In the near future, humanity will encounter a vast new intelligence. It is virtually immeasurable. It is beyond alien--and it is coming. Hendrix unleashes an electrifying new novel that returns to the universe he created in his national bestselling debut, "Lightpaths".
Standing Wave
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this mind-bending follow-up to Lightpaths, Hendrix sets existential philosophy on a collision course with quantum physics, presenting a 21st-century world in which the line between artificial intelligence and consciousness, between information and matter, has become so teased that the universe is about to have a space-time identity crisis. A host of characters are searching for a cyberspace murderer and seeking to understand recent mysterious cosmological occurrences. Hendrix extrapolates current social, political, and environmental conditions seamlessly into this future, but his discussions of scientific theory will many readers circling dangerously close to their own "information density singularity." Dialogue consists mainly of characters trying to explain the inexplicable: "The noosphere is becoming involuted into what Teilhard called a Hyperpersonal Consciousness... Matter and consciousness will reach the terminal phase of their convergent integration and become one." It also doesn't help that events and concepts are often explained long after initial references to them have befuddled readers. Still, Hendrix's postulation that "Everything happens twice?first as theology, then as technology" is compelling and worth the struggle to keep up with him.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Deeply felt (no doubt), cautious, and philosophical, STANDING WAVE is also rich, fearless, and ultimately powerful. Critic F.R. Leavis once said, "what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them." The noise that can be heard [on reading STANDING WAVE] is that of past texts reshuffling themselves into a new order. -- Nova Express, Fall/Winter 1999
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
New-age technobabble about consciousness and enlightenment,
By A Customer
This review is from: Standing Wave (Paperback)
The book is about the "enlightenment" of the universe.Most of the book are technobabble about consciousness, with not much actually happening.Unfortunately, the author uses a lot of technical words without knowing their meaning.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
isn't it a serial?,
By Peter E. McDonough (Tokyo) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Standing Wave (Paperback)
I read 127 pages and was totally lost. There were so many subplots and the amount of assumed knowledge was staggering - I thought I was going senile. I couldn't weave any of the parts together - and I have a very high tolerance for ambiguity in SF. Then I realized that there had to have been a previous novel - one section, where there is a plot line about "tepui" and mushroom spores made me feel as if I was back in college and eating mescalin musrooms - it made no sense whatsoever - so hopefully (I luckily purchased LIGHT- PATHS when I bought STANDING WAVE) when I read the earlier book I can then understand what is going on. Also, there are just too many ideas here - making reference to some philosphical school without actually discussing it seems to me sophomoric and pretentious - either this is a novel that is trying to reach a wider audience or it is a mastabatory experience for a select "in" readership - you want to write a novel about philosohy? Sorry, it's been done with SOPHIE'S WORLD. I hope I didn't waste money on these two novels - it is very frustrating to read over 100 pages and then realize you are not being given all the necessary info to decode the writer's message. PLEASE say that something is part of a series even if the author feels a book can "stand alone" it should be part of the publishers message to the buyer that it would be best if the reader reads the earlier novels.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Confused and unenlightened,
By Harry (Texas) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Standing Wave (Paperback)
I've been a Science Fiction reader for most of my life and have rarely come across a more unreadable book. It was very disjointed and served 'philosophy' to an unendurable point. The premise was interesting and drew me to it in the first place. The best comparison to be made with this book is to New Age pseudo-science and not Science Fiction. The use of complex (poorly understood) wording and longwinded discussions without basis does not serve the reader. The techno-babble comment from a prior review was well founded. Not recommended.
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