Existence
by David Brin
science fiction
copyright 2012
half read in January 2018
rated 3/10: so bad it's embarrassing
I've listed this book as "science fiction". I suspect that Brin forgot about the "fiction" bit... The cover claims that this is "a novel". Just as well, I would never have guessed.
Brin has written an enormously long science textbook. There are some minor threads of several stories twisting though the book; as far as I can tell, most add nothing to any "novel" plot. The "journalist", for example, is there as an excuse for the author to describe all sorts of full immersion Web developments.
That "all sorts" is the problem. There are, for example, regular chapters listing all sorts of ways that the world could end. So what? In this book -- none of them happen. They are listed just so that the author can show off his knowledge.
Sorry, but perhaps he doesn't really understand the way the Web already works: if I want a list of "ways the world could end" then that is what I search for... Do you want one way, or nine or ten or twenty? That's just on the first page of results. I didn't buy "a novel" in the hope that the author had cut-and-paste from the internet.
Very, very disappointing.
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
... Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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"You're only young once but you can stay immature forever" … per Ginger Meggs
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