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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, Often Entertaining, But not Gripping,
By
This review is from: Capacity (Mass Market Paperback)
I was excited as I read the first half of Capacity. Ballantyne sets up an interesting, if not entirely original, future world. Seemingly benevolent AI's watch over mankind, guided by a semi-mythical chief AI, "the Watcher," which may be extraterrestrial in origin. Copies of human personalities live in processing spaces that mimic the real "atomic" world. Harmony and peace are ensured by "Social Care," who tend to every need both physical and psychological. If problems arise, they are dealt with by agents such as Judy, the main character - or characters, since the "atomic" Judy has 12 copies that patrol the virtual world. The Judies are hunting a virtual predator, Kevin, who has been torturing multiple copies of a woman named Helen. Meanwhile, halfway to the Andromeda galaxy, the AI's have encountered an alien threat that seems to feed off intelligence in any form. And it is heading our way. A promising set up. . .By the end of the book, I was less satisfied. I understood the world as the backstory filled in, but the storyline remained enigmatic. Worse, the motives of the characters are too obscure for their actions to fully make sense. After spending 300 pages with Judy, I still don't get her. By the end of the book, I'm not sure who is on whose side, what they are trying to accomplish, and why. I don't need protagonists in white hats and villains in black, but if I'm to care, things need to be better defined than this. Also, though the world is fairly well explained, it is not fleshed out. Ballantyne has about 10 characters in the book, which is enough, but they almost never interact with anyone else. We never see another agent, or Judy's boss, or neighbors, or passersby. There is not enough detail to bring the everyday world to life. All in all, Capacity was worth reading. I imagine much will be cleared up in the sequel, so that it all makes sense. But I'm not sure I care enough to find out.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Expansive, mind blowing, challenging read,
By
This review is from: Capacity (Mass Market Paperback)
I read this book before reading 'Recursion' the first of the trilogy, thinking that 'Capacity' was a stand alone book. My head nearly exploded reading this book. There are a lot of different and cool concepts in the book dealing with multiple versions of people, plots which span for centuries, etc. A lot of the future tech is explained in the 'Recursion' and, the author doesn't slow down to explain things into detail. A reviewer mentioned that Ballantyne's descriptions is like reading a screenplay - very sparse which I agree with (sometimes more sparse than a script!) I just finished reading 'Recursion' and would have enjoyed Capacity more if I read it in sequence. So if you're thinking about jumping into this author's work, I recommend you read them in order. Definitely worth the read if you're looking for new perspectives and complex story lines.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant,
By Avid Reader (Franklin, Tn) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Capacity (Mass Market Paperback)
I sometimes wonder what readers could possibly want. Here one is given a snapping literary style (is writing even an important element to folks anymore?), unforgettable characters, originality, a bold plot and lots of action. The book's real concern is the whole notion of freedom, choice, purpose and what it means to be human. Is a replicated pattern of electronic waves a "human being" like our carbone selves? If a machine can predict our actions does that mean we have no free will? Calvin must be jumping for joy.I approach a novel, particularly science fiction, from the viewpoint of the entire package. Particularly I look for characterization and human relations - two areas that many sci-fi writers tend to overlook. In tales of the future most authors resort to having our descendents talk familiarly about our time (as if we sat around discussing the culture and society of the Aztecs, Ming Dynasty or Ghanian Empire). These authors can't seem to escape their boundaries - terrestrial and literary. One gets the idea that Ballantyne is having a little fun with his variations, alternate endings, simulataneous realities and interplay between the atomic and virtual worlds. This is NOT the usual "We are the Zeeboos from Planet X here to demand you stop your atomic testing" LOL Yet, as complex and far-astride as the story reads, it was a blast. Only afterwards did I discover it was the sequeal to Divergence (that I am now reading). Even not knowing beforehand the X-file like mythology - Watcher, Eva, Mary, Social Care, DIANA - I found it a great read. Judy (in all here vairations) is a heroine for the new age. Helen disappoints in the end but Frances, the robot, almost steals the show with her achingly human tenderness and brilliant insights. I didn't understand the swipe against business - as if living under the "corporate yoke" was worse than the Big Brother Nightmare of the future. This authoritarian structure combined the worst from all political areas - the Right's moral purity crusade, the Left's devotion to collectivism over individuals and the middles complacency with increasing encroachment on the power of the State. Social Care controlled people "for their own good" - how many times have we heard this in history? What did not make sense was the unevenness - people lived no longer than today - they got arthritis for Pete's sake! Yetthere is FTL travel, nanotech, and the lives seemed magical from our point of view. Then one recalls the small conversation from the man who opined there was only so much "capacity" in the universe. In fact, the word "capacity" was used skillfully in several contexts throughout the story - another great literary ploy. My grade: A
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