Customer Reviews

Standing Wave

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Normally, I enjoy a novel with a firm grasp of the lexicon combined with a comprehension of the science and the philosophy of life; however, I did not enjoy this book. I really tried. I appreciated his first book and thought if I just kept mucking through that I would come to enjoy even his self-conscious "witty" wordplay and mixed up physics/philosophy but at the end I was bothered that I'd wasted my time. Too often I found myself jolted by the authors insertion into the narrative in the sense that he too obviously finds himself very clever and thinks that the reader should also find him extremely erudite and jocose AND scientifically brilliant. As a person with degrees in hard science, psychology and philosophy I found many of his characters discourses reminiscent of late night student conversations while under the influence of too much food and/or intoxicants. Not surprisingly, we were galling to everybody but ourselves as well.

I usually don't review books but some of the other reviews of this book were, I thought, rather unkind so anyway here is my two cents... first of all the author is true to the genre - 'Standing Wave' is nothing if not speculative and the authors grappling with the bleeding edge of theoretical physics, artificial intelligence and information theory is well done and integral to the story. The characters are interesting and multidimensional as, in some 'big idea' science fiction, they are not and the story itself is well structured. I don't think the novel gets lost in subplots but the previous reviewers who mentioned the fact that a lot of what happens is based on Hendrix's earlier work seem to be correct (I say seems because I have not read his other work yet but it is true that the characters constantly refer to earlier events and you definitly feel like you are missing something if you haven't read the prequel). Even so the book is excellent and it does stand alone though I am adding 'Lightpaths' to my reading list. Another point I would like to make is that the author does not drag the book out - this could easily have been a 600 to 700 page book but Hendrix resists the tempatation to have his characters engage in endless monologues to make his point. His science is, contrary to what other reviews said, founded firmly in the more cutting edge speculation I have read about string theory, artificial intelligence not to mention the possibilities of evolved consciousness and the philosophical ideas of Tielhard, Jung, RAW, Tim Leary, Terrance McKenna etc, etc. I don't see the 'New Age' criticism as being very appropriate either, there really isn't anything here that falls into the kind of shiny happy goofiness that I, at least, associate with New Age 'thinking' and the author is never heavy handed or preachy - his characters have points of view but they are consistant and plausable. Anyway, if the book has a flaw it may be that there are places where Hendrix left me wishing for more, some of the most interesting characters appear all too briefly and the end is a bit disappointing but all in all this is one of the better science fiction books from a 'new' author I have read in a while and it is well worth the time. Also, for the previous reviewer, mescalin is the psychoactive component in Peyote which is a cactus, not a mushroom.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, is one way to summarize this book. As an exploration of the nature and scope of human consciousness this book has few rivals, if any, in modern science fiction. Putting down the book every few pages is the only way to absorb all the different levels on which this book can operate(if you give it the chance). It also keeps you from burning out :). While there are a few slow passages, the momentum this book builds up, on a meta-physical level as well as a story level, drives you on to the conclusion. The concept of a standing wave relentlessly and effortlessly pushing forward, is carried forth here in many ways. The story paths all share elements of parallelism and inevitable collision, in a way that is so fun to read about, and is somehow threatening as well. What a read. What a blast. Anyone who is widely read in science fiction and philosophy should find this book just fascinating. I highly recommend it.

Let me first admit that I did not finish this book. The plot apparently depends on reading the author's previous work. Characters, ideas, and plots seem to just appear in mid-stride. I kept extrapolating what must have gone before to make sense of the book. The other problem was the lack of any real direction. Characters just appear, pontificate over some very questionable philosophy and physics, and then just leave. Even this might be acceptable if the philosophy and/or physics were interesting. However, the author seems to think throwing together ideas that sound good result in a coherent philosophy. For example, one "idea" is that something called informational complexity, as a result of expanded human consciousness, will result in some type of physical subspace conduit through which people can travel. In Hard science fiction the extrapolations conform to our basic concepts of reality. Speculative science fiction builds a world view that is separate from our scientific ideas, but still internally consistent. Combining these two types of science fiction results in this book.

I have tried to read this book 5 or 6 times, never getting past page 50. Despite the glowing remarks about the book, which drew me in in the first place, this book has been unreadable for me and remains on my "unread" shelf since its purchase a year after its publication. I simply cannot follow what is going on (or what isn't going on). Nice try, though, Mr. Hendrix.

Hendrix uses physics and philosophy as the basis of a story which
extrapolates from a unified field theory of existence. Matter and particles are only special kinds of waves or energy.

A lot is going on it this book. The internet achieves such information
density and complexity that it becomes sentient. A young man dies and his brain is used by a corporation as a data-handler. The universe itself becomes sentient and self directed.

On the most basic level, this story is a murder mystery, with some entity -- person? artificial intelligence? what? -- horribly killing people with some internet borne agency. On another level it is a political thriller, with a secret agent of a right wing Christian nation recruited by the internet killer to start trouble. There is a great scene when the Christian undercover agent visits a goth amusement park with a H.P. Lovecraft theme, complete with live performances by a Cthulhu-like giant squid.

Most of the narrative is simple, straight ahead and crystal clear. Other parts hope to suggest technical expertise and profundity in the way of most professions: unfamiliar vocabulary or jargon. I don't have the background to be sure, but most of this vocabulary is certainly in common use in various scientific and academic fields, while some Hendrix may have coined as needed. Sometimes the characters, instead of being sleepy after a big meal, feel "postprandial lassitude." This is a rewarding, entertaining novel, but not light reading. Hey, I like books with challenging vocabularies.

I think the backside blurb of the book has sought out the wrong audience. "Heinlein if he had read Gibson" says Sawyer on the back of the book. So we expect a writing style similar to Heinlein's - the younger Heinlein at that. But Hendrix has a style different from Heinlein's - not the same tendency of going straight for the main point and the action, for one. So obviously those who seek for more Heinlein will be disappointed. As we can see from the reviews below.

But Hendrix premises are intriguing; present him on his own premises, and evaluate him from that.

(I had to get this review off my chest even though I am still at the beginning of the book. My rating is therefore still in neutral - 3 - until I've read the book to the end.)