- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Tor; UK First Paperback Edition edition (13 Aug 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0333754379
- ISBN-13: 978-0333754375
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 662,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Silver Screen
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
This first novel by a young British author offers an enjoyably different, even subversive, slant on AIs and cyberspace. Insecure and overweight heroine Anjuli O'Connell is a flawed genius whose photographic memory makes her worry about how human she is. Almost her best friend, after all, is the quirky corporate AI named 901--successor to past versions of 900, the mysteriously disaster-prone 899, etc. A human friend dies to upload his mind into cyberspace, seeking that SF dream of bodiless immortality ... which doesn't work as expected. Another pal interfaces with terrifying biomechanoid weapons- suits that pull their wearer into mental symbiosis, a new "I" continuous with the old but different: "Where does life end and the machine begin?" Meanwhile 901's grasping multinational owners OptiNet, and the Machine-Greens who preach AI liberation, seem equally murderous. As 901's humanity or otherwise becomes a case for the Strasbourg Court, expert witness Anjuli is targeted by assassins and entangled in the hunt for a Hitchcockian McGuffin known as the Source, perhaps literally the secret of life. This requires a hair-raising solo commando assault, in that biomech suit, on a cult church's heavily fortified abbey bunker. Robson's plot zigzags in unexpected directions, especially with revelations about the Source; there's tragedy and trauma, but happy surprises too. An impressive SF debut. --David Langford
Product Description
When Ray Croft dies he leaves behind a mystery that can only be solved by Anjuli O'Connell who has the memory of a machine. It's a mystery whose solution brings into question what it really means to be human. And it will reveal who Ray really was. Will Anjuli go through with it?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ambitious and ... excellent.,
This review is from: Silver Screen (Paperback)
It's one of the wonders of the artistic process that a single piece of work can provoke so many wildly varying responses. I fall firmly on the positive side of the fence, and am happy to recommend this as an excellent first novel. One of the book's strengths is, as the blurb says, its subversive nature; it seeks to tell a tale, rather than fit a genre or lend itself to a particular section of a bookshop. To achieve this whilst dealing with thought-provoking issues is a real coup. There's no destiny, there are no heroes, just a group of people making the best of a world which is always two steps ahead of us in the evolutionary race, making the goal of enlightenment as impossible as it ever was. At the end of the story the world hasn't been saved, the world goes on, yet the transormations made by the main characters, and the insight we gain into their world, makes the read worthwhile and pleasurable. As Homer Simpson once put it, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened.Congratulations on a superb book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant ideas but plot very complex and characters shallow,
By A Customer
This review is from: Silver Screen (Paperback)
Having just finished Silver Screen a couple of days ago, I still have it circling through my mind, with all of its fascinating ideas and ingenious plots. There really is a lot in there to think about, and I'm very glad I read it - I'd recommend it to my friends.Reading through the online reviews though, I find I agree with some of the comments on character development, although I didn't notice so much at the time. The characters aren't developed very well - that's not to say they're predictable, they surprise you over and over, but in a realistic way - but you don't really develop emotional attachment. But although this is a shame, I don't think it badly damages the book, simply because it is not really a book about characters or romance, but about complex ideas and plotlines. And here comes my only other criticism - the plot IS complex. There's not just one complex manipulative web, there's at least two unrelated (those of Roy and Optinet), as well as extra complicating factors (the militant Machine Greens, and the manipulative Armour). Because of the cryptic way the plot is revealed, it can get really hard to keep straight in your head at times. At the end, when you think about any particular plot thread, you realise you sort of understand it at last, but you don't get a feeling of complete understanding (or at least IU didn't, maybe I'm just thick). You get the feeling that the author went through the list of "things they need to know", ticking them off as she went, but because there are no clear explanations of the overall picture by anybody, you can lose track a bit. All this means that, although I think it's a brilliant book, I wpouldn't recommend to the less enthusiastic readers amongst my friends, as if you read it slowly I think you'd just flounder in frustration. But still on the whole, I think that this is a brilliant book, an amazing debut, and I'm very glad I bought it. I would strongly disagree with the earlier 1-star comments - I think to rate it that low you really have to have missed the point (although that's worryingly easy). If you enjoy reading and like a challenge, particularly if you have never read a book about AIs and the like before, buy this book!
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Rather than Gripping,
By
This review is from: Silver Screen (Paperback)
I do like to read authors in chronological order & am prepared to put up with first novels being perhaps not as polished as these from seasoned authors. I guess I got just that with this purchase, the plot (which I won't reveal in any detail) did cover much the same ground as other recent novels that have brain/computer interfaces and AI at the heart of the story but there was a nice twist towards the end which I didn't spot (actually, I'd like to re-read the last chapter so see again how it happened...).
At the same time, there were many passages in the book that I simply didn't understand & had to skip over. I'm not talking about moments in novels set in the future when some presently unknown piece of technology is being referred to in passing without an explanation. I can cope with this & it's quite nice in a way, because if we were transported from the early C21 to some future time, there would be things that would puzzle us. No, there were simply mention of characters' responses or actions that didn't seem to fit into the sequence of action & which didn't make sense later on either. I suspect the book needed stricter editing, or even pruning, so I'm not entirely blaming the author. I do read good things about JR's other books so will probably move on to the next one before too long.
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