A Novel of Silicon Valley
Hardcover, 576 pages |
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Jason Sheehan happens to be the restaurant critic at Philadelphia mag, however when no body is wanting, he spends their time books that are writing giant robots and ray firearms. Stories Through the Radiation Age is their book that is latest.
Simply your normal summer beach find out about emergent super-AI, nuclear annihilation, Silicon Valley and Amazon product critiques.
No, After All really. Rob Reid’s novel that is newest, After On, is a doorstopper: 547 pages which, during the very start, he dares your reader to complete — guaranteeing a present at the conclusion for anybody would you.
This can be clever. Annoying, smarmy and intrusive in a way that is completely childish but clever because his narrator (undependable in the extreme) is all those things, too. really Loves cheap jokes. And! Exclamation! Points! AND ALL SORTS OF CAPS. You will find long digressions on apparently unrelated matters, distracting and apparently useless Amazon product critiques peppered throughout the written text, and excerpts through the worst spy tale ever written ( both of that will be vital before we are done). And as the kind of guy who can get smirky about things like the extinction of the human race while I don’t know about Reid personally, he strikes me. Whom could sit through a TED talk on nuclear expansion and rogue, non-state actors and invest the entire time sketching rude things in the system records.
And that’s why the medium by which humanity’s (potential) doom arrives in After On is, needless to say, a social network system and “dating” app (air quotes quite definitely suggested). A method called Phlutter (stupid Silicon Valley okcupid sign up naming conventions being one of Reid’s running gags) which becomes sentient and attempts to just just take around the world. As a result of program it can. Is not that what every AI does?
. It is like a protracted philosophy seminar run by a dozen insane Cold War heads-of-station, three millenial COOs and that man you decided to go to university with whom constantly had the most useful weed but never ever did their washing.
But wait, it ain’t all quite therefore easy. Reid, as a squishy pink being that is human in place of a capital-A writer — was the guy who founded listen.com, which became Rhapsody, which influenced anything from Spotify to Apple musical. And the Prime is being followed by him Directive of authors here, that will be to create everything you understand. He understands Silicon Valley. He understands the cult of investment capital. He understands exactly exactly just how things work behind shut boardroom doorways.
Consequently, he starts with a failed Silicon Valley start-up called ly that is giftish being obtained because of the hot new thing, Phlutter (which, itself, rose through the ashes of a unsuccessful start-up supplying internet pet food distribution). Giftish.ly employs (and figures as a whole) three of Reid’s primary figures, genius engineer Kuba, genius programmer Danna and. Mitchell. Mitchell the supervisor. The voice that is sane. Mitchell whom is affected with a tremendously unusual degenerative illness, is (by his or her own admission) minimal smart person in just about any space he inhabits, but has a gift (possessed, apparently, by not many in their industry) for distilling knowledge and value through the nerd-prattle.
With giftish.ly, Kuba, Danna and Mitchell have actually almost unintentionally produced one thing extremely effective that the employer at Phlutter wishes. The a very important factor that will enable a tremendously collection that is smart of, data-collection tools along with other whiz-bang doo-dads to quickly attain some of those singularity events and start to become . alive? Sentient? a boy that is realor girl)?
We dunno. And neither does Reid, actually. He has got some viewpoints, yes, but in which the front third of the guide checks out just like a primer on the best way to get abundant with technology by simply being a {small smarter and|sma much more wicked than everybody else, plus the center third can be an evolving tech-thriller packed with bombs and corporate assassination and modern-day super-spy tradecraft, the closing 3rd? It is like a prolonged philosophy seminar run by a dozen insane Cold War heads-of-station, three millenial COOs and therefore guy you went along to university with whom constantly had the weed that is best but never ever did their washing.