A review by wynnz
Edges by Linda Nagata
1.0
Ok, let me start off by agreeing wholeheartedly with the one percenters. Straight off the bat, I did not like this book, not one iota. It's going to be more of a rant than a review.
In fact, I would go as far as to say, read the blurb, don’t bother with the book. I gained more information from the blurb than I did from the book. Whomever wrote the blurb did a good job, if the author wrote the blurb, then she should have continued in that vein. Instead, I got pretentious, highbrow claptrap. I also want to emphasise my utter contempt for this book by swearing, but swearing they say is a lack of vocabulary. Unfortunately, this book had the mother-lode of vocabulary, after every sentence I had to virtually look it up in the dictionary, in fact it was like reading the dictionary.
Language and vocabulary are as grand as her ideas, if you have a degree, PhD or a doctorate in literature, philosophy and any of the other ologies, then this is the book for you. I didn’t even know whether the characters were human, there were avatars, ghosts, copies, copies of copies, sub minds, was it the Matrix in space? Transhumanism? Consciousness uploaded or downloaded, were they all digital consciousness, I haven’t got a clue. On top of that there were the philosopher cell, WTF are the philosopher cells, I thought it was a bunch of philosophers sitting around discussing the meaning of life, metaphysics, epistemology, and there’s me thinking it was 42. Apparently, it's the coating of the spaceship, see I did read it, mind you I wish I hadn’t, I wished I'd been poked in the eye with a sharp stick, more enjoyment, I think.
Imagine a bald fat man sitting in his underwear in front of the TV, scratching his arse, smelling his fingers afterward, eating pizza and drinking a beer. Now he sends his avatar down to the shops to do some shopping, he then sends a ghost to work, sends a copy to watch a movie in the theatre, and his sub mind is on a date. They all come back, and he’s got all their memories, or something like that.
The characters were bland, sterile, clinical, I couldn’t empathies nor sympathies with any of them, they had no pathos whatsoever, I couldn’t care if they all died, in huge explosion of nanomachines and biomaterial.
The premise sounded interesting, but the delivery was abysmal.
In fact, I would go as far as to say, read the blurb, don’t bother with the book. I gained more information from the blurb than I did from the book. Whomever wrote the blurb did a good job, if the author wrote the blurb, then she should have continued in that vein. Instead, I got pretentious, highbrow claptrap. I also want to emphasise my utter contempt for this book by swearing, but swearing they say is a lack of vocabulary. Unfortunately, this book had the mother-lode of vocabulary, after every sentence I had to virtually look it up in the dictionary, in fact it was like reading the dictionary.
Language and vocabulary are as grand as her ideas, if you have a degree, PhD or a doctorate in literature, philosophy and any of the other ologies, then this is the book for you. I didn’t even know whether the characters were human, there were avatars, ghosts, copies, copies of copies, sub minds, was it the Matrix in space? Transhumanism? Consciousness uploaded or downloaded, were they all digital consciousness, I haven’t got a clue. On top of that there were the philosopher cell, WTF are the philosopher cells, I thought it was a bunch of philosophers sitting around discussing the meaning of life, metaphysics, epistemology, and there’s me thinking it was 42. Apparently, it's the coating of the spaceship, see I did read it, mind you I wish I hadn’t, I wished I'd been poked in the eye with a sharp stick, more enjoyment, I think.
Imagine a bald fat man sitting in his underwear in front of the TV, scratching his arse, smelling his fingers afterward, eating pizza and drinking a beer. Now he sends his avatar down to the shops to do some shopping, he then sends a ghost to work, sends a copy to watch a movie in the theatre, and his sub mind is on a date. They all come back, and he’s got all their memories, or something like that.
The characters were bland, sterile, clinical, I couldn’t empathies nor sympathies with any of them, they had no pathos whatsoever, I couldn’t care if they all died, in huge explosion of nanomachines and biomaterial.
The premise sounded interesting, but the delivery was abysmal.