Looking Glass by using James R Strickland . A Book overview
Synopsis
Looking Glass is about within the no longer too remote long run, in a gritty, unrefined, shattered North America. Hackers and PTFE Powder IT defense technicians combat a different reasonably war in our on-line world. A serial killer has discovered a means to exploit the community to reach within his victims brains, and use those brains as his weapon. Shroud is a security community %%!%%58011ddf-third-4a44-bf42-bb387e220ae3%%!%% leader for a immense retail brand. In the realm of our on-line world, inside a sensory deprivation tank and jacked in to the community, she is immediate, nimble, and ruthless. She is just birth her shift whilst the killer moves for the 1st time. She survives, however her accomplished %%!%%58011ddf-1/3-4a44-bf42-bb387e220ae3%%!%% is lifeless or lacking. She is exiled from her corporate tools, and her lookup the killer is fraught with peril and overwhelming odds.
Review
As a fan and reader of the cyberpunk genre, I strongly endorse Looking Glass. I won’t go right into a plot synopsis, as others already have. The writing sort is tight, and centered via the window of Shroud’s perception and life reports, and her shift into an progressively more uncomfortable and threatening quandary, each mentally and bodily. It is that this revelation of her inside lifestyles, with its defensive obstacles and tough motivations that assists in keeping the main target on the human, regardless of the seeming technological recognition of the plot.
The dystopic atmosphere of the splintered second world North America is discovered as is required by means of the narrative. The generation is speculative, but an awful lot greater soundly grounded in modern-day technology that provide a feel of competence to the characters moves, and delight to the reader familiar with the issues.
In the cease, to me, Science Fiction is a human tale. It asks what will we do, what is going to we changed into, when technology has converted our society, our horizons, our our bodies and challanged the bounds of what's imaginable. Looking Glass does this, with a fantastic contact for private rigidity, evolving man or woman know-how, and human weak spot.
The plot is nicely thought-out, and the pacing is speedy with out being frenetic. There’s little, if any, plot telegraphing or foreshadowing. The environment is long run, but the reference elements are tantalizingly on the subject of our reward – once more, satisfactory to shop me invested (Shame about Reno, regardless that). And at the same time “cyberpunk” applies in overall genre terms, the author isn’t attempting to be William Gibson or an individual else, that is a refreshing amendment! But if you prefer that trend, you then’ll completely desire to present this guide a check out. One day, one of these hackers seems to be a serial killer, and makes use of the assertion that other people are jacked in to the Internet to make use of the Internet as a manner to kill. Her corporation, Omni-Mart, in common shortsighted company hide-up type, will get in the approach of her research, even as the killer pursues her each pass in a global it's so wholly related to the Net that circulation with out commentary is almost about very unlikely.
Dr. Farro, or “Shroud” as she is known, is one of the maximum dynamic characters in fiction. She wrestles with inner demons as well as the muck this is the Internet of tomorrow. She doesn’t inevitably contend with these demons really well. In a activity that calls for a guaranteed degree of paranoid schizophrenia to practice smartly, she is good at her work.
However, whilst the reader gets inner her head, we wee that this just right employee of the long run is far from a really perfect man or women, a metaphor, I imagine, for the futureshock and details overload that we adventure every day. Strickland presentations us that each one the brilliant technology that makes our civilization work so effectively would possibly not be useful for our psychological health. It’s a efficient message, but there's no moralizing that receives inside the approach of a truly enjoyable mystery.
All in all, it used to be a remarkable examine, and I’ll be back for a better instalment.