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I resisted reading this book for years because I’m not a fan of Microsoft, the company or the products, and I’d read enough about the book to know that it is about Microsoft employees… ugh.
But finally I’d heard enough positive reviews that I had to find out for myself, and now I know I’d made a mistake — this is a great story.
The characters are weird and arty, and best of all they all quit their jobs at Microsoft. The book ends up being more about geek culture and startup companies, and Coupland gets it more right than anyone else I can think of, save Po Bronson. The scenes in this book were not written by an outsider who doesn’t really grok hackers. It’s not so much that the microserfs characters are authentic… they’re actually more pure than most of the hackers I know. What Coupland gets right, what he really understands, is the ideal, even though most of the folks who comprise this subculture can only strive to be as weird (hackish) as Coupland’s cast of misfits.
If you like Legos, The Fan Man, The First $20 Million is Always The Hardest, or Linux, you should read this book.
Even if you’d sooner set fire to your hair than use any of the Windows family of products, you should read this book.
Patronize these links, man:
This is the best book I’ve read since Ender’s Game. The basic plot is the same, but the story is told from the perspective of a different character.
My initial reaction to this concept was negative; I felt that Card was simply milking his award-winning novel for another edition. But then I remembered how much I liked that novel. And then I read this and was drawn in immediately. Now I’m impatient to reread Ender’s Game to compare Bean’s perceptions to Ender’s, for all their shared scenes. Card so effectively puts us inside his characters’ heads that Shadow is wholly fascinating because it shares a plot with another book.
Do read Ender’s Game first; this book will make more sense that way.
Amazon.com has a nice summary of the book; see links below.
Patronize these links, man:
I’d forgotten what a great storyteller Michael Crichton is. I’m not particularly interested in French history, and yet I enjoyed this story, which tells of a band of scientists who are sent back in time. Much of the story takes place in France in 1400, so if you enjoy medieval history, you’ll like this. I was more interested in the modern-day aspect of the story, and the science it involves, but like many of Crichton’s books this kept me turning pages.
Amazon.com has a nice summary of the story in its “editorial reviews” section; see links below.
Patronize these links, man:
At a glance this book appears to be by Tom Clancy, but because I was unfamiliar with his Power Plays series, I didn’t realize that the book was actually written by someone else entirely.
No matter — this is a great read, replete with strong characters, mostly believable science and technology, and a page-turning plot.
The book’s antagonist has created a virus that can be triggered, or targeted, based on a variety of criteria; he releases the virus (which is harmless until triggered), and Preisler’s account of the infection is believable, and frightening. The story centers on the efforts of one victim’s staff to track down the source of the disease, to find a cure before the victim succumbs.
The end of the book contains a fairly unbelievable situation, which detracts a bit from the story: the contents of a CD-ROM are uploaded over a remote wireless connection within just a few seconds. No description is given of the hardware or bandwidth of this magical network connectivity, and no mention is made of any special effort to read or decrypt the CD-ROM contents. A soldier simply loads it, and a few seconds later a scientist a few thousand miles away has not only read but comprehended it.
Otherwise, I enjoyed this book. I think it would appeal to anyone who likes spy fiction or genetic-engineering/disease thrillers, e.g. Jurassic Park, The Rock (Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage), Outbreak (Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey), The Hot Zone, etc.
Patronize these links, man:
This is the 4th installment of the story begun in Ender’s Game. The characters are by now familiar, and this book ties up all of the plot lines opened in Xenocide. The ending satisfies. If you’ve already read the first three books of the series, you need to read this one to find out how it all ends.
Patronize these links, man:
