Customer Reviews

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

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

 

 

This book is really different from most of the other science fiction that's out there. It works on the premise that at a certain point artificial intelligence will advance to the level where it can maintain and improve itself. At this point it is only a matter of time until this artificial intelligence could reach technological breakthroughs that completely change our society. These technological breakthroughs effectively make every person immortal. So how does society change when every member is effectively all powerful in controlling their environment?

The first chapter contains material that some readers might find uncomfortable, but it is important to realize that these unusual scenes serve a purpose in demonstrating how really foreign this type of society would be to us. As the book progresses, more of this world is revealed, and as this happens it really provides a very interesting look at what it means to be human.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone remotely interested in science fiction or the philosophy of human nature.

I'll keep this brief to avoid spoiling the plot.

The first half of this book lived up to all the underground hype that precedes it. The most concise description I can come up with is William Gibson (Neuromancer era, not Pattern Recognition era) meets Chuck Palahniuk. It's a wonderful combination of speculative sci-fi and cringe-inducing wrongness.

About mid-way through, though, the wheels fall off a bit...not the best time for such a thing to happen in a novel. What should be the climax and conclusion of the story, isn't. The book morphs into a rather bland wilderness survival type novel (for those who have read it, I'm speaking of the "later" portion, not the "bright sun" part, at the risk of sounding too cryptic). I feel that this entire portion of the story could be axed and the overall work would be better for it.

I've read this book probably five times. It's absolutely brutal, grotesque and fantastic. It exactly suits my fancy. The first time I read this, I was so drawn into the fantasy aspects of it, that I literally couldn't sleep. I would lay awake thinking about what I would do with my own personal universe and my own immortality. I still have all that figured out. Growing up watching horror movies maybe helped. This book starts out with some horrible (and sexual) violence. It borders on porn. Perhaps it is porn, I don't know. I can see where it might turn off some readers, but I found it refreshing. It seems like books are always looking for ways to tone themselves down. Roger didn't do that. Roger let it all out.

I have a couple print copies of this somewhere, but I can't find them. I really really wanted a Kindle version. So I made one. That's right. Take my 5 star review with a grain of salt, you might consider me extremely biased. I'm also the publisher of the Kindle copy (not the author, that's Roger). In any case, I don't consider myself biased.

This book is on my short list that changed me as a reader.

Very good. Hooked me in a bad way: I started thinking it was a short story, and was surprised after finishing that it was 150+ pages long! Well written, thought provoking. Hard to stomach at times (for me it even required a conscious effort) because of some VERY graphic depictions, but they're there for a good reason.

The ending could be better, though.

The author has a number of short stories online (the Passage series) which are also quite good; and also good and thought provoking are his stories about the difficulties and 20 year long non-publication of this novel, and about his experience with the tip jar for it.

Maybe he should Creative-Commonize it to get extra/any prizes and recommendations? (Cory Doctorow, I am looking at you). This was SO much better.

This book is a very interesting look at what the future could possibly have in store for us. It is a little hard to get into, at the start, but it is really quite gripping and keeps it up all the way through. If you have an interest in a possible way the technological singularity plays out, it's definitely worth the read.