Signal to Noise (Mass Market Paperback)

by Eric S. Nylund (Author) "Jack watched his office walls sputter malfunctioning mathematical symbols and release a flock of passenger pigeons; his nose was tickled with the odor of eucalyptus..." (more)
Key Phrases: electron reactor, gene witch, anatoxic plastocene, Santa Sierra, United States, San Francisco (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Eric Nylund's fourth novel is touted by the publisher as "hyperpunk," but what is that, exactly? Is it the spastic child of cyberpunk? The willful offspring poking Father Gibson in the eye? While Signal to Noise introduces some fascinating virtual sleights of hand, the overall impression is of a continuation of the nano-techno-cyberpunk genre rather than a leap in evolution to a new form of fiction.

This latest offering from the former Microsoft employee will undoubtedly thrill writers of code and the romantics who call themselves hackers. Nylund's main characters are affixed with permanent implants allowing instant access to cyberspace; a virtuality so vivid that they often prefer the virtual over the reality. The trouble begins when Jack Potter, an encryption expert who's done some shady work for the NSO, finds and decodes a message buried in old astronomical data. Contact with the outreaching alien and information bartering result. Unfortunately, someone else is watching, too. "Down the hall, bars rattled. It was a nice touch. Cold churned in Jack's stomach, diffused down his legs and up his spine. It was synthetic fear generated by the bubble. He fought it. DeMitri took a set of keys from his pocket, picked one out, then opened a cell door ... 'Alcatraz'--he spread his arms in a grand gesture--'is a reflection of what's on your mind, Jack. Feeling guilty about something?'"

The brilliance of Signal to Noise is in the science: the idea of looking out into the swirling sea of the cosmos and finding patterns hidden amongst the static hiss of the births and deaths of stars. At times, the math itself has more depth than many of the characters, who tend to be reminiscent of stock figures in pulp fiction. Which isn't to say that there's no fun to be had here. As the novel progresses, the ante is upped until Jack is bartering the alien for Earth itself. An extra implant crammed into Jack's brain against his will is starting to burn out his optical nerve, and he's no longer sure who his friends are. Log on to Signal to Noise to find out who the bad guys are, and who, if anyone, is going to survive. --Jhana Bach --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
The future that Jack Potter lives in is one where the corporate-shark mentality has filtered into every aspect of life: from the beginning of a school career, students learn to lie, cheat, and steal in order to get the best grade. The most successful, and ruthless, are implanted with devices that link their brains to powerful computers. Over the years, Jack has done very well, climbing all the way to the prestigious Academe of Pure and Applied Sciences, where he is in a bitter fight with a rival for tenure. Using a decryption program stolen from his rival, he detects a signal in the background noise of space. He and two friends enter into an information-trading partnership with an alien race that promises amazing and potentially deadly rewards. Soon the three find themselves involved in a no-holds-barred power struggle between corporations, governments, and interstellar life-forms to see which will proffer the ultimate takeover bid. Eric Robbins --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Eos (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380792923
• ISBN-13: 978-0380792924
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #528,811 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Paranoid and Edgy, October 3, 2000

By	Andrew X. Lias "http://andrewlias.blogspot.com" (Colorado Springs, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Signal to Noise reads much like one would imagine a corraboration between Philip K. Dick and Larry Niven would read. The science is generally hard (with one exception: see below), but not nearly so hard as the oppressive sense of paranoia and lurking evil.

Everyone around Jack, the protagonist, is a potential enemy. Every time he takes a step forward, he runs the risk of finding that he's been walking in the wrong direction. Even his good intentions can have (literally) Earth shattering consequences. And we, the audience, share his paranoia. After awhile, the reader begins to feel like he's navigating a bewildering maze of smoke and mirrors, filled with razor-wire and spring-loaded spikes.

The one area where hard science gives way to soft metaphore is via the sophisticated neural-integrated virtual reality technology of the book. Here the book really starts to seem like a PDK work. In a brilliant variation of the tired, old VR theme, Nylund does not create his artificial experiences out of pixels projected on to retinas, but out of vivid metaphors projected directly into the brain. There is a very literal dream quality to those sequences, heightening the sense of paranoia and the nightmare sense of running down an infinite corridore being chased by ever-closer enemies.

It is a good book. True, it could have been better. The characters could have had a tad more depth (although, in a story filled with shadows, too much depth can be a bad thing) and some of the philosophizing strike a tin note. Never the less, it is an engaging and compelling story that plays to that part of our psyche that Kafka used to explore so very well. It was the stort of story that demanded completion by me even as I came to feel stifled by the oppressiveness of the plot. It is absolutely sadistic that it leaves so much to the sequel -- and absolutely delightful that it torments the reader by doing so.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal blend of cyberpunk, alien conspiracy, and myth., August 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Signal to Noise (Hardcover)

If you liked Snowcrash, the Amber Series, or even The Matrix, pick this one up. I first stumbled over Eric Nylund with his A Game Of Universe, which got me to read his other two novels (Pawn's Dream & Dry Water). Well, sorta...I got distracted before I could finish both of them. But when he's on, the man's ON. And this one is 10 times better than A Game of Universe. It blends future "reality" and VR with alien conspiracies and cyberspace, mythology and cut-throat business politics. It keeps turning up the heat and twisting the plot, and makes you glad the sequel is already being advertised. This is like the first time I encountered Snowcrash...I have trouble putting the book down. Easily Nylund's best to date.

30 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars illiterate writing, vapid characters, December 4, 2000

By	hypocrite lecteur (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews

I bought this book (unfortunately, along with the sequel, "The signal shattered") on the strength of the Amazon reviews and the editorial blurb alone, and was severely disappointed. Nylund's degrees in chemistry and physics do not prevent him from consistently misspelling gallium arsenide (the name of an actual, not fictional, semiconductor) as "gallium arsinide," or describing a reactor that "burns" (that is, oxidizes) iron oxide (other examples of this kind abound in the book). The blurb on the inside back cover, where Nylund's science training is proudly mentioned, also states that he graduated from some kind of writing workshop. Apparently, this did not do him much good: gems such as "The files were erased. By who?" can be found on every page (by the way, about half of the sentences in the book seem to be just this long, or shorter). By the time the reader's hopes for some kind of basic scientific credibility, or at least decent English, fade, it also becomes clear that Nylund's characters are as flat as his syntactic structures. Bottom line: don't get trapped with this book on a long flight.