A sometimes-thought-provoking, sometimes-talky and sluggish speculation on reality and human nature.
A man’s anguished search for the meaning of life leads to the discovery that it’s all a computer simulation in this debut SF novel.
Vovchenko’s cosmic tale of ideas follows the adventures of Robbie, a 20-something technical writer in Seattle with no clue what he wants other than to play video games and ponder arcane subjects, from the existence of the soul to the mysteries of quantum physics. A seesaw picaresque ensues as he cycles through business careers and reversals, marries, and loses everything when his wife dies in a car crash that leaves their young son blind, deaf, and mute. Grief-stricken, Robbie decides that life is a pointless ordeal of suffering and brutality under a “sadistic God.” But then his speculative science streak kicks in and he brainstorms the notion that “this duality of light being a wave and a particle doesn’t make any sense unless the world is computer-generated.” That epiphany makes the author’s hitherto grounded and realistic narrative blast off into fantasy. Robbie wakes to find his consciousness enmeshed in a robotic body on an airless planet inhabited by other robo-humans and ruled by disembodied beings called Mitras. This is the real world, he is informed, while humans are indeed artificial intelligence programs that live, breed, and evolve in a simulated world running on a Mitra computer. Enlightened human AIs like Robbie are occasionally “extracted” from the simulation to live robotically in the real world and help the Mitras, who are spiritual but not very smart, develop technology. It all checks out, and Robbie and fellow extractee Isaac Newton get entangled in wars between Mitra factions, the rise of an insurgent lizard god, and ethical quandaries in which the survival of the computer simulation and its billions of human AI consciousnesses hangs in the balance. In its (simulated) earthly phase, Vovchenko’s ruminative yarn is a sometimes-affecting story of a thoughtful young man trying to reconcile the practicalities of life with philosophical and moral principles. The author’s conception of the world as a computer model—the probable randomness of quantum physics is actually a computational shortcut that economizes on technical resources—is intriguing. And while his prose is sometimes awkward and needs a strong editor—“Modern poor seemed to Robbie like pussycats of the real poor of the past”—he manages flights of plangent lyricism. (“His soul was a lonely and dull star flying away from the constellations of other brighter and happier stars,” Robbie reflects during a sojourn in India.) The novel’s phantasmagorical second half is imaginative but less successful. The “real world” of the Mitras feels utterly artificial, as simplistic, contrived, and cartoonish as a computer game yet so uninvolving that Robbie flies away from the Mitra planet and spends years brooding alone in dark, empty space. The narrative often bogs down in long stretches of intellectual bloviating with dubious conclusions. (“Art is completely relative to the viewer and his ability to comprehend an art piece; what” the artist “meant by it; what associations it creates; and if a viewer can appreciate the effort and creativity which went into that art piece. Therefore, art should never be compared.”) Readers may wish Robbie would retreat back into the simulation and stop overthinking things.
A sometimes-thought-provoking, sometimes-talky and sluggish speculation on reality and human nature.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-56225-4
Page Count: 223
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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