After the authorities close down the illegal world of cyberspace, home to the computer netwalkers, India Carless (alias ""Trouble"") settles down in the corporate world, until a computer hacker forces her into a deadly battle of technology and wits.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Scott's talents for creating a future both hauntingly familiar and exotically remote are showcased in this feminist cyberpunk romp. Cerise and Trouble are lesbian lovers who plug into computer networks to steal industrial secrets to sell on the gray market. Both women have been wired with the newest technology, a "brainworm" that enables them to receive sensations when they're plugged in--a development despised by the older, mostly male heterosexual "netwalkers." When Congress passes the Evans-Tindale bill to outlaw the brainworm, life on the net threatens to become more dangerous. Trouble predicts these changes and goes legit. Three years later, Cerise is working for an industrial corporation when someone begins impersonating Trouble on the nets, stealing secrets and leaving viruses behind. To save her own job and to clear her ex-lover's name, Cerise must team up with Trouble again. Their many adventures include a virtual-reality equivalent of a high-noon shootout, but loose plotting weakens the tension surrounding most of their escapades, as problems unexpectedly resolve or are simply dropped. Scott ( Dreamships ; Burning Bright ) seems more interested in using her command of the genre to explore such subjects as the importance of friendship, the strength and intelligence of women, lesbian eroticism and the workings of community.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The passage of restrictive laws governing access to the ever-growing international computer network drives professional "netwalkers" like India Carless (a.k.a. Trouble) and her lover, Cerise, out of the shadows and into the glaring lights of legitimate enterprise-until their illicit pasts emerge to haunt them. The author of Burning Bright (LJ 4/15/93) captures the spirit of new technology in a novel set partly in the next century and partly in the virtual future that is becoming today's reality. Scott's talent as a storyteller continues to grow, as evidenced by her sizzling prose and carefully balanced plotting. A priority purchase for most sf collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
two strong women, but not much more,
By
This review is from: Trouble and Her Friends (Mass Market Paperback)
This is the only novel I have read by Scott, so perhaps my take on her intentions is off, but Trouble struck me as a novel very consciously written to flout the conventions of traditional cyberpunk. As such, Scott creates two very strong female main characters who do much to carry the story which takes place as much online as off. However, the story itself is very weak with an almost transparently thin premise and flimsy supporting characters. The novel is fairly slow paced and seems to contain an inappropriately large amount of detail on very minute points (e.g. characters' clothes are described absolutely exhaustively) while major plot points go totally unaddressed or are just steamrolled over with technobabble. The ending is EXTREMELY disappointing. Many of the story's major points go completely unexplained and most of the characters introduced in the first half of the book are subsequently dropped and never returned to. I picked up this book looking for something with a somewhat different take on cyberpunk, which Trouble does provide, but I ultimately found it to be a very disappointing and frustrating read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Thriller in cyberspace,
This review is from: Trouble and Her Friends (Mass Market Paperback)
In the not-so-distant future, India Carless, known as Trouble, has left the shadowy world of cyberspace after the American government cracks down on netwalkers like her. A few years later, a new hacker pops up using the name 'Trouble' and begins creating havoc. The original Trouble comes back to clear her name and catch this new upstart, and she reconnects with old friends to do so, including Cerise, the woman she walked out on. Trouble finds a changed cyberworld hiding more dangers than she anticipated. For me the hard sci fi aspects were a bit dry, but Scott compellingly addressed various social issues and created intriguing characters ... that compelled me to continue. And I do agree that it went on too long and the ending is a bit disappointing, but overall I did enjoy the book. I like Melissa Scott's approach, so I'll probably read more by her.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Revised Review,
By R. Sundquist (Madison, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Trouble and Her Friends (Mass Market Paperback)
TROUBLE AND HER FRIENDS by Melissa Scott is a late entry to the cyberpunk genre, that darling of Eighties science fiction that treated us to virtual reality, lowlife hackers, and film noir stylings. Other writers who came before -- William Gibson, Bruce Stirling, Pat Cadigan, and maybe even Greg Bear -- delineated the genre so well that whatever followed, including later works of Gibson himself, felt like rehashes.
That's the first problem with this book, which was published in 1994. By then Neal Stephenson's SNOW CRASH had pretty much rendered classic cyberpunk obsolete. Scott's book is an entertaining but routine genre exercise. Trouble, the heroine, is a former outlaw hacker (or "cracker") on a mission to clear her name after a young upstart begins using her handle online. Along for the ride is her former lover, Cerise, and the book is sort of a tour of near-future USA -- a little more urban, a little more computer-ridden than it is today, and suffused with the Net. Ms. Scott writes reasonably well, if with a little too much detail than she sometimes needs, and her characters are likable but not very complex. Here's my biggest problem with this book, and the reason I can only rate it three out of five: Ms. Scott is torn between writing a literate work of idea-driven science fiction about the functioning of a near-future society and the relationship between technology and sexuality, and simply producing an action-oriented sci-fi story. She delivers a wealth of detail and history in the interest of world-building, much like CJ Cherryh and other women SF writers have done. At times her prose can be quite dense. But when the climax of the story comes, it's a virtual Wild West showdown between heroines and villain -- which is a bit of a disappointment. I got the feeling that Ms. Scott was a writer with something to say, but she seems to have been constrained by the alleged requirements of commercial fiction. The heroines are lesbians, which I think would be great except that for some reason it's been turned into a metaphor (both gays and hackers are society's outcasts). Maybe Ms. Scott thought she needed a "reason" -- as some readers believe -- or maybe the publishers insisted. Either way, it's a contrivance. Let them be gay without the metaphor. Regardless, it's an enjoyable read, if you don't mind the frustrating elements. I liked it, but thought Ms. Scott was capable of something a little more satisfying.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
