It is uncanny that I chose to read this as we approach the 2020 Presidential Elections. The palpable sense that democracy could spin out of control is foreboding.
Paranoia aside, This was a classic NS thriller. Not quite up to Snow Crash standards for tight knit drama and a bit sluggish and over detailed in some areas. The characterization of stereotypes such as back country hillbilly’s, trailer park residents, federal government hacks and police/security personal was a bit overwrought. None the less, the thorough research and careful balance of real science, speculative science, and science fiction really pushed the story along.
I always wonder if books with two authors, one well known and the other a sidekick, are actually just a “licensing” of the reputation of the well known author. In this case, if it is a knockoff, it’s still a pretty good likeness of NS’s earlier efforts.
Good escapist read.
-jgp

if you want to see the future today, read Stephenson

In snowcrash he made the meta verse 20 plus years before Facebook! In Interface he invented the iPhone watch along with its many analog’s. Kind of like George Orwell 1984 with tvs that watch you sound familiar? Great work by Neal. Sadly if you zoom out you can see the many ways that this work plays itself in everyday life.

I got this book on sale and I was happy to find it to be enjoyable. I deducted a star because a lot of the story does not quite seem to make sense.

Interface by Stephen Bury (a pseudonym for a pair of writers including Neal Stephenson – but that really feels like a Stephenson novel) was a wonderfully detailed and well-crafted mid-90s technothriller about using BCI to feed a politician poll data in real time as a set of emotional valences, as a kind of meditation on the cognitive distortions produced by electoral politics. Hard SF people will love it because it takes pains to be realistic in terms of the procedural complexities around such a plot device (the guy doesn’t get the implant or run for president until halfway through the book, with the first half focusing on the ramp up of both the tech and various attempts to circumvent political and bioethics concerns by motivated parties, the development and hitches of polling techniques optimized for this purpose, etc.), so it’s fun even if the phrase “the spectacle consumes all that opposes it” means nothing to you. This being the early 90s, Stephenson needed to justify some of the infrastructure development that now is simply a part of the world; if this were written in the present day, the experimental brain surgery unit would be moved from India to Russia or China (where advanced facilities already exist for high-profile experimental techniques sanctioned by the international bioethics community) & the polling tech would be reimagined as an app for existing smartwatch-based fitness trackers.

Published in 1994. Reads much more modern. Ending a touch too tidy (and optimstic) for my taste.

“Wag the dog” meets the wildest ambitions of the US political establishment, along with their worst nightmares. A masterpiece of a novel, it is one of the most readable books I have encountered in a year or two.

I really enjoyed this story, though, in keeping with other early Stephenson stuff, it has a rather abrupt ending. A good premise, well flushed out, nice big action scene in the end and fun digressions in the middle. Definitely worth the read.

Otra de esas compras vacacionales que me quedaron sin leer.

Me gustó muchísimo, mucho más que el otro technothriller de Stephenson/George que leí hace poquito, The Cobweb. La razón es que aunque sigue siendo un thriller más que una novela de ciencia ficción, tiene un porcentaje importante de (futura) tecnología y sus posibles usos y abusos, lo que lo hace muy intrigante.

Además tiene buenos personajes, escenas con mucha acción y un final a todo ritmo. La verdad, muy entretenido.

The subject matter is interesting and there are so many parallels to the current political environment and technology... however... it's long winded and boring.

For Neal Stephenson completionists only. Awkwardly written, unbelievable, predictable. No Stephenson flair.

This was an exciting story, entirely plausible. It's about how to use implant technology to help stroke victims. I don't think the technology is quite there yet, but I suspect it's not that far off. Once it is here, this book talks about the essential problem of whether that technology can be used to control the person its implanted in. There are some interesting ideas here. See if you agree with them, or not.

I enjoyed this book, but it was wayyyy longer than it needed to be. The main plot on the back cover wasn’t super relevant until about 470 pages in, and after all that buildup the ending threw it all into disarray in the last like 30 pages. It wasn’t funny, as well, like the back claims. Still good, but could’ve been shorter.