Book Review: Infoquake

I recently finished reading "Infoquake: Volume 1 of the Jump 225 Trilogy" by David Louis Edelman. Part two is called "MultiReal". Part three, "Geosynchron", hasn't come out yet.

This is the book for the most recent Politics & Prose Sci-fi and Fantasy Book Club. We met last Thursday night. Next month's book is Isaac Asimov's "Foundation". I can't recommend "Foundation" enough. It's in my top ten favorite books ever list.

I liked it (Infoquake). I probably wouldn't have picked it up on my own. I guess that's why you join a book club. I join to try to meet single girls. I can read my own books.

I found it interesting the way he introduced the central character.
The first section tells of a business venture being led by a man named Natch from the perspective of one of his closest employees. She doesn't think highly of him. He shifty, underhanded, crooked, and will do anything to get ahead or get revenge.
The second section tells Natch's life story beginning with his mother's life. As he grows up we learn exactly what led him to become such a scoundrel. At the end we think of him much the way we did at the end of the first section, but we like him.
The rest of the book deals with a major shift in his corporate dealings and what the next two books will be about.

The business he starts in... well, some time ago microscopic machines were introduced into the human body. At first they dealt with heart problems. As time went on others developed programs to allow the robots to do nearly anything but think for themselves. They can change your eye color on a whim, regulate your hair style, make your wife firmer and more supple and make your husband harder and provide him with endurance. They can keep you awake, put you to sleep, heal your wounds, or provide you with a poker face.

The business he's moving into is related. It's a new program called MultiReal. It's being handed to him by a major family since he knows better than they how to package and sell it to make sure the government, or closest thing to it, can't bury it. It makes a lot of claims and shows great promise. The next two books promise to be quite chaotic.

The group was pretty divided about the book. It seemed the division was along gender lines. Women didn't think much of it. Guys took a more positive view. But that's pretty much the case with the whole genre.

The author was there for the meeting. He's a DC resident. This is his first book so he's still working his day job. He's wrapping up the first draft of the third book. He hopes to have it to the publisher by the time his kid is born. With the time from a book being accepted to when it hits the shelves the author doesn't expect to see it until November 2009. I may wait a bit to read the second book.

He said that the first draft of the trilogy was finished on Sept 10, 2001. He used to work for some failing dotcoms and wrote it as a spoof of that world. But with what happened the day after he finished the next draft was a lot darker. Not Batman dark. Just not a corporate-techno-comedy.