Customer Reviews

Silicon Man, The

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
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Can you live forever by electronically replicating your brain in the form of a computer program? "Uploading," as the concept is sometimes referred to, has been around in science fiction for a long time: variations of it were kicked around in episodes of the old Star Trek ("What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "I, Mudd" and "Return to Tomorrow", among others), The X-Files ("Kill Switch"), and so on.

In "The Silicon Man," Charles Platt aims at providing a technically plausible approach to uploading. The plot, such as it is, involves an FBI agent who, while investigating illegal trafficking in a special kind of gun, stumbles upon a group of scientists working on a publicly-funded project thought to have been a money sink, but which has actually succeeded beyond the wildest dreams. The scientists have to get rid of the FBI agent, but they can't quite bring themselves to kill him, so they copy his mind and put him in their electronic universe -- which is kind of like the Matrix (from the movie), though without any of the bells and whistles. Instead of Agents (the computer programs in "The Matrix") to torment our hero, however, there's the main computer scientists, who is a megalomaniac with the power to alter the computer environment as he sees fit. Yikes!

Platt pushes the science and technology reasonably far, but the concept still seems a little unbelievable. Happily, that doesn't detract from the novel, which I finished in basically one sitting.

I had an uneasy feeling about this book when I read the introduction. This book (published here in 1997) is part of a series of Wired Books (from Wired Magazine) that changed the world. That's a tall order. The other books in the series have the same self-inflated sense of self worth. (The other books aren't so bad, it's just that they aren't exactly Nobel Prize level fiction.) But the thing that made me feel uneasy is that compared to the other books which are slightly better known, the author is also a contributor to Wired magazine, which smells just a bit incestuous.

As for the book itself, it has it's moments. For a 1991 work of fiction some of the ideas were pretty good at the time (but now dated.) Platt, the author, has thought a lot about the details of how to upload a mind into a computer, and some of the moral and philosophical implications of it. The end was an interesting twist, which was good to see. But I really had a bit of an issue with the writing style itself. It just wasn't so dynamic. It read more like a perfect textbook example of how to write a novel. Some pieces of the plot seemed somewhat a little to convenient. Characters were introduced the same way each time and after a while a few of them were a little two dimensional for my liking. The character I like the most was Dr Gottbaum's daughter Yumi, but she only figures in part of the book. But we never really get into some of the motivations, side thoughts or neuroses of some of the characters (but it's all we see of the others.)

I picked up the book in a discount bin at a discount book store, so I thought it was okay for what I paid for it. And I'm a sucker for a shiny cover.

The basic plot here is that a somewhat shady research group has been illicitly using government grants and black-market trading to finance the development of a project that will provide them with electronic immortality - their brains will be scanned into an online computer system where they can live forever. The black market dealings attract the attention of an FBI agent, and since he is about to blow their cover, the mad scientists kidnap him and use him as their first "test subject". Of course, the process of scanning the brains also destroys the brain tissue, so his physical body is killed in the process. The bulk of the book focuses on the agent's struggle to adapt to his new existence and keep the mad scientists from destroying him, and on his wife's struggle to find out what happened to him -- with some help from the mad scientist's daughter. A little simplified, of course, but this is the jist of it.

I probably would have enjoyed this book more had I not previously read another that did a far better job with the same topic - John Saul's 'Shadows'. In that book, the mad scientists in question are using the brains of genius but troubled children - creating a much more intriguing perspective on the events. 'Shadows' also does a better job with character development and providing a three-dimensional backstory.

This is a wonderful book in my opinion, and it really gave me the chills. We have a long way to go before reaching the stage predicted by Charles Platt, but he writes a truly believeable story about a chilling and profoundly disturbing future. Also, I have never been more scared when reading a murder scene! I only wish that Wired Books will continue with these series, White Light is also excellent, and I would never have found these gems had they not been published anew by this company. The cover design and overall design of the books is excellent too! Two thumbs up for both Charles Platt and Wired Books!

and they will be hooked. I devoured Platt's volume on a recent vacation and enjoyed it greatly. Two non-sci-fi readers have read my copy and they loved it. This is a gripping tale that begs to be made into a first-rate movie.

By no means was I disappointed, but frankly a lot of the plot was weak enough to allow the fact that is was merely there to display the concepts show thru.

However, the concepts themselves were very well detailed and quite plausible, even if I /would/ prefer to think you could record someone NONdestructively.

Overall, it was worth the money and definitely worth reading. But if you're not obsessed with the idea of digital immortality, I don't know how much you'll like it.

I totally loved this book. I couldn't put it down. I loved the 5 digit area codes. A must read for any sci-fi reader.