July 4, 2022
The problem was obvious.
On one hand, there’s a book in German, not translated.
On another hand, there’s Nataliya who does not read German and whose German vocabulary starts and ends at “Spätzle” and “Ein Bier, bitte!”
But where there’s a problem, there’s a solution. Obviously.
Granted, my freaked out Kindle app incorrectly deduced that I was trying to make an illegal copy of this book (can I blame it for not clocking that I was simply trying to copy/paste 560 pages into translation software? I mean, who *doesn’t* do that???) and cut off my copy function, and for a while I had to rely on clumsy and sometimes unintentionally comical Bing automated translator built in, and then my horrified discovery that an epub limits my copy ability to using 1500 characters at a time, and here we are — copy/paste one tiny paragraph at a time into translation software. For 560 pages. Until my fingers and eyeballs bleed. While still running into occasional translation snafus.
And it was all absolutely worth it.
———————
As science fiction thrillers go, this one is just excellent. It’s set in the late 21st century after global warming had just been arrested enough to not wipe us out, but the world as we know it has been changed - Siberia is a popular living place, for instance, and Venice is history. We are in the world of Hologrammatica — the world that runs on Holonet: holographic projections, from makeup to clothes to facades and city streets, with Eiffel Tower extra-tall for better scenic effect and blemishes on people and cities covered up digitally. There’s AI and uploaded consciousness (“cogits”) into vessel bodies, and search for eternal life, and the mind/body Descartes problem — you name it.
It’s told in a very compelling voice of a Quästor (a PI, basically) Galahad Singh, tasked with finding a missing programmer Juliette Perrotte — and along the way Galahad opens quite a few metaphorical cans of worms and uncovers things that may threaten our whole existence as we know it. Because Juliette used to work on encryption for uploaded consciousness, and getting past that encryption may have really dire consequences. Hardlights, samurai swords, computer simulations, street chases, wild parties, and abandoned secret islands all follow, and are fascinating and interesting and fun.
Hillenbrand is good at worldbuilding, introducing concepts and technologies with apparent ease and confidence. If you paid attention, the glossary in the end is really not needed as he conveys his vision of this world very clearly. His storytelling is solid, and while I can’t quite comment on the writing due to the whole internet translation thing, it flowed very well.
Deeply serious issues are effortlessly integrated in the story - technology, global warming, and the question of what makes a self in a world where consciousness can be digitally uploaded into any vessel body. And yet there is not a shred of didacticism here that so irritates me in so many recent SF works, and no preaching or moralizing or pandering to whatever the “it” issues of the moment may be. Hillenbrand respects his readers and their ability to make their own conclusions without things being explicitly telegraphed in annoyingly neat messages — and I’m so glad he never feels the need to resort to that.
It’s very good, really.
And Galahad himself is a great protagonist to spend 500+ pages with. He’s funny, sarcastic, and clever, with self-deprecating humor and sharp observations of the world around him.
I loved it despite all the effort it took to read it — and I really don’t get why it doesn’t have an English translation. It’s such a solid book that I’m not happy that non-German speakers are missing out on it. (But as an unexpected bonus my German vocabulary increased a bit, although I’m told some of my new favorite words really should not be used in polite company).
5 stars.
—————
Buddy read with Dennis (his review).
——————
Also posted on my blog.
——————
Recommended by: Dennis
On one hand, there’s a book in German, not translated.
On another hand, there’s Nataliya who does not read German and whose German vocabulary starts and ends at “Spätzle” and “Ein Bier, bitte!”
But where there’s a problem, there’s a solution. Obviously.
Granted, my freaked out Kindle app incorrectly deduced that I was trying to make an illegal copy of this book (can I blame it for not clocking that I was simply trying to copy/paste 560 pages into translation software? I mean, who *doesn’t* do that???) and cut off my copy function, and for a while I had to rely on clumsy and sometimes unintentionally comical Bing automated translator built in, and then my horrified discovery that an epub limits my copy ability to using 1500 characters at a time, and here we are — copy/paste one tiny paragraph at a time into translation software. For 560 pages. Until my fingers and eyeballs bleed. While still running into occasional translation snafus.
And it was all absolutely worth it.
———————
As science fiction thrillers go, this one is just excellent. It’s set in the late 21st century after global warming had just been arrested enough to not wipe us out, but the world as we know it has been changed - Siberia is a popular living place, for instance, and Venice is history. We are in the world of Hologrammatica — the world that runs on Holonet: holographic projections, from makeup to clothes to facades and city streets, with Eiffel Tower extra-tall for better scenic effect and blemishes on people and cities covered up digitally. There’s AI and uploaded consciousness (“cogits”) into vessel bodies, and search for eternal life, and the mind/body Descartes problem — you name it.
"Jaira writes that my father wants to meet with me. He's coming to London the day after tomorrow for some business appointments and wants to squeeze me in somewhere. She doesn't put it that way, of course. But that's how it is. Private things are always interposed with Dad. I know from my mother that he conveyed his desire to divorce to her between two conference calls. It wasn't a very long conversation. Dad had only scheduled a ten-minute slot. The story understandably stunned me, but Mom just smiled. "I wasn't surprised. After all, he proposed to me during a break. Cricket, England versus India, between the first and second innings."
It’s told in a very compelling voice of a Quästor (a PI, basically) Galahad Singh, tasked with finding a missing programmer Juliette Perrotte — and along the way Galahad opens quite a few metaphorical cans of worms and uncovers things that may threaten our whole existence as we know it. Because Juliette used to work on encryption for uploaded consciousness, and getting past that encryption may have really dire consequences. Hardlights, samurai swords, computer simulations, street chases, wild parties, and abandoned secret islands all follow, and are fascinating and interesting and fun.
Hillenbrand is good at worldbuilding, introducing concepts and technologies with apparent ease and confidence. If you paid attention, the glossary in the end is really not needed as he conveys his vision of this world very clearly. His storytelling is solid, and while I can’t quite comment on the writing due to the whole internet translation thing, it flowed very well.
Deeply serious issues are effortlessly integrated in the story - technology, global warming, and the question of what makes a self in a world where consciousness can be digitally uploaded into any vessel body. And yet there is not a shred of didacticism here that so irritates me in so many recent SF works, and no preaching or moralizing or pandering to whatever the “it” issues of the moment may be. Hillenbrand respects his readers and their ability to make their own conclusions without things being explicitly telegraphed in annoyingly neat messages — and I’m so glad he never feels the need to resort to that.
It’s very good, really.
And Galahad himself is a great protagonist to spend 500+ pages with. He’s funny, sarcastic, and clever, with self-deprecating humor and sharp observations of the world around him.
I loved it despite all the effort it took to read it — and I really don’t get why it doesn’t have an English translation. It’s such a solid book that I’m not happy that non-German speakers are missing out on it. (But as an unexpected bonus my German vocabulary increased a bit, although I’m told some of my new favorite words really should not be used in polite company).
5 stars.
—————
Buddy read with Dennis (his review).
——————
Also posted on my blog.
——————
Recommended by: Dennis
