Cusp [Hardcover]

Robert A. Metzger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2005

The year is 2051. An enigmatic entity has its own plan for human evolution, using the supercomputer known as CUSP-the first machine designed to run on the software of the human mind...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nebula-finalist Metzger (Picoverse) delivers a concept-crammed entry in the SF subgenre of hard space opera. In 2031, the Sun and the Earth sprout high-energy jet exhausts, relics of alien technology triggered by humanity's technology. Trying to maintain order, the Powers (That Be) seek to understand and control the planet-girdling rings created by the exhausts. Biocybernetic humans called Tools, like Simon Ryan, work with unenhanced Pures, like Gen. Thomas Sutherland, to go past "the Point," the shift from human to posthuman superbeings. Sutherland's plans are threatened by the intervention of a host of entities, including some pig-farming Tools, a sentient Internet "ghost," a Muslim U.S. ambassador to Mars, reconstituted intelligent velociraptors and their hyper-evolved lemur rivals, and Simon's cyber assistant, Bill Gates. But Sutherland plans very deeply, 65 million years' worth of deep, and is willing to sacrifice his daughter, Sarah, to achieve success. Metzger tosses theories around like tennis balls and does the same with planets and solar systems, leading to a literal star-smashing climax. Readers who appreciate the outer edges of science, and regular trips past it, may not mind the sudden shifts of viewpoint and the tendency of supersmart characters not to pick up on the obvious.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Metzger, a regular contributor to Wired and a Nebula nominee for the novel Picoverse (2002), launches his latest from an astonishing premise. A solar flare shifts the position of the sun and mysteriously provokes the eruption on Earth of two mammoth rings--one circling the equator; the other, the poles. In the aftermath of this cataclysm, a vastly diminished global community reorganizes into strictly defined genetic classes and plugs itself into a nearly infinite cyberspace realm called the Void. The story that follows these arrangements concerns the intertwined destinies of a father and his daughter trying to avoid fieldwork conscription by trolling the Void, and a genetically modified programmer hoping to make the evolutionary leap to a posthuman identity. Yet an enigmatic entity dwelling in the Void may have its own plans for human evolution via a supercomputer known as CUSP, which runs on the "software" of the human mind. Metzger's background as a telecommunications scientist enables a brilliant, sprawling vision of humanity in the late-twenty-first century. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; First Edition first Printing edition (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441012418
• ISBN-13: 978-0441012411
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,051,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst "singularity" fiction of the year, June 14, 2005

By 

emk2048 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cusp (Hardcover)

I expected to enjoy this book. It had glowing dust-jacket blurbs by first-rate authors, excellent cover art, and an interesting premise. Plus, I'm a huge fan of hard SF, and I own almost everything that Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Greg Egan have ever written. But this book, unfortunately, was a total disaster.

Metzger's space opera is dragged down by poor craftsmanship. His choice of terminology is often awkward; for example, he refers to heavily-modified cyborgs as "ultra-Tools" without the slightest sense of irony. His exotic alien technology comes across as so much Star Trek technobabble--there's a different superpower in every chapter, but without the redeeming campiness of E.E. Smith's Lensmen. And Metzger never gets enough mileage out of his admittedly clever ideas. He'll introduce something exotic enough to test any writer's skill, explore it sloppily and unoriginally for two pages, and then allow it to drop into the background.

Metzger's characters, though, deserve special opprobrium. First, there's just too darn many--the general, the hard-boiled cop with enhanced reflexes, the talking dinosaur, the software reincarnation of Bill Gates, the father and daughter with genetically-engineered nervous systems, and the "Post Point" transhuman who taps Zero Point energy. Even worse, though, is the failure of these characters to live up to the undemanding standards of space opera. Space opera, like any adventure story, works fine with archetypal characters, but Metzger can't even write a convincing hard-boiled cop. And when Metzger's most humane character wipes out North America with a solar flare, she agonizes for less than a paragraph before complimenting herself on her problem-solving skills.

Last night, with ten pages to go and the fate of the planet hanging in the balance, I put down Cusp and went to sleep.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too many ideas spoil the novel, July 20, 2005

By 

John Pedersen (Eden Prairie, MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cusp (Hardcover)

I quite enjoy SF in general, including the hard stuff. But this was hard in a different way -- hard to make out what the heck was going on. Seemed like Metzger had lots and lots of coffee before writing this one, and couldn't bear to let any idea, no matter how zany, slip away. It was entertaining, but only because I borrowed it from somebody and didn't have to be mad about the money I paid for it. Head to Brin, Benford, or Niven for hard SF... avoid this one.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars WRITTEN IN AN INCOHERENT STYLE, November 26, 2005

By 

BEN (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cusp (Hardcover)

I love hard sci-fi , especially stories with grandiose ambitions. However, here the authors ambitions, although grandiose, were not translated into effective writing. Simply put, I never understood what was going on in this book. The author jumps around and never provides any backdrop information. He uses many of his own terms but never explains them. He keeps referring to the "Swirl" the "Void" amd "Tools", but after 400 pages I still dont know what they are. I was very disappointed by this book. I basically was scratching my head the whole time asking myself "what the hell is going on"? I contrast this type of writing with that of my favorite sci-fi author Robert Sawyer, whose plots are always perfectly clear, and stories are totally coherent.