Customer Reviews

Realtime Interrupt

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

James P. Hogan is one of my two favorite living SF writers and the only one of the two who writes "hard" SF (the other one is Spider Robinson). I've been reading his stuff since the late 1970s and I think this novel is one of his best.

The premise, of course, is that virtual reality has reached such an advanced stage of development that it's not easy to distinguish the "virtual" from the "real"; the essential plot element is that Joe Corrigan is trapped inside a simulation he helped to create. The reader knows all of this from the beginning, but for obvious reasons (and some that are not so obvious) it takes the protagonist a while to work it out.

That's where much of the tension in the novel comes from. It's so clear to the reader what's going on that you'll want to reach into the page and say, "Joe, man, wake up and _think_. Don't you _know_ where you are?" This effect is heightened by a couple of really really obvious details that you'll almost physically itch for Joe to notice.

But much of what makes the story _interesting_ is the extremely plausible tale Hogan tells about the development of the technology itself. Hogan does this sort of thing better than nearly any other SF writer past or present, and this novel is no exception; indeed, when virtual reality really does reach this level of development, it may well have gotten there by roughly the path Hogan describes.

Anyway, I can't tell you much else without spoiling the story. All I can do is mention in a general way that, as usual with Hogan, the story is full of mind-blowingly cool touches.

But speaking of spoilers, here's a warning: just inside the front cover, the current edition includes an excerpt that you probably shouldn't read before you read the book. Somebody made a bad editorial decision here: the excerpt comes from near the _end_ of the book and it gives some things away too early.

Hogan is all-but-unarguably the finest writer of "hard" SF today. Start here or start somewhere else -- but if you like good SF, start somewhere.

Realtime Interrupt is very much a typical James Hogan novel. His standard formula has been to take a technology that may be reachable in the near future, find a beliveable way to achieve it, and wrap a novel with interesting people and plot around the concept.

Realtime Interrupt tackles two problems at once, artificial intelligence, long a favorite subject of Hogan's, and virtual reality. Certain things, such as the fact that the world Joe wakes up in at the beginning is an artificial world, are made plain from the start, even if he takes a while to discover it. As such, it does echo some of the themes of The Matrix, but without the gunfights and (bleah) goth elements. In many ways this book is "anti-cyberpunk," with a lot of the themes and ideas in a "normal" world instead of a corporate-trash ridden dystopia.

As usual, the technology is fascinating, the characters are engaging, even they are not the most well rounded, the plot moves at a brisk, even pace, and the world (in this case Pittsburgh and Ireland) feels natural. Despite not having any real plot *twists*, it never quite went in the direction I was expecting, either. Joe is not the typical Hogan hero, having immersed himself in the world of political infighting before settling down in a more sedate role. Realtime Interrupt is a good book for anyone with an interest in technology and a nice understated yarn.

It's a bleeding shame that the moment I bought this book, it seemed to drop out of print. A shame, I say, because this is the book I would throw into the face of anyone who says that Mr. Hogan (or Hard SF writers in general) don't care about their characters, only about technology.

The beginning is slow going, if only because the main character hasn't figured out what is so painfully obvious from the title. But what seems boring and unnecessary in the first half becomes, suddenly (like a baseball bat SMACK! in the back of your head), completely necessary, integral, and absolutely fascinating.

REALTIME INTERRUPT is many things -- cyberpunk (kind of), mystery, thriller, puzzle-story. But at its center, it is a tale of being able to go back again and fix your mistakes. And the message is, quite simply, you can't go back again, even if you can -- but you can start over, and that's almost as good.

This book requires patience in the beginning, but once you're halfway through, you'll wish it was twice as long just so the author can infuriate you some more. If you can find it, read it.

This is another one of those novels that make me wish that Amazon used a slightly more flexible rating system. To me a three star rating means that the book is either free of significant faults but fails to excel or excels in some way but contains significant faults. On the other hand I believe a rating of four stars indicates that the book is both free of significant faults AND excels in some way. This novel transcends this rating scale and does not fit. I do think that this book contains significant faults, which I will explore further, but I also believe it excels in certain areas far higher then any average book does. For this reason I rate the book four stars.

Realtime Interrupt by James Patrick Hogan is an exploratory novel. What I mean by exploratory is that the novel explores human reaction to stress events that don't exist today. The topic of exploration in this novel is virtual reality and to a limited extent artificial intelligence. I know what some of you may be thinking. Virtual Reality exists today. Well, virtual reality most certainly does not exist in the way in which it is shown in this tale. The story follows one persons story in several stages of the virtual reality experience, creation, testing and moral questioning. There are several other well-defined characters included but they are in the story in as much as they impact or are impacted by the primary character. I really can't go too much further into the story without ruining some rather clever plot twists.

The novel excels in its painting of the primary characters personal growth. The book also does an excellent job of painting a realistic picture of the science involved. This is always a strong aspect of Hogan stories.

The weakest part of the book, in my opinion, is the ancillary stories that surround the primary character and his tale. The book seemed at times bogged down by detail, which was necessary but perhaps served up a tad awkwardly.

All faults aside this book was a great read. This is one of those novels, which you read and you keep reading even if it meanders a bit on the way because you absolutely must read the conclusion. In many way it reminds me of Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card in that respect.

A great read and a book I can recommend to virtually anyone.

I've read LOTS of Hogan's books and normally love them, but this one seemed to drag a bit in the middle. I found myself skimming the chapters around 2/3's of the way through and just reading the last 50 pages to find out what happened.

It got a bit bogged down in the inter-corporate politics of the characters. Perhaps some would say that "fleshes out" the characters, but I'm more intrigued with the premise and how the characters are dealing with the virtual reality. Not whether or not the main character is going to get promoted.

A little predictable in the plot (!) but still a fun ride to get there and, as always, with the Hogan's marvelous talent at getting the science right (or at least making it seem so believable that it MUST be real somewhere). The predictability isn't really a negative, but no curve balls at the end.

In the end, I would recommend other titles he's done over this one and I can't see myself saving this book to re-read later. Harsh I know, but he's set a pretty high bar for himself with past books (a double-edged sword).

One of my favorite books in my growing collection of what I call "rogue AI" stories, Realtime Interrupt takes the Turing Test and stands it on its head by asking, "Could you tell the difference between an AI and a human, if no one told you that you were adminstering the test in the first place?"

The ending gets a little silly. But as a follower of AI technology, I greatly enjoyed watching the dynamics of the characters. The scene where one of the AIs attempts to tell a joke is perhaps my favorite moment in my entire collection.

While the plot was rather straight forward in hind sight, I found the technology aspect fascinating. I wish he had gone more in depth into the possible uses of the machine. All in all, a good book to get, if only for the more technical information. (The author does admit that he came up with this and isn't quite sure it will work. I think it shows promise. In about 100 years or so.

Hogan is the best "hard" science fiction author since Larry Niven. He gets into the science of using direct neural inputs to create a completely realistic virtual reality environment

Well this a perfect book for all you folks out there waiting for another Snow Crash. This is just the kind of Book I love. It's cyberpunk at it's finest. Believeable but just slightly ahead in tech. Perfect book, great price. Buy it...you won't go wrong. It is a VERY good book for anyone looking for a good computer Virtual Reality adventure. EJ

This book is OK