- Hardcover: 464 pages
- Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (24 Sep 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0765311283
- ISBN-13: 978-0765311283
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 4.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,582,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Flash
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Product Description
Review
Praise for "Flash"
"Another political yarn set in the future world of Modesitt's superior "Archform: Beauty "(2002). Modesitt's abundant novelistic virtues -- great characters and plotting, impressive attention to detail -- aside: this is smart, aware, provocative, and engrossing on several political, economic, and professional levels."-"Kirkus" (Starred Review)
"Nonstop action, which . . . never sidelines good world-building and characterization. . . . A marvelous thriller that plausibly extrapolates from current possibilities in IT, AI, media, and crime, it also constitutes the way for newcomers to get acquainted with Modesitt-at his best."--"Booklist"
"Modesitt returns to the future world of" Archform: Beauty" for a stand-alone tale that resonates with current ethical dilemmas. DeVrai, with his troubled past, is far more than your average one note SF hero, and his interior landscape is nearly as complicated as his adventures. There are plenty of plot twists to satisfy the most critical mystery fan, and more than enough nifty futuristic technology for hardcore SF readers. This novel doesn't fall into the trap of making futuristic Earth denizens less than human or creating complicated technology just for show....Corporate conspiracies, rigged elections and the ubiquity of advertising are just a few of the issues Modesitt takes on, and he deftly handles the complicated plot threads."
-"Romantic Times"
--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
"Another political yarn set in the future world of Modesitt's superior "Archform: Beauty "(2002). Modesitt's abundant novelistic virtues -- great characters and plotting, impressive attention to detail -- aside: this is smart, aware, provocative, and engrossing on several political, economic, and professional levels."-"Kirkus" (Starred Review)
"Nonstop action, which . . . never sidelines good world-building and characterization. . . . A marvelous thriller that plausibly extrapolates from current possibilities in IT, AI, media, and crime, it also constitutes the way for newcomers to get acquainted with Modesitt-at his best."--"Booklist"
"Modesitt returns to the future world of" Archform: Beauty" for a stand-alone tale that resonates with current ethical dilemmas. DeVrai, with his troubled past, is far more than your average one note SF hero, and his interior landscape is nearly as complicated as his adventures. There are plenty of plot twists to satisfy the most critical mystery fan, and more than enough nifty futuristic technology for hardcore SF readers. This novel doesn't fall into the trap of making futuristic Earth denizens less than human or creating complicated technology just for show....Corporate conspiracies, rigged elections and the ubiquity of advertising are just a few of the issues Modesitt takes on, and he deftly handles the complicated plot threads."
-"Romantic Times"
--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
Product Description
Ten years ago, Jonat deVrai was a rising star in the Marines. But he shocked his superiors by walking away from the Corps after witnessing atrocity and hypocrisy. Starting his life over, he established himself as the world's expert on the effectiveness of "prod" - product placement, the only advertising which viewers will allow through the sophisticated filters they all use against unwanted intrusions on their electronic link networks. Prod, reinforced with sublims and the "res" - resonant frequencies, a form of sonic branding - is the wave of the future. DeVrai's comfortable world is upset when the Centre for Societal Research approaches him to study the effects of res and prod on political campaigns. After a res- heavy political rally for Laborite Republican Senatorial candidate Juan Carlismo, armed thugs jump deVrai in a parking garage. A day later, a sniper ambushes him. What looked like a safe, lucrative contract has suddenly turned dangerous. With his life on the line, deVrai must sort flash from fact before it's too late.
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First Sentence
Cracckk! "Down!" Down! At the sound of the ancient slug-thrower, I dropped flat onto the squashed soyl plants at the edge of the field. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Cracckk! "Down!" Down! At the sound of the ancient slug-thrower, I dropped flat onto the squashed soyl plants at the edge of the field. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is poorly structured and poorly written. Every single one of the characters is a flat cardboard cut-out, the world they inhabit isn't at all well-explained, and so the resulting story is mostly confusing and hard to follow.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
13 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Adult protagonist nice change, but worldbuilding a bit short
17 Sep 2004
Format:Hardcover
Flash is an interesting one-man-against-the-world story but ultimately falls short as the world doesn't quite support the plot. Still, an interesting read.
Jonat deVries is an ex-Marine colonel who resigned after running one too many missions for a government doing the bidding of heartless multinational corporations. He founds a consulting firm that specializes in analyzing the effectiveness of emotionally charged advertising, and then discovers the newest contract he has is a setup. The story basically revolves around his attempts to discover the why, what, and who of his enemies, the use of his spec ops training to destroy them, and how he falls in love.
The fact that deVries is a full adult protagonist is a nice switch from the typical Modesitt junior officer pilot, as well as the fact that he ends up having to deal with family issues - something none of Modesitt's heroes outside of the Spellsong series have ever faced. Modesitt is clearly trying to break out of his formulaic rut, and the plot as a result is better than his last few scifi ventures.
The problem - unusual for Modesitt - is that the world he builds up doesn't quite support the characters. Part of the problem is that the predecessor Archform: Beauty was an interesting exercise for Modesitt in writing 5 separate characters, but the world built up was not particularly well fleshed out given how much the plot shifted around. Flash isn't helped by this. We're still not really sure what happened to cause the ecological disaster that changed the world, how humanity recovered, or for that matter how the technology that deVries analyzes affects people. Modesitt usually gets away with ok plot writing by making a really interesting world; in this case, the plot is above average but the world isn't. Modesitt does a nice job as usual with ironic political observations; as in the Ghost series some of his most powerful observations come from the alternate world he creates.
Still, an interesting read and better than average...just not worthy of 5 stars.
Jonat deVries is an ex-Marine colonel who resigned after running one too many missions for a government doing the bidding of heartless multinational corporations. He founds a consulting firm that specializes in analyzing the effectiveness of emotionally charged advertising, and then discovers the newest contract he has is a setup. The story basically revolves around his attempts to discover the why, what, and who of his enemies, the use of his spec ops training to destroy them, and how he falls in love.
The fact that deVries is a full adult protagonist is a nice switch from the typical Modesitt junior officer pilot, as well as the fact that he ends up having to deal with family issues - something none of Modesitt's heroes outside of the Spellsong series have ever faced. Modesitt is clearly trying to break out of his formulaic rut, and the plot as a result is better than his last few scifi ventures.
The problem - unusual for Modesitt - is that the world he builds up doesn't quite support the characters. Part of the problem is that the predecessor Archform: Beauty was an interesting exercise for Modesitt in writing 5 separate characters, but the world built up was not particularly well fleshed out given how much the plot shifted around. Flash isn't helped by this. We're still not really sure what happened to cause the ecological disaster that changed the world, how humanity recovered, or for that matter how the technology that deVries analyzes affects people. Modesitt usually gets away with ok plot writing by making a really interesting world; in this case, the plot is above average but the world isn't. Modesitt does a nice job as usual with ironic political observations; as in the Ghost series some of his most powerful observations come from the alternate world he creates.
Still, an interesting read and better than average...just not worthy of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Reads like a diary
30 Sep 2005
Format:Hardcover
In this tome, Modesitt demonstrates a real talent for putting words down on the page without advancing the plot one whit. The story's OK, when it's moving, but in the meantime we get so much detail about the protagonist's workday at his consulting practice that we could easily write his invoices for him. Do we really need to know about every single time the character gets up to make a pot of tea, or what he had for lunch and what he thought about the quality of the food?
If Modesitt had cut out half the pages, this book would've been a solid 80's-style cyberpunk yarn. As it stands, perhaps he should've gone for stylistic novelty by presenting the novel as a LiveJournal circa 2100, since that's what the content basically amounts to.
If Modesitt had cut out half the pages, this book would've been a solid 80's-style cyberpunk yarn. As it stands, perhaps he should've gone for stylistic novelty by presenting the novel as a LiveJournal circa 2100, since that's what the content basically amounts to.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Did anyone read The Octagonal Raven?
9 Aug 2005
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I have yet to find a Modesitt book I didn't like. I read this technothriller in one sitting, and sucked it down like candy. Don't get me wrong, it was smart and superb - great characterization and plot.
But, did anyone read The Octagonal Raven? We've got a similar storyline and a similar protagonist.
Octagonal Raven features a former military space pilot, now a freelance media consultant, who becomes embroiled in corporate interests and politicians when his sister is assassinated. Flash stars a former Marine, now a freelance advertising consultant, who becomes embroiled in corporate interests and politicians when his sister is assassinated.
Flash does feature the new character types of an intelligent computer (but then again, so did "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress") and linked to the AI is an android that becomes independent and a romantic interest - quite cool.
The Octagonal Raven does feature a lot more (foiled) assassination attempts than Flash, and more flying cars :-)
Both espouse the philosophy of "Big Business Sucks and must be taken DOWN", with lots of internecine squabbling of corporate boards that is really fun to read...
So, buy it anyway - I own 'em both!
But, did anyone read The Octagonal Raven? We've got a similar storyline and a similar protagonist.
Octagonal Raven features a former military space pilot, now a freelance media consultant, who becomes embroiled in corporate interests and politicians when his sister is assassinated. Flash stars a former Marine, now a freelance advertising consultant, who becomes embroiled in corporate interests and politicians when his sister is assassinated.
Flash does feature the new character types of an intelligent computer (but then again, so did "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress") and linked to the AI is an android that becomes independent and a romantic interest - quite cool.
The Octagonal Raven does feature a lot more (foiled) assassination attempts than Flash, and more flying cars :-)
Both espouse the philosophy of "Big Business Sucks and must be taken DOWN", with lots of internecine squabbling of corporate boards that is really fun to read...
So, buy it anyway - I own 'em both!
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