vehicles to move the mammoth plot along. And as I said the writing is much better. Much more descriptive. I feel like if I were a police sketch artist, I'd have enough information to draw up a convincing Armitage, and a convincing Molly and be able to find them off of the information I had, which is more than I can say for any character from the two prior books.

Along the writing thing: despite this being limited 3^rd person, sometimes I'd pick the book up and forget that it wasn't 1^st person. This writer has made me feel more in tune with Case's thoughts than did a 3^rd person omniscient Vernor Vinge, and he wasn't once done that doofy Hmmm thing that Vernor was so fond of. Or italicized thoughts in general.

so... that's what I got.