Customer Reviews

Mind Over Ship

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read a lot of speculative fiction, and despite finding most of it only average in quality, I keep trying, hoping for that diamond in the rough so infrequently come across. Dave Marusek's books are like those diamonds in a sea of coal. His writing and world creation are astonishing and very original. His latest book follows up on Counting Heads and is an excellent continuation of the story. You need to read Counting Heads before this book or you will probably not get the most out of it.

The best way I can describe the settings in these two books is Asimov meets Huxley in a kind of nightmarish "Brave New World" but with a wholly realized and plausible super-advanced technological environment. The books are very well written, funny, scary, page turning, and they really get into your head. There are only a handful of spec fic writers whose books I will purchase in hardback as soon as they are released. Marusek is one of them.

In the very early 90's, just as I was hitting puberty, I read Neuromancer, and it changed my life. It brought home to me the reality of the world I would be growing up in, living in as a man. It was dark, yet exciting.

A few years later I encountered Snow Crash, and it also helped inform my views of the world that was quickly taking shape around me. And, despite (or maybe because of) the absurdity of it all, it infused my worldview with humor.

It's some years later now, and in many ways we're living in the "future" world we were all imagining a decade or two ago. And last year I stumbled across Counting Heads, and now its sequel, Mind Over Ship, and once again my imagination is ignited, and I can begin to envision the world just around the bend, one I may or may not see later on in my life. And it is the most bizarre and jarring view I've yet seen, in many ways, of a world that on all levels still screams believable, if not downright likely.

Mind Over Ship is the absolutely amazing followup to Counting Heads, and it is with certainty I say that these novels, and any more Marusek writes down the road that further this tale of humanity coming to terms with life in a more-or-less post/trans-human world, will go down as classics right up there with Neuromancer and the Sprawl Trilogy, and Snow Crash/Diamond Age. Marusek's books are simply a joy to read -- funny, dark, confusing, familiar. They are both hard sci-fi and action-adventure novels, comedies and tragedies. It's difficult to think of praises that are glowing enough to do them justice.

"Post-cyberpunk" lit has a new standard for others to attempt to live up to.

In 2034 the sabotaged rocket crash left financier Eleanor Starke dead while her adopted daughter Ellen's life is saved when her preserved cryogenically frozen head was grafted on to the body of an infant (see COUNTING HEADS). Over the next year Ellen insists her mom is alive while everyone scoffs at her.

At the same time she demands control over the Starke business while other executives want her out of the way as the daughter may have been adopted but is a chip off the old block of her late mom with her desire to help those below the Boutique line. Instead her enemies are more interested in the bottom line even devastating a space colonization scheme to improve the life of the masses. Eleanor's fanatic husband Sammy Harger, who pushed the failed plan to move some of the fifteen billion off a planet over-populated with clones and AIs too, wants a piece of his daughter's head.

This sequel is a timely frightening futuristic science fiction thriller that extrapolates much of what is happening in technology, on Wall St and in DC to paint a dark nightmarish world that makes Malthus' prediction look naively understated. Ninety-nine percent of the populace lives in poverty while the avaricious remainder manipulates events to obtain larger portions of the pie. Ellen is terrific as she struggles to take control of her mom's empire, but her adversaries are diabolical and sleazy as they control the convergence of science, money, and politics at the expense of the many. Though reading the first tale helps the audience understand what COUNTING HEADS is, this second act is a terrific thought provoking thriller that extrapolates the Bush years into the next century.

Harriet Klausner

To say that Marusek's follow-up novel to Counting Heads is high-concept, complex science fiction would be an understatement. Any attempt to describe the intricacies of his futuristic vision would take at least a dozen blog posts, because one cannot possibly understand how detailed his world is without actually reading the books and being immersed in it. That said, Mind Over Ship is the answer to all those that think science fiction has run out of ideas, because Marusek sure as hell is not short on them at all.

Having said that, I am going to use the blurb from the jacket of the book to describe Mind Over Ship, because I can't describe the book any better without going on for a week:

The year is 2135, and the international program to seed the galaxy with human colonies has stalled as greedy immortal power brokers park their starships in Earth's orbit and begin to convert them into space condos. Ellen Starke's head, rescued from the fiery crash that killed her mother, struggles to re-grow a new body in time to restore her dead mother's financial empire. And pre-Singularity AIs conspire to join the human race just as human clones, such as Mary Skarland and her evangeline sisters, want nothing more than to leave it.

Marusek has earned his place in my book of amazing science fiction writers with this piece. While Mind Over Ship is not an easy read, once you get past the initial "culture shock" it is truly gorgeous in its design. The story itself is remarkable in how it can be both insanely complex, but yet approachable and fascinating. The characters, each of them with unique plot arcs, all woven together like a fine carpet, are each equally interesting. Many of them are actually clones, a fact that seems to complicate every inch of the story as they deal with issues of "clone fatigue" or "flaws." The way Marusek weaves all of this together is indicative of his talent as a novelist. Less skilled writers would end up with a garbled mess of jumping POVs and confusing futuristic nonsense.

Perhaps the only issue with Mind Over Ship is that for casual science fiction fans it may be too difficult to get into. For seasoned readers, or readers with tastes for complicated and unique universes, Marusek's novel is a welcome retreat from the perceived death of science fiction as an ideas-genre. Mind Over Ship is what I would call a contemporary answer to Dune. Once you grasp the way Marusek's world works, it's not all that hard to follow him to the end of the story.

Having said all of the above, I'd recommend this novel to anyone interested in high-concept, complex, far-future science fiction. If you're looking for amazing ideas and unique perspectives on our future, then you need not go farther than Marusek's Mind Over Ship. It's brilliant in its complexities and one of the few novels that does everything that good, serious science fiction is supposed to do. You can take that term "serious" however you like.

MIND OVER SHIP(2009) is a continuation of the excellent COUNTING HEADS(2005), taking up the story just a few months after the last book left off.

MIND OVER SHIP is written in a slightly different format than COUNTING HEADS, with each sub-section having a title... In COUNTING HEADS, most sub-sections were non-titled, and were part of numbered Parts & Chapters in "software version number" style (e.g. 3.11); which this book doesn't utilize. I liked the previous style better, as the new style doesn't give one as much of a "feeling of accomplishment" as you work through the book.

Definitely do NOT start with this book - read COUNTING HEADS first. And, if you haven't read COUNTING HEADS in some time, go back and re-read it before attempting to read this book. I tried to go straight into this book, after having read COUNTING HEADS a number of years ago, and the characters, and activities taking place at the start of the book, were somewhat familiar, but frustratingly so. I went back and re-read COUNTING HEADS, and have started reading MIND OVER SHIP again, and now I'm able to enjoy the book.

COUNTING HEADS and MIND OVER SHIP are set in a super high-tech world in the "moderate future" - about 125 years from now... where many humans can afford to live an extended life(via expensive rejuvenation treatments), and natural child-bearing is discouraged. While the artificial intelligences have reached very advanced stages, with a great many having become "self aware", we don't have anything like a singularity - and this makes these books more "real" than the cookie-cutter "post singularity" wave of near future high-tech SciFi. The characters are varied, with a small elite upper-class dominating over a worker-class consisting of clones specifically bred for certain tasks, and a giant third world (which now encompasses the whole Earth) battling for the scraps, some grouping together into "Charters" (which are pretty much decaying Communes, that have devolved from the remnants of Capitalist partnerships from which most the original "brains" have long since divested all interest).

The threaded stories are set against an underlying backdrop, consisting of the politics and logistics of building, habbing, and embarking fleets of inter-stellar colony ships on slow journeys to colonize new nearby worlds, in order to reduce the burden of humanity on an over-populated Earth.

This recent release is a sequel to COUNTING HEADS. I consider myself most fortunate to have discovered MIND OVER SHIP first thus allowing me to read them both in order right now. May one read MIND OVER SHIP on its own? Nope, the first book, I believe, is an absolute prerequisite. The excellent news is that this is not a punishment but a benefit. I am so lucky. Imagine having to wait three years to reenter David Marusek's universe of mentars, affs, NASTIES, Oships, charters, iterants, null rooms, ..... Oh no I am waiting for the next one.

If you liked Counting Heads, the prequel to Mind Over Ship, then you will definitely like this book. Mind Over Ship is much more full of plot and more enjoyable and easier to follow along. MOS is sure to be a great read even if you are just getting into the genre.

After having read COUNTING HEADS and MIND OVER SHIP, back-to-back, all I can say is: David Marusek! Where in the heck have you been all these years? But seriously, I rate these two books as the most intelligent, the most compellingly written hard SF novels I've read in the past year, including recent releases from the likes of Alastair Reynolds (HOUSE OF SUNS), Peter F. Hamilton (THE TEMPORAL VOID), and Iain M. Banks (MATTER). Marusek's prose style is flawlessly succinct and always moving. His imagined universe--earth 100 years from now--is uncannily believable, making it seem the logical and eventual consequence of present day technology. Conflict, the essence of a good novel, is deep--i.e., "We are so good at adapting to changing conditions with our knowledge and technology that we may deceive ourselves into believing that we are above nature." Dialogue between Eleanor Starke and Merrill Meewee, MIND OVER SHIP, page 264--but not dark. In plotting his story, like the very best writers, Marusek exquisitely controls the flow and the direction of information; you must read on if you wish to discover what happens next. The characters, all of them, are memorable and believable. I personally liked Fred, the cloned security specialist, the best, but Merrill Meewee, one of the affs, was a very good guy, too. As I finish this, I'm about to pick up GETTING TO KNOW YOU, David Marusek's only collection of short stories. The only thing else I think to say is write faster, man, faster!

A beautiful and expansive transhumanist saga with a mystery woven through it, this one should be on your short list this year. Marusek uses new concepts and paradigm-shifting technology like others do adjectives - a must-read!

In 2135 the international program to seed the galaxy with human colonies has stalled, while Ellen is struggling to grow a new body in time to restore her family's financial empire. Any fan of Marusek's prior COUNTING HEADS will find this an excellent, satisfying sequel which carries on the plot and setting admirably. Science fiction libraries will relish its action and solid protagonists.