The Big Peat
Darth Buddha
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2016
- Messages
- 3,676
Sometimes a book changes how you read. Sometimes a book teaches you that instead of churning rapidly through pages because you must know what happens next, it can be better to step back, let the tension bleed off, then read it at a more enjoyable pace.
Man O'War was that book.
The temptation with near-future thrillers is to compare them to William Gibson; but if Gibson wrote a Bond-like adventure of stylish danger and near impossibilities, Jones has written a Le Carre-esque parable about how people get pulled under and reassembled by the unintended consequences of power. The scope of the story is big, but their concerns are pleasingly grounded.
If that is (loosely speaking) the style of the story, the meat - or rather the gears - is that of the sex robots. The book is set in a future in which robotic technology has advanced in both capability and acceptance - although not so far as to make sex robots legal. That's why a struggling jellyfisherman decides to try and sell a lost robot he stumbles across despite the risks, and why a businesswoman takes even bigger ones in her attempt to legalise the trade. Their actions coincide to create a crisis - and those crisis are, as I said earlier, really tense. Ladle it on with a spoon tense.
Maybe too tense. If there is a flaw to this book, it is that it covers a lot of ground and doesn't always move at the quickest. Readers who like their stories like their Vin Diesel movies are maybe going to struggle with this book.
But those who like to see ordinary people struggle and fear and (sometimes) triumph should check out Man O'War.
Particularly if they like robots.
Man O'War was that book.
The temptation with near-future thrillers is to compare them to William Gibson; but if Gibson wrote a Bond-like adventure of stylish danger and near impossibilities, Jones has written a Le Carre-esque parable about how people get pulled under and reassembled by the unintended consequences of power. The scope of the story is big, but their concerns are pleasingly grounded.
If that is (loosely speaking) the style of the story, the meat - or rather the gears - is that of the sex robots. The book is set in a future in which robotic technology has advanced in both capability and acceptance - although not so far as to make sex robots legal. That's why a struggling jellyfisherman decides to try and sell a lost robot he stumbles across despite the risks, and why a businesswoman takes even bigger ones in her attempt to legalise the trade. Their actions coincide to create a crisis - and those crisis are, as I said earlier, really tense. Ladle it on with a spoon tense.
Maybe too tense. If there is a flaw to this book, it is that it covers a lot of ground and doesn't always move at the quickest. Readers who like their stories like their Vin Diesel movies are maybe going to struggle with this book.
But those who like to see ordinary people struggle and fear and (sometimes) triumph should check out Man O'War.
Particularly if they like robots.
