Tea From An Empty Cup [Hardcover]

Pat Cadigan (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Tor (2000)
• ASIN: B000MVTI1Y
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,499,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Give us a new world please..., July 16, 2000

By 

Eric Franklin (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tea From An Empty Cup (Paperback)

First of all, Pat Cadigan at her worst is better than 95% of the science fiction authors out there. With that said, this debacle, "Tea from an Empty Cup," could use a little help. What is so disappointing for me is that the general themes of this book rely so heavily on well-established cyberpunk convention. Apocalyptic cityscapes, artificial realities, and this Gibsonesque "Japanese-ness" all have been explored in more unique ways before this book. While much of the book travels this old territory, SOME of the ideas are quite good. Cadigan is at her best when exploring the nature of identity and its fallibilty in regards to technological communities - it's what she did in both "Synners" and "Fools" (both of which are better, more substantive books than this one). This book is a mild success on that front, but it fails to give us a new context in which to put it - to suss out all of the ramifications of her theories. I think this text had the potential to be much more dangerous and interesting if she had made these matters more relevant and focused, possibly by building the world of the text around her actual plot instead of this "plug-and-play" environment that has been used countless times before. Using tried tropes of the cyberpunk field is not a way to get past the work of setting up an environment that the book could actually benefit from. In fact, Cadigan would do well to try and shed herself of the "goddess of cyberpunk" moniker that she's apparently trying to keep. Cadigan is an amazing talent, a great storyteller - if she ever builds us a world as variegated as her plots and the technology being utilized, and tries to keep it relevant to modern-day readers, she's going to turn cyberpunk on its head.

It's a quick read at a short 250 pages or so. If you've read and enjoyed her other work, you'll probably be satiated. Worth reading if you've got a hankering to toy with notions of identity, but not if you've only got time for the truly revalatory.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Less is less, September 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Tea From An Empty Cup (Paperback)

Reading Tea from an Empty Cup, you get the ominous feeling that Pat Cadigan is starting to really believe her own hype, or that she has spent too much time surrounded by academic sycophants telling her she's the embodiment of feminist cyber-cool.

This is a shame, because while she has not yet written a really satisfying novel, and has never actually justified the status she has, she was at least full of ideas, and willing to play with them.

Cadigan's Empty Cup is indeed full of nothing and not in the Zen way that she implies. It is a slim novel made up of cliche, racial sterotypes, and outdated previously fashionable cyberpunk tropes. Every character and and idea seems familiar from somewhere else. It has nothing new to say, not does it shed new light on old subjects.

Particularly sad are the Japanese characters and themes - so we haven't got beyind the Japan of Zen, tatami and bunraku, have we? Just mentioning a few Japanese names and terms doesn't indicate understanding, and Cadigan's Japanese-ness seems to come from a tourist guide. Maybe that's the point, but I don't think so.

Please Pat, start again, ignore the academics, and give us something more substantial. You only get two stars because at least you can write!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tea a Deceptive Read, April 28, 2001

By 

Graham J. Murphy (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tea From An Empty Cup (Paperback)

OK, so the bulk of the reviews here don't seem to favour Cadigan's Tea from an Empty Cup. Don't let them dissuade you. Cadigan's novel is a fine read for a variety of reasons. First, it turns key cyberpunk images upside down (notably Japan's fall from dominance) while sticking to Cadigan's interest in subverting identity. Second, it is one of the few cyberpunk-inspired texts that actually considers the function of race vis-a-vis artificial realities (Gibson's Rastafarians in Neuromancer don't count since they don't access cyberspace). Third, it introduces characters that re-appear in her follow-up Dirvish is Digital. I've read the UK edition of Dervish (which doesn't get published in North American until July) and it seems Cadigan will be returning to the ambiguous ending of Tea in a future novel (the Yuki figure reappears twice in Dirvish). So, it'd be best to read Dirvish immediately following Tea as the material moves forward. Yes, Cadigan's writing style has changed, but whose hasn't after 15 years writing sf? All in all, an enjoyable read that has more going on underneath the surface than has previously been credited. Enjoy.