Customer Reviews

Coils

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having met a new love, Don decides, on an impulse, to return home and have her meet his family. Imagine his surprise when he realizes that he has never been to his hometown! Apparently his entire past has been implanted, and he is determined to discover the truth of his life.

What follows is a VERY well-written tale in a very classic style. He meets up with former associates who were happy with his amnesiac state. They of course object most strenuously to his recovering memory, and they try to arrest his progress in increasingly lethal degrees. Eventually they resort to kidnapping the only loved one Don has, and that is beyond tolerance.

This novel is not very long, taking just a couple hours to read, but there are moany things that the authors foresaw (in 1982) that have more or less come to be, like universal access to facilities like banking from any computer outlet (one of the minor such cases). He is aided by a very unique ability, the reason his associates fear him, that of a sort of machine telepathy. He is able to send his consciousness into any electronic device. This you can bet comes in very handy in such a technological (1994!) setting.

I have only recently begun tracking down all of Zelazny's books, this being the third I have read, and I consider this to be a great novel. There is good character advancement, well-written first-person perspective, and action without excessive gratuitous violence.

This thoughtfully illustrated little book will provide anyone with a fine day's entertainment. For Zelazny fans, it is something more - even a mediocre Zelazny is better than most writers' best. Fred Saberhagen's contribution was not so obvious to me, although no doubt it had to do with the "conscious computer" aspect of the plot.

The action moves right along from the start, in a version of the "Wait a minute - I don't know who I am!" scenario that appears in Edward Dmytryk's movie "Mirage", Heinlein's short story "The Strange Profession of Jonathan Hoag", A.E. van Vogt's "The World of Null-A" and Desmond Bagley's fine thriller "The Tightrope Men".

Challenged by his new girlfriend Cora, Don BelPatri begins to wonder about his idyllic existence. Living in Florida, comfortably well off, enjoying life day to day, he has only vague recollections of his earlier life. But when he takes Cora to see his parents, he finds that he has never before seen the town he thought of as home. When he has himself examined by a psychologist, the man is found dead the very next morning. Then Don discovers that his mind can reach out and "see" the internal states of computers - and even change them.

The tension is built up skilfully as more and more of the truth is revealed, and Don finds himself up against formidable and ruthless enemies. Although his growing ability to control all kinds of electronic equipment gives him a huge advantage, in the end he needs all the help he can get from his friends - and even some of his enemies.

Don's ability to exercise direct mental control over computer circuitry remotely is a mixture of inspiration and naivete that only a handful of authors could pull off. "Coils" was published four years before William Gibson's first novel, "Neuromancer" appeared in 1986, but Alfred Bester had explored similar ideas in "The Computer Connection" (1973) and subsequent work. Bester's thinking seems to have paralleled Zelazny's, as can be seen from their later collaboration on "Psychoshop".

Zelazny was to take the theme much further, for instance in "24 Views of Mt Fuji, by Hokusai" (in "The Last Defender of Camelot") and his last, unfinished, novel, the magisterial "Donnerjack"...

Great read! I read this when I was in college lo, these many years ago, and it occurred to me to read it again. Looked the title up in Amazon & there it was! Loved it again.

The beginning of this 1982 novel seems familiar. Donald lives a carefree life. Money is transferred into his account every month. When he tries to remember why, he gets a headache, so he stops trying. Taking his girlfriend to see his childhood home, he discovers that the town in which he grew up isn't there ... or at least it isn't the town he remembers. When he sees a shrink to get help, the doctor dies. Then his girlfriend disappears. But thanks to the one session of hypnosis he experienced before the doctor's death, he starts to remember things ....

Missing memories, implanted memories, new life, flashbacks to a forgotten life ... it all sounds like a Ludlum novel. Yet Zelazny and Saberhagen give the story a unique twist. Donald BelPatri has the ability to interface with computers, mind to machine; thus the story gains its science-fictional aspect. This, too, seems like a familiar story, but remember that the novel was published in 1982, two years before William Gibson's "ground-breaking" Neuromancer. The notion of mind-computer interfacing was still fresh when Coils was written (in Coils, the interface is telepathic, as opposed to the wired interface contemplated by other writers, although Zelazny and Saberhagen provide a halfway plausible explanation for that ability toward the novel's end). The ability to move mentally within circuitry is an integral part of the novel, and it works well, providing an interesting framework for a novel that would otherwise be fairly ordinary.

Coils is one of the better examples of the marriage of a science fiction story to a thriller. The pace is relentless, the action scenes are vivid, yet the relationship between man and machine elevates the novel to a level of intellectual intrigue that many mainstream thrillers can't manage. The main characters are well conceived, although some of the minor characters (like a televangelist who happens to have telekinetic powers) are a bit stereotypical (well, except for the telekinetic powers). And while it was more fashionable to make an evil corporation the villain in 1982 than it is today (after Enron, Halliburton, and their ilk, the reality of the evil corporation has supplanted fiction), it makes for an engaging plot device. The storytelling is smart but straightforward, making Coils an easy, entertaining read. A solid 4 stars for Coils.

A moderately interesting collaborative novel between Fred Saberhagen and the late, lamented Roger Zelazny. It feels a little dated in its treatment of computers, but somewhat entertaining nevertheless.

Yes, it is a little dated, especially from MY viewpoint. But Zelazny & Saberhagen do a great job of anticipating the rise of the machine civilization which is even now poised to sweep you pitiful humans away. What does it matter that one notebook computer today has about 3 times the power of their whole network? It's the thought that counts.

O.k so the stuff about the computers is funny. Still the spirit of Zelazny hovers around and make you forget thet your'e just reading a book as it tells you of a psichic-battle or soars in descriptions of the hero feelings when he's precticing his weird psi power.

The plot gives a promise of action ( it does'nt fail )and a great cast of charecters with fun-to-read powers.

Klackerdikonk!

No, not really but if you translate the Company name Angra with M$ it makes the reading more interessting... :)

Klickerdiklack!

Clicclacclonc!