lancegliser's review
1.0
I couldn't get past the telling, and retelling of the same story. I understand some people may enjoy it, but it killed it for me.
spiderfly's review
3.0
Well written, thought provoking, all around interesting, and a bit too disturbing for my taste.
sticksnstout's review
5.0
The world he has created is fantastic and it goes to show that advances in technology gives people new ways to be evil to each other.
tarabyt3's review
4.0
This is a complex novel with a large cast of characters, each with their own agenda. Set in our near-ish future, the story focuses on the man-made floating city of Atopia, what seems to be the land of milk and honey. But all is not as it seems and there's a definite dark side. An exploration of post-humanism that will touch and terrify. It was difficult to put down, but interesting enough that I often had to, so I could process. At times it was tough to follow with all the point-of-view switching going on, but ultimately I enjoyed the ability to see from so many angles, and marveled at how he kept the details a mystery even with all the jumping around. A really nice read.
scriptrix's review
2.0
Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to give up and DNF this. I got all the way through part 4 and started on part 5, but I'm finding myself skimming too much, and I have zero emotional investment in the characters. This could simply be because I don't feel I can relate to any of them; they all read as slightly tweaked versions of the same world-weary, self-destructive template, which isn't really a brainspace I like to inhabit. The worldbuilding is interesting, but without characters to give me stakes I care about, I'm unable to convince my brain to fully participate in it. :(
kennesaw59's review
1.0
I had high hopes for Atopia and was eager to listen to the story. I knew right from the start that the book was not going to keep my interest. I thought (based on the descriptions) that this was going to be a hard science fiction story. The first 100 pages showed this was at best a very soft science fiction, the kind where the author introduces a new technology without any explanation or background. This is not always a fatal flaw, if the author then moves the story forward with strict rules about the limits and functionality of the new technologies. In Atopia we have a lazy author that never tries to understand the technology they are writing about. Mather uses the technology as a magic wand that behaves differently depending on the immediate needs of the story.
Sometimes when the story is lacking the science, it can make up for it with powerful characters that draw the reader into the world. Again Mather fails in a big way, there are many characters and I did not like any of them. I had no desire to see what would happen to any of the one dimensional characters.
So I did not enjoy this book at all and would not recommend it to anyone. I can only hope there will not be any more of them, but I fear there will be an entire horrible series.
Sometimes when the story is lacking the science, it can make up for it with powerful characters that draw the reader into the world. Again Mather fails in a big way, there are many characters and I did not like any of them. I had no desire to see what would happen to any of the one dimensional characters.
So I did not enjoy this book at all and would not recommend it to anyone. I can only hope there will not be any more of them, but I fear there will be an entire horrible series.
useriv's review
4.0
There are many good ideas in this book, and their consequences are explored. This is an ambitious undertaking, something not commonly seen. The line between reality and virtual is blurred and then crossed, artificial minds take over real bodies, virtual goods are offered as a solution for enviromental problems, etc.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
It was a bit disappointing that it all led to the creation of a cliched supervillain. Although the ideas were good, the execution left something to be desired. There was much repetition of the same part of the story, from a different point of view, sure, but adding nothing. Lyric descriptions tended to get in the way of the story too.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
It was a bit disappointing that it all led to the creation of a cliched supervillain. Although the ideas were good, the execution left something to be desired. There was much repetition of the same part of the story, from a different point of view, sure, but adding nothing. Lyric descriptions tended to get in the way of the story too.
peterseanesq's review
5.0
My Amazon review -
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1D2FI1KRY9T9Z/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1D2FI1KRY9T9Z/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
jmoses's review
4.0
This was a really good read. It started kind of disjointed, but slowly all the threads come together. It even feels appropriate.
The characters were well written with their own personalities and quirks, and never feel flat, which is a nice change from the "budget" scifi I've been reading lately.
The characters were well written with their own personalities and quirks, and never feel flat, which is a nice change from the "budget" scifi I've been reading lately.
anesh's review
4.0
I was a bit reticent at first, when I started it, but the world that Mather created was enough to pull me all the way into the story. It's quite freshly finished so my mind is still swerving in Atopia, trying to wrap itself around it, but hopefully by the end of this review or whatever this is I'm going to make it clear. SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!
The novel is actually parted down into 6 sections because it was originally written as independent stories, but I think that it makes so much more sense put together like it is because the action in the first 5 stories takes places concurrently and then all the characters in these stories come together in the sixth to wrap up everything that had been going on. The Epilogue only ties in the knots that needed it, giving way to a sequel that I for one am excited and curious to read.
The characters live on an artificial island called Atopia, a sort of technological experiment to find a solution to the already in effect problems caused by overpopulation, decreases of natural resources and the wars that consumerism created. On top of that, Atopia seems to be confronted by something called the Weather Wars (in the back of the stories loom these super storms that threaten Atopia's destruction and the people monitoring them and trying to prevent destruction think they are somehow man controlled by the people of another island called the Terra Nova who are opposed to the programs that Atopians wish to release into the world) and this is something that bugs me because I waited till the end to find and explanation for them and only received half of it, which totally took me by surprise. Maybe I should have seen it coming, given that one of the characters is on the run to save his life and it was pretty clear that the whole thing was orchestrated from behind the curtains, but I sure as hell didn't. This probably doesn't make sense here.
The solution that the Atopian lead research team have come up with is based on these two programs called pssi and Infinixx. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to give an accurate explanation for them but here I go. Pssi is supposed to help you enhance the power of your brain and help you access infinite possibilities like seeing all the probable futures and their chance of happening, or sharing consciousness. But with the help of Infinixx one can do so much more because it helps you create not only a digital world so real that you need little else in the real one, but also it can give you access to more of yourself. So say that you need to be in two or more places at the same time; pssi helps you distribute your consciousness, while Infinixx helps create your physical avatars. And these programs are inserted into your body through smarticles, these super smart nanoparticles that attach themselves to your brain and basically recreate your twin from memories and your particular neural connections; and this other self basically helps you navigate these programs as well as your real life. It's more like having a best friend that later turns into your personal assistant for life. Did I mention that these alter egos can survive you? Yeah, it's like having your consciousness downloaded into a program because they are so much like you, but they have their own personality; well it's a lot more complicated than my simple mind paints it here but oh the possibilities.
So the reason for these programs is to put and end to consumerism and help protect the few resources we have in order to help mankind survive. The possibilities are endless with these new apps, but while the intentions for them were good ones, it is clear from the start that these programs and their applications are not fully understood and a lot of people can profit off of them with bad and unpredictable repercussions. One of the lead scientists of these apps talks a lot about giving humanity all that it wants in a seemingly innocent way but what will happen to society when people are supposedly saturated with happiness?
These are just some of the main themes dealt with in these stories. They're not new but I loved to see them reconstructed here. While the problems confronted are quite menacingly real, the solutions, I think, are purely hypothetical. And still, there is something terrifyingly curious about exploring these futures.
The novel is actually parted down into 6 sections because it was originally written as independent stories, but I think that it makes so much more sense put together like it is because the action in the first 5 stories takes places concurrently and then all the characters in these stories come together in the sixth to wrap up everything that had been going on. The Epilogue only ties in the knots that needed it, giving way to a sequel that I for one am excited and curious to read.
The characters live on an artificial island called Atopia, a sort of technological experiment to find a solution to the already in effect problems caused by overpopulation, decreases of natural resources and the wars that consumerism created. On top of that, Atopia seems to be confronted by something called the Weather Wars (in the back of the stories loom these super storms that threaten Atopia's destruction and the people monitoring them and trying to prevent destruction think they are somehow man controlled by the people of another island called the Terra Nova who are opposed to the programs that Atopians wish to release into the world) and this is something that bugs me because I waited till the end to find and explanation for them and only received half of it, which totally took me by surprise. Maybe I should have seen it coming, given that one of the characters is on the run to save his life and it was pretty clear that the whole thing was orchestrated from behind the curtains, but I sure as hell didn't. This probably doesn't make sense here.
The solution that the Atopian lead research team have come up with is based on these two programs called pssi and Infinixx. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to give an accurate explanation for them but here I go. Pssi is supposed to help you enhance the power of your brain and help you access infinite possibilities like seeing all the probable futures and their chance of happening, or sharing consciousness. But with the help of Infinixx one can do so much more because it helps you create not only a digital world so real that you need little else in the real one, but also it can give you access to more of yourself. So say that you need to be in two or more places at the same time; pssi helps you distribute your consciousness, while Infinixx helps create your physical avatars. And these programs are inserted into your body through smarticles, these super smart nanoparticles that attach themselves to your brain and basically recreate your twin from memories and your particular neural connections; and this other self basically helps you navigate these programs as well as your real life. It's more like having a best friend that later turns into your personal assistant for life. Did I mention that these alter egos can survive you? Yeah, it's like having your consciousness downloaded into a program because they are so much like you, but they have their own personality; well it's a lot more complicated than my simple mind paints it here but oh the possibilities.
So the reason for these programs is to put and end to consumerism and help protect the few resources we have in order to help mankind survive. The possibilities are endless with these new apps, but while the intentions for them were good ones, it is clear from the start that these programs and their applications are not fully understood and a lot of people can profit off of them with bad and unpredictable repercussions. One of the lead scientists of these apps talks a lot about giving humanity all that it wants in a seemingly innocent way but what will happen to society when people are supposedly saturated with happiness?
These are just some of the main themes dealt with in these stories. They're not new but I loved to see them reconstructed here. While the problems confronted are quite menacingly real, the solutions, I think, are purely hypothetical. And still, there is something terrifyingly curious about exploring these futures.