Customer Reviews

Halo

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

 

 

Halo is a great cyberpunk novel. Though it's not as ambitious as Neuromancer, as egotistic as Snow Crash, or as neomythic as Schismatrix, it's quite good in its own right. Maddox's writing is vivid and exquisite. His characters are somewhat 3-dimensional although none are the antihero of most cyberpunk.

Of course, characters are just a method of getting across philosophical ideas. Maddox delves deeply into two major philosophies, one, what makes intelligence, and the other, the buddhist concept that self is irrelevant but that we're all subjective expressions of one commonality. He talks about the ethics of artificial intelligence, and our responsibility to AIs we create.

Maddox's Halo is the flip side of Gibson's Neuromancer. Maddox shows the potential that exists from cooperation, the potential of non-hostile AIs, and the potential of simulacra as alternate realities.

Though not necessarily a good book for sheer entertainment, I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in reading a deep philosophical work.

This book is incredible. The character of Mikhail Gonzales is very easy to like. The scenes involving the zen theories of Toshi are the standout sections in my mind (the chapter "Your Buddha Nature" is the best). It's a cleaner type of fiction than, say, Gibson. Not gritty around the edges, but it is very smart, enjoyable reading. Try to take your time.

The structure and style of Tom Maddox's prose make this an intriguing read. In addition, the fast-moving plot keeps you reading, and the philosophical references expand your brain. I liked this book a lot. It's not the standard fare, but it's definitely thought-provoking. If you want your eyebrows raised and your staus quo disturbed, if you're tired of the same old same old, this is a book for you.

I found Halo to be an excellent extrapolation of the way an AI could kinda evolve out of a complex set of computer systems, and thought it dealt really well the kind of growing pains that this might entail.

It also pre-saged a notion I'd encountered before - that when an AI did come forth, people might worship it as they might a god.. and that the best way to detect it might be to look for such cult-like behaviour.

The playful nature of AI, Aleph also reminds me of the Rabbit character in Rainbow's End.

This, and the fact that was by'n'large non-distopian in subject makes me file it under post-cyberpunk. But it does share the same love affair with pseudo-Zen philosophy that inhabits Neuromancer and Metrophage.

This book had all the makings to be something good but falls tragically short. Not funny not interesting and it barely kept me interested enough to read it. It had some good concepts of AI but never got in depth enough with them and the characters were lackluster and boring. Read this if you absolutly have nothing better to read.