Review of Signal to Noise (Mass Market Paperback)

Signal to Noise reads much like one would imagine a corraboration between Philip K. Dick and Larry Niven would read.The science is generally hard (with one exception: see below), but not nearly so hard as the oppressive sense of paranoia and lurking evil.

Everyone around Jack, the protagonist, is a potential enemy.Every time he takes a step forward, he runs the risk of finding that he's been walking in the wrong direction.Even his good intentions can have (literally) Earth shattering consequences.And we, the audience, share his paranoia.After awhile, the reader begins to feel like he's navigating a bewildering maze of smoke and mirrors, filled with razor-wire and spring-loaded spikes.

The one area where hard science gives way to soft metaphore is via the sophisticated neural-integrated virtual reality technology of the book.Here the book really starts to seem like a PDK work.In a brilliant variation of the tired, old VR theme, Nylund does not create his artificial experiences out of pixels projected on to retinas, but out of vivid metaphors projected directly into the brain.There is a very literal dream quality to those sequences, heightening the sense of paranoia and the nightmare sense of running down an infinite corridore being chased by ever-closer enemies.

It is a good book.True, it could have been better.The characters could have had a tad more depth (although, in a story filled with shadows, too much depth can be a bad thing) and some of the philosophizing strike a tin note.Never the less, it is an engaging and compelling story that plays to that part of our psyche that Kafka used to explore so very well.It was the stort of story that demanded completion by me even as I came to feel stifled by the oppressiveness of the plot.It is absolutely sadistic that it leaves so much to the sequel -- and absolutely delightful that it torments the reader by doing so.



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