Cyberweb (Paperback)

by Lisa Mason (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Set in the same universe as Mason's previous Arachne, this chronicle of San Francisco attorney Carly Nolan-who loses her position because of an anomaly in her "telespace" link, known as an "arachne" for its spiderlike appearance-and her robotic companions Saint Download and Pr. Spinner fails on several levels. One of these is its prose: "Two women, astonishing and beautiful, the way the water of the Bay was beautiful when poison slicked its surface in green and blue swirls and astonished him with sudden sickness at its taste." More perilously, Mason seems awed by the gadgetry she presents, more so than readers are likely to be. Finally, she posits a romanticized band of "aborigines," led by Ouija, who seem little more than Luddites. (Says Ouija, of his people's life: "We hunt, we feed, we fuck, we are free.") Mason allows her sympathies, not her characters, to move the story line, which culminates in a contrived tearjerker ending.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Mason's Arachne (1990) engagingly recounted the cyberspace struggles of genetically enhanced attorney Carly Nolan, whose career was shattered when a spiderlike phantom haunted her virtual reality "telespace" trial hearings. In Cyberweb, Carly returns, accompanied by her robot sidekicks, Saint Download and Professor Spinner, and determined to regain her reputation by taking control of the phantom's uncanny "hyperlink" telespace powers. While biding her time, subsisting on Dumpster rations and hiding out from the all-seeing eyes of Data Control, Carly is kidnapped into the service of Cognatus, a mainframe artificial intelligence, or AI, that offers big money for Carly's knack for hyperlinking her way into classified data stores. Under Professor Spinner's doting tutelage, Carly quickly comes to suspect that Cognatus' real and malevolent motive, which emanates from a collective of independent AI "silicon supremacists," is to undermine human control of telespace. Mason's prose often has more burlesque and less grit in it than that of many cyberspace vehicles, but her endearing characters and their absorbing adventures will hook even the most jaded sf fan. Carl Hays --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: Eos (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380799170
• ISBN-13: 978-0380799176
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,389,811 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars DEEPER THAN DEEP, February 15, 2003

By	Worldreels (MANKATO, MN) - See all my reviews

On re-reading CYBERWEB a year later, I don't think my first review does it justice. The writer has peeled off the difference between conscious robots and flesh and blood man. Almost without fanfare the robots are provided with souls. Her mechanical characters are given both consciousness and emotion. Their only difference to man is in their composition. This becomes very clear when the outmoded Spinner character uploads herself into Patina's flashy, lifeless bodywork.
I MUST NOW RATE THIS BOOK FIVE STARS.

The writer, thus, dives deeply into the unseen world that controls man's apparent freewill existence. By using mainframes as purposeful beasts, seeking to control fleshy man, some very deep philosophical questions are posed. She leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks to this very entertaining and thoughtful story.

THE OLD REVIEW READ:
Mason leads her cyberpunk reader into the arena of sci-fi comics. It?s not possible for humans to grasp the feelings and desires of these robot characters but it?s still a lot of fun to try. She challenges your imagination to follow her character?s avatars, cones, cubes and three headed chimeras as they flit in and out of cyberspace. But hard questions are run up the flagpole. Can bodiless people exist in this virtual world of telespace? Can a soul exist in a nonorganic body? Should robots be discarded like machines when a new model arrives? Can our culture continue to absorb the changes computer power is unleashing? Is our reality but an extension of the bits composing telespace? Even the questions of what consciousness might consist of and whether it is really an advantage to being born as flesh and blood. She makes no attempt to answer these questions but even considering them makes this book a very creative endeavor. You could certainly invest your time on a much less entertaining story. Also it is short and sweet.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting...pretty cool actually..., October 28, 1998

By	Phil Ballard ([e-mail]) (Missouri, USA) - See all my reviews

Cyberweb is a pretty nifty cyberpunk novel...lots of interesting ideas...I liked it...there's a sequal to it too, but I can't remember its title...

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too futuristic, January 10, 2000

By	just another face (chicago, america) - See all my reviews

This book is intriguing if you're one of those star-wars hogging sci-fi nerds, which i am not. If you're normal like me, you will not believe or imagine a single passage in this novel. It is high-tech to the extreme, and not likely to happen in the next couple centuries. Boring plot. Woman gets involved in a dangerous skeem, woman tries to get out, woman tries to save the world from digital crisis, woman is a sexy blonde, you could almost guess the rest of the story. My suggestion is, go for slightly less imaginary and more contemporrary works. you got your stephen kings, your romantic charles dickens, your seductive anne rice's. This is a waste of time.