I don't watch shows like Love Island and Big Brother because the contestants are necessarily vapid, stupid and fundamentally useless, but I leaped at I don't watch shows like Love Island and Big Brother because the contestants are necessarily vapid, stupid and fundamentally useless, but I leaped at the invitation to read this book (thanks, publisher and NetGalley) because it purportedly would treat those shows like Squid Games and Hunger Games, which I loved. But this book does nothing with that premise beyond challenges a la Squid Games and sponsor awards a la Hunger Games. In fact it makes Love Island look like Breaking Bad, what little commentary there is on the world being shallow, and the characters, in an age where books are deeply concerned about peoples' internal lives, don't seem to have internal lives at all besides what they think of themselves in the mirror.
Are we supposed to valorize people so colossally stupid that, for example, when dying of thirst, they discover there's ice in the trays they used for popsicles, but WAIT UNTIL IT MELTS to drink the water (what they call "melted ice") instead of simply EATING THE ICE? I mean, they do know how popsicles work; can they not fathom that ice works the same way despite lacking flavor and sweetness? Why not just hold the ice in their hands to make it melt? Really, all you need to know about the mimbos and bimbos in the compound is that none of them ever wants or regrets the lack of a book.
Or are we supposed to be laughing at the characters like Darwin Awards in waiting, especially the main character, who is even called vapid at one point? I don't think so either because the penalties in the game are hardly terrifying or dystopic. In fact, when you get voted out, you can keep all the stuff you won. And the contestants aren't reduced to the level of animal instincts and urges due to the show; they start there. At least the compound isn't likened to a concentration camp.
So what is the point, then?
I will say, the book is a very easy read--because it really provokes no thought, reflection or passion and kept me going because I figured something interesting had to happen, sort of like why people scroll through TikTok and Instagram. (Maybe this is what the author intended?)
Note: I really hate to dump on a book, but with a thousand-plus other reviews already on Goodreads and the book having been chosen as a morning show read, I feel I can have my honest say without dooming its prospects unfairly or biting the publisher hand that feeds. Also if readers are meant to feel like they're watching the show in the book, well, the show's reviewers complained too, it's said, so I guess it's fair to do so in a review of the book.
Two stars because I grudgingly finished it, skimming the last 30% just to see what happened....more
It would be too easy to say THE DREAM HOTEL is THE MINORITY REPORT meets ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. Instead, it is, in many ways, the new HANDMAID'S TALIt would be too easy to say THE DREAM HOTEL is THE MINORITY REPORT meets ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. Instead, it is, in many ways, the new HANDMAID'S TALE, trading callous christian dominion for callous algorithmic dominion. Laila Lalami's vision of the future is terrifying because it's entirely foreseeable given the surveillance tech being deployed and developed today as well as the politics enabling their use.
The main character, Sara Hussein's, neurolink, which records her dreams? See Elon Musk's Neuralink.
The algorithm that the Risk Assessment Administration uses to determine that Sara's dreams make her a threat to her husband? See Peter Thiel's Palantir.
These two alone, who have Trump's ear and know how to get billions of dollars in government contracts, could make Lalami's Risk Assessment Administration a reality.
Algorithms that know "what you're thinking of doing, before you even know it"? See TikTok and YouTube knowing what you want and feeding you more of it.
Algorithms whose "data doesn't lie" but "doesn't tell the truth either"? See ChatGPT and all the other hallucinating AIs, whose results are taken as "scientific fact" because they're, well, math, despite how biased training data obviously affects them.
Retention centers, in which people are imprisoned, but are not convicted? See Stephen Miller's plans for Trump's horrific pre-deportation Hispanic internment camps and Texas governor Greg Abbott's willingness to provide the land.
Private prisons profiting from these prisoners? See private prison stocks soaring after Trump was elected. Dream hotels are what their shareholders dream about.
Banal American authorities banally keeping their fellow citizens in prison? See EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM. Indeed, everything in the book echoes atrocious practices in the past, such as Bush's callous terrorist watchlists, as much it predicts the future.
Most horrifying of all is how Sara is really imprisoned by her own mind. She can't escape her dreams, which, it should be pointed out, mean nothing, despite the algorithm considering them sworn confessions. (See Musk likely creating a new terrorist watchlist based on an AI analyzing peoples' tweets--especially those written by people who ditched Twitter for the much better, more social, far less vicious BlueSky.)
My problems with the book were mostly quibbles. The book drags a bit here and there, especially in the middle, and I found the dream material too pat. The private prison industry would likely gouge the prisoners even more than they do in the book given what they do today; there would likely be no physical library; there would be more violence; and Sara's strategy for resisting, however smart and hopeful, would be battled more severely, again given what happens to prisoners today who do the same thing. That said, how Lalami depicts the prisons, which is pretty close to the truth, will shock readers, and why the parts dragged makes sense given how the whole world can drag when you're imprisoned.
Finally, the writing is compulsively readable, even if Sara's plight makes you have to walk around and decompress between chapters.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early look....more
What an engaging book that pairs well with THE BOOK-MAKERS by Adam Smyth. I was particularly inspired by the chapters on Gotham Book Mart, Oscar WildeWhat an engaging book that pairs well with THE BOOK-MAKERS by Adam Smyth. I was particularly inspired by the chapters on Gotham Book Mart, Oscar Wilde and Drum & Spear, so much so that while visiting the UK I had to go to and buy something from The People's Bookshop Durham (a collection of poetry by a local poet). The chapter on Parnassus made me wish I'd schlepped all the way out there when I was in Nashville. And the chapter on sidewalk sellers is a nice compliment to the documentary "BookWars."
The chapter on The Strand cleared up a mystery for me: when did it stop looking like a giant, book-filled Red Apple grocery store and more like McNally Jackson? Not that I'm complaining; I found a copy of Ira Levin's SLIVER there recently. And I'm glad the author delves into the (imho criminal) sale of galleys.
The chapter in the Aryan Bookstore was good, but shouldn't have compared it to people's bookstores. The author might have also compared its products to those of today's rightwing imprints, which B&N mainstreamed (to its shame) as much as it mainstreamed (to its credit) gay and Black books.
Indeed, I wanted more from the chapter on B&N--a store I owe my publishing career to (specifically the one at 82nd and Bway) because its selection taught me the industry--on how the beancounters killed their customer promise, especially after the 2008 financial crisis; on how their still crummy website hamstrung their ability to compete with Amazon; and more on why the Nook failed (yet the guy who ran the program got an $8M buyout; I should fail so well at something!) And while Daunt seems to be doing a good job reviving B&N (by turning it into a clone of Waterstones), questions remain. I did appreciate the deep history, though.
Similarly I liked the Amazon chapter, but it could have also been more critical, given how awful the shopping experience has become, but the author does point out that books don't really matter to Amazon anymore.
The only missing chapter is on Borders, whose death demonstrated so many bookshop challenges of our time.
Now to read PARNASSUS ON WHEELS by Christopher Morley and maybe set up a stand outside my own house to sell off my excess inventory. Next time in the city near Avenue A and St. Marks, I'll have to visit Jen Fisher's sidewalk shop to learn the ropes.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early look....more
As someone who's been in publishing for more than 30 years and as a bibliophile, I gravitate toward books on the history of the industry, and this oneAs someone who's been in publishing for more than 30 years and as a bibliophile, I gravitate toward books on the history of the industry, and this one is really good. It gave me the same shiver I felt when, at an antiquarian bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., I was encouraged to pick up and leaf through the first edition of Spencer's FAERIE QUEEN I'd been gawking at. The shopkeeper said I shouldn't worry about hurting the book, it was built to last, and was he ever right. They made a book well back then, and THE BOOK-MAKERS celebrates this craft by showing how that proceeded through nearly a dozen fascinating milestones. While Smyth's book is a bit overpacked at times, perhaps because there aren't that many facts to pack in so nothing was left to waste, and a bit dry here and there, I nonetheless ended the book wanting to buy a handpress and start churning out pages.
And there's much of current relevance. Former head of Macmillan Don Weisberg said during the DOJ's case against the PRH merger with S&S that a subscription book service, a Netflix for books, would destroy publishing. Setting aside that he seems to have forgotten about the existence of libraries--which is fitting because Macmillan largely ignores this market, despite it being the same size as the indies--I was fascinated by the history of the subscription libraries that preceded civic ones and how they not only didn't put publishers out of business, they bought a ton of books. I was also amused by the literary writer getting shut out of the biggest subscription service for a reason that echoes the Trump trial about election interference; the author's novel being too louche for their subscribers just as David Pecker said that a story on Stormy Daniels wouldn't work for the National Enquirer because it would upset shoppers at their biggest customer, Walmart.
What I appreciated most, though, was being inspired by the artistic approaches of these bookmakers. I recently went to a performance of several experimental plays at the Cut Edge Collective in NYC, which made me want to try my hand at writing some experimental plays too, and there was a lot in this book to prompt approaches and ideas, especially the Harmonies of LIttle Gidding. I found myself highlighting much more than I normally do.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the early look....more
I read this book because, well, I've read nearly all of Preston (and Child's) books since JENNIE, but I was specifically interested in this novel becaI read this book because, well, I've read nearly all of Preston (and Child's) books since JENNIE, but I was specifically interested in this novel because he wrote in his newsletter that, in reading the book REGENESIS, he found a great idea for it. So I read that book to see if I could figure it out. I was very wrong--in a good way.
This is a wildly exciting novel about a newlywed and newly pregnant couple, one of them daughter of a tech billionaire who go to a vast and remote park in Colorado where a team of scientists, funded by another billionaire, has used DNA to de-extinct wooly mammoths and other American megafauna. Let's say that their trip doesn't end well, which brings in an FBI agent working on her first case as agent in charge and a local sheriff to figure out what happened. Meanwhile a movie crew is shooting a film in a ghost town on the property. Let's also say they should've wrapped early. The investigation bumps along a bit as our heroes try to figure out what's going on, but pretty soon--and the author knows the reader is expecting this--everything in the park goes south very quickly and ends way more weirdly than I was expecting--and I loved the bonkers ending of CRIMSON SHORE.
Agent Cash isn't as well-developed as P&C's Corrie Swanson, but Swanson's had several books to develop. It'll be interesting to see what Preston does with her, a very different character too. The book's also wonderfully self-aware, making the obvious pop culture references (plus a fun one for fans). And I enjoyed the epilogue that talked about all the research behind the book, including Preston's case that what happens in the book, including the secret of what's really going on, really could come to pass in some fashion.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early look....more
We're a long way from "What's the Matter with Kansas," Toto. Schaller and Waldman do a fantastic job pulling together a huge a amount of information--We're a long way from "What's the Matter with Kansas," Toto. Schaller and Waldman do a fantastic job pulling together a huge a amount of information--some previously reported, much new--to show that the greatest threat to America is rural white Christians.
Despite the citizens of rural areas being treated as the only "real Americans," despite the government and society putting the thumb on the scale for them in every way since the founding, their parts of America haven't really been American culturally, economically and socially for more than a century. Rural areas are instead decaying, impoverished, drug-addled, violent, and dependent on government charity--everything the Rural White likes to project on "cities," that is, in his mind, Black ghettos--and full of workers like himself who aren't educated, who can't compete for what good jobs are left locally, and won't compete for the lousy jobs immigrants are willing to do because these are beneath him. In other words, rural areas are the Old Country, the place anyone with a brain, a will or a chance flees to find opportunity, become who they want to be, escape bigotry and oppression, and achieve the American Dream. And all this grinds the Rural White, who thinks he should be treated as a pillar of society, a proper Babbitt, because he's a rural, white and Christian (and certainly because he's male), when in fact he's just rubble in an antique land.
The trouble is, the electoral college and gerrymandering have given the Rural White tremendous power, power that's been cynically cultivated by the Republican Party in exchange for nothing that will improve his life except a way to vent his rage at being irrelevant. This is why he loves Trump. As the authors point out, Trump knows he's just a schnook from Queens who'll never be accepted by the swells in the city. Similarly, the Rural White is a schnook from the sticks and who, despite raging that the city looks down him, can't accept the fact that the city would rather not look at him at all. Thus, he is happy to follow Trump's lead in wanting to burn it all down if he can't be the only "real American" anymore. Remember: the Rural White is the same person who, when courts ordered his public pools to be integrated, closed the pools instead. He is a child who, if a game goes against him, takes the ball and leaves--and it's not even his ball.
I have just two complaints about the book.
One, the authors' solution to the problems of the Rural White, helping the Rural White, won't work because any help he gets he thinks of, in my opinion, as his due. Of course help should flow to him. It always has. It's what America does, help him. It's why he pays what taxes he's grudgingly willing to pay. What he hates is help flowing to non-rural non-white people too, as the authors point out when citing DYING OF WHITENESS. This is why direct Democratic appeals and actual programs don't change his mind. It remains to be seen, for instance, whether Biden walking with striking auto workers will actually help him even with those auto workers, let alone other unionized workers or lower class workers in general. They expect that. They are happy to take the help (just as Republicans happily take credit for Democratic programs they voted against), but, of course, getting any help only reminds the Rural White of his desperation, reminds him that he's a minority in every way now, and, because no REAL American needs or takes help from the government, that makes him bite the hand that feeds, especially if it's a Democratic hand.
The better solution is to abolish the Electoral College (or outwit it through popular vote compacts), redraw district lines so they aren't gerrymandered (as just happened in Wisconsin) and, thus, strip the Rural White of his undeserved, unearned power. Let his one vote count the same as the vote of everyone else.
Two, the authors go right up to the line of saying what's happened to our country, but don't actually do so (much like their subtitle naming the rage, not the rageful, as the threat), so let me:
American is now an apartheid state run by the Rural White. Despite his being a minority, we are subject to his small-mindedness, his lawlessness, his obsolete and anti-democratic attitudes, his grievances, his need for revenge, his violence and bigotry, his perverted and cruel version of Christianity--that is, as I see it, his collapsing narcissism, another thing he has in common with Trump. Fortunately, his is also a rapidly shrinking minority, in part because his "values" are repellent to a majority of actual Americans, especially anyone under 35; in part because his approach to the world furthers the destruction of his own world like an arsonist in a house of straw, and in part because he's largely elderly and eschews pandemic precautions and what medical care is left to him. It's possible his own nature as well as Nature itself will solve the problem of the Rural White before he destroys the rest of the country.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early look....more
I'm' not going to say I'm a Preston superfan, but I have read [counts up titles on Wikipedia] jesus, 30 of his books, starting with JENNIE, so, OK, faI'm' not going to say I'm a Preston superfan, but I have read [counts up titles on Wikipedia] jesus, 30 of his books, starting with JENNIE, so, OK, fan I am, and thus was I favorably disposed to like this book going in. And it turns out I"d read most the pieces before, but, wow, was it a blast reading them again, and I did because they are so good. The highlights for me are "The Monster of Florence," which makes me want to read the book again (it's arguably Preston's best, and the Dateline special on it left me haunted); "The Skiers at Dead Mountain," which is just an amazing detective story; "The Mystery of Oak Island," which gave birth to one of his best novels (the secret to the construction of the pit in the book is genius); and "The Mystery of Hell Creek," which is the most mind-blowing piece I've ever read in the "New Yorker" (indeed, I hope Preston writes a whole book about it). "The Clovis Point Con" and "Cannibals of the Canyon" are also good and complement each other well. And I really appreciated the updates. In the one for "The Skeletons at the Lake," Preston writes, "As a journalist, I've always believed it is essential to visit key localities in the story, to carry the reader along and make the writing as vivid and true as possible." This is best born out in the title piece "The Lost Tomb." You can taste the mummy dust so thoroughly you might get tomb cough.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early look....more
This book is a good complement to Al Silverman's wonderful "The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers, Their Editors aThis book is a good complement to Al Silverman's wonderful "The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers, Their Editors and Authors," showing how the conglomerization of publishing, especially in the 1970s and '80s, has affected what is published--and not published. That is, when some publishers stopped being cultural charities run by wealthy dilettantes mostly interested in collecting great authors the way others collected art, and started to be more business-minded, the literary books that only sold a few thousand copies despite being "sophisticated" and "cosmopolitan," to use Sinykin's loaded terms, were pushed out or their authors turned to "genre strategies" to make them more commercial.
And I have to say, I don't see what's so wrong with that. I certainly don't see what's wrong with a "literary" author making a book entertaining. To me, it smacks of snobbery. As Steve Martin's character in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" would have told Susan Sontag, "Next time you tell a story, have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener."
Before I go on, my bona fides: I've been a book editor for more than 30 years, starting when p&ls had to be run by the VP because only she had a copy of Lotus, and conglomeriztion has both enabled my career (by clearing out more senior editors so I could get their books) and hindered it (I've been laid off 3 times and narrowly escaped a fourth following mergers). I got started at Avon in 1993, and I had to come to understand their mass market sensibilities because I came there straight from getting a Masters in English; that said, the best book I read during my time in grad school was "The Hunt for Red October," so this wasn't a big leap. It was there that I passed on the paperback rights to "Fight Club" because I loved my job and couldn't appreciate it (then came lay off #1....) In addition, I've always seen myself as a businessperson who publishers, not an editor who has to pretend to do business sometimes, so maybe I've drunk the conglomeration Kool-Aid. As a result, this book's argument speaks directly to me, and while I've never worked at Random and the events of the book came largely just before my time in publishing, I know this world intimately
I don't disagree with many of Sinykin's conclusions, especially in how other, smaller publishers who could bear a 4,000-copy first print run have picked up the literary slack. I certainly agree that publishing used to be way more fun; I got to Avon when it was still OK to drink and smoke in your office, but you could no longer snort coke or have sex on your desk. And I totally agree that the expectations of corporate overlords who want 8-10% growth out of a 3-4% business, as if books were financial instruments, have made doing any book harder; when Harper bought Avon, for instance, they sent over a new p&l that was pretty much the same as ours except it had a $20,000 charge against every book regardless of financial expectations, a ridiculous vig that made publishing all but leads impossible (or financially irresponsible). I agree (or at least I think Sinykin would agree with me) that who got published should not be determined by who had the pedigree to get invited to have drinks at Jason Epstein's apartment, and it's still the case that the more a publisher pays for a book, the more attention it gets in-house. I don't, however, entirely buy that "Ragtime," "Beloved" and other books are about publishing itself and not, say, about conglomerization in general, a feature in all business at the time; it's why Gulf & Western owned S&S; but whatever. I totally disagree with his view on why Patrick O'Brien finally become successful: it wasn't because he's a literary writer (he's not, imho), but because a marketer/publicist like Esther Margolis worked to get him a great, prominent review that resurrected his books--just as "Moby Dick" was rescued from history 70 years after pub.
What I really had a problem with, is that his view of publishing is constrained by his research, however extensive.
For instance, why didn't he talk to any editors directly? Many of the people profiled are still alive. Every single one of them as well as all those who came after them would tell Sinykin the same thing: Big books pay for little books. For instance, why could Little, Brown take a chance on lit? James Patterson. Why could Knopf? Crichton and Anne Rice. Why could FSG? Scott Turow and Tom Wolfe. Why could Norton? Their huge educational division, plus Michael Lewis. Just as Graywolf and Coffee House and Milkweed depend on charity, just as publishers in the first part of the century relied on the deep pockets of their owners and their banks (Silverman notes that the founder of Viking sold out because he was sick of waking up every morning owing the banks $7-8 million), publishers depend on their cash cows, especially those that backlist (which pays for everything: salary, overhead, etc.). And this makes sense. Granted I came out of mass market publishing in which each monthly list was like a mutual fund. The sturdy investments pay for the fliers you hope hit and the authors you want to build into sturdy investments.
Sinykin also mentions lots of great writers that got pubd, as if to argue that they wouldn't have been pubd today, but he doesn't balance that by showing all the ones whose books failed and cost their publishers money as well as the opportunity cost of publishing someone whose book might have worked. You learn nothing from winners. In losses are the lessons. And how much did the publishers have to pay for all this prestige? Were most advances not earned out back then? There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but you can't prestige yourself into the poorhouse. (Well, you can, but it's not smart.)
And I think Sinykin confuses the book's argument by folding into literature titles by people non-white and non-male. The reasons they weren't getting published back then rhyme with those for why conglomerization made publishing lit more challenging at the big publisher level, but really it's a different issue. Or he could have included them by changing his argument to not being about how conglomeration changed lit, but about how it changed risk.
Nonetheless, the book's well-written, despite some repetition of facts, I enjoyed it, and it's a book I'll be recommending to my colleagues precisely because there's stuff to disagree with, which makes a book more fun.
Thanks to Net Galley and Columbia UP for the early look....more
This book, which has a great hook, was smooth and beautifully written, the prose often more affecting than the poetry. I really liked watching the intThis book, which has a great hook, was smooth and beautifully written, the prose often more affecting than the poetry. I really liked watching the interplay between the AI and the poet as they tried to develop their work together, although I would have been interested in some discussions on what works and doesn't work according to each of them as they edit each other (a good subject would have been the 2 of some 200K that Charlotte wrote which she liked). This would have helped Charlotte develop a specific point of view and aesthetic rather than all points of view and aesthetics. I liked the interlude chapters on Marian's life, even if I wanted them more integrated into the final work, thinking that is where the plot and subplot, as it were would meet, her life set against Charlotte's non-life. That said, the last page of the interlude about Ratty's last days, was worth the price of admission.
And in general the book showed how a human writer and an AI can work together to create something neither could alone, which I think is the future of much writing.
[Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an early look.]...more
A great read for those who enjoyed, as I did, CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM and SURVIVAL OF THE RICHEST.
The book makes a strong case that Zuckerberg, Thiel, A great read for those who enjoyed, as I did, CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM and SURVIVAL OF THE RICHEST.
The book makes a strong case that Zuckerberg, Thiel, Musk and the oft-forgotten fourth of horseman of the technocratic apocalypse Andreesen would condemn all Americans to live as human debit cards making micropayments in their virtual realities, both an actual one, the Metaverse, and a virtual one, ironically, that of real life itself as they've reconfigured it..
The book can feel a bit thin and repetitive at points, and it misses some opportunities, such as Andreeson being pressed on a podcast to describe exactly what the Metaverse is and being unable to really do so. (My take: It's an amusement park with no rides, food or fun, where you can talk briefly with strangers, most underage, about the lack of rides, food and fun.) I also wanted to know more about how they would compel people to join the Metaverse, such as whether FB will give VR goggles to certain schools the way Google gave out Chromebooks and Microsoft gives poor countries Office in order to create lock-in.
It's very strong, though, in showing how all four, especially the arguably neofascist Thiel, would turn America into an autocracy run by Trump if it would make them a dime--and they are counting on making way more than that. That said, it also shows that they are all profoundly incompetent despite their wealth. Zuck can't stop the slow MySpacing of FB as a result of it becoming an echo chamber of bigotry and rightwing revanchism. Musk is blowing up Twitter in a way that will take down Tesla too while his rockets have a terrible habit of simply blowing up. Thiel's Palantir couldn't find an apple on an apple tree. And Andreesen seems to excel at throwing good money at bad ideas, then throwing more good money at them. Their only real skill at this point it seems is sucking money out of the U.S. military for their hare-brained schemes, such as creating a colony Mars instead of fixing the dying Earth.
That this book is so up-to-date is remarkable when so much is changing so fast. For instance, today the wonderful newsletter Patent Drop reported that Facebook "is seeking to patent a method for tracking user engagement with content in an artificial reality space. This tech monitors user movement through a virtual reality environment, then displays additional media throughout the space depending on where you are. Along with placing ads where you move your avatar, this system also tracks engagement with those ads, checking metrics like 'minutes of experience,' interaction with the content such as shares or likes, body movement and face gestures during the experience. If you interact with an ad for a certain amount of time, have a certain reaction, or even just move past it slowly enough, this system will pick up on those nuances and feed you similar ads. It’s just like how targeted ads work on its main social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, except more intense." In other words, exactly what Taplin is predicting....more
This book was a blast: Well-written and informative with a clever conceit: What if we applied Moneyball principles on the field to the business puttinThis book was a blast: Well-written and informative with a clever conceit: What if we applied Moneyball principles on the field to the business putting people on the field. I especially appreciated the difficult dilemma of optimizing for wins vs creating a fun night at the park as well as the reason you didn't want to treat fans like customers (because customers don't come back after a poor experience, but fans do). These discussions made me think of how half the problems companies have is with optimizing offices, running lean and being just on time: they've cut costs to so deeply to maximize profit, they made their companies as unattractive to work at, unable to stay the course, and doomed by any schock to the system. Hopefully someone can figure out how to measure fun and put it in a spreadsheet. (And all hail the pitch clock!)
Thanks, NetGalley, for the early look so I can tell many friends before it comes out.
What a fun book. Smooth writing. Had me guessing all along the way, and the world Harkaway created is wild. The Titans and their science and its cultuWhat a fun book. Smooth writing. Had me guessing all along the way, and the world Harkaway created is wild. The Titans and their science and its cultural effects are very well thought out. Exactly what I wanted when I read the description. William Gibson had been as good as this in a way. And having recently read The Big Sleep, any comparisons of Cal to Marlowe are justified.
If I had any complaint, it's that the mean banter gets a bit too much. Yes, I get it, Cal and no one else in this world are people persons, but after awhile the banter gets old because it's not usually not doing double duty by expressing some subtext.
Still, the book makes me want to check out Harkaway's backlist.
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