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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Old Nova still alive, maybe worth rescuing from trite debris, January 15, 2002
Once you get beyond the science fiction trappings, the clichés and the weak plotting, which may take some patience and more than one attempt at reading the book, you will probably enjoy the powerfully drawn atmosphere, the seamless sequence of doom, the many excellent details that give this book life in spite of itself. You will also encounter much derivative material; lots of the same ground has been covered far more daringly by people like P. K. Dick thirty years or longer ago. If you like Nova, much of this book takes you back to the crystalline, taut characterizations of his older books, which were absent from some of his more recent works. If you want insight into the issues he raises, such as genetic tampering, corrupt power structures, conflicted and doomed individuals, human identity -- get ready for disappointment, because he barely skims the surface and gets carried away by his elegant, beautiful writing. As a study in ennui, this one's lovely, and brings some of the tortured characters you never get enough of when Nova describes them. Bt that might not appeal to you unless you have a strong affinity with the way he presents the material.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nova At His Best, Couldn't Put It Down, January 27, 2002
Wetware is another gem in the Nova collection. I bought the book yesterday and haven't done anything but read it since. Nova combines the adventures of characters Jack and Kay with the more sinister implications of the human genome project in this compelling, suspenseful novel. Michael Dirda, reviewing Wetware in the Washington Post, said it best: "This is a haunting, heart-stoppingly exciting, brilliantly structured novel of suspense, ideas and subtle characterization." The only thing I add is this: a good read is hard find and Nova has once again delivered.
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17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Wet What?, February 26, 2003
Review of Wetware by Craig Nova Though officially titled Wetware, this novel would more appropriately be titled Wet Dream. The writer's misogyny is so consistently intrusive that it becomes the novel protagonist. Nova's world-building is vague, unconvincing, and clichéd, often more concerned with what his characters consider a hip outfit than with the physical, political, psychological or sociological description of his unnamed city. The book is dominated by unrealistic, ill-thought-out characters; and by the objectification and humiliation of women, both real and manufactured.
Hal Briggs, the protagonist, works at Galapagos Wetware where his first project "had been to design workers who would do jobs that no one else wanted."
The first and only hint that creating human-like life in a laboratory is controversial also comes in the opening pages when Brigg's boss congratulates himself on beginning to make these creatures "when other people were still worrying about whether or not such things should be done at all."
Not satisfied with creating slaves to work as janitors and garbage men, Briggs creates a gorgeous sex slave (named Kay) and programs her to love him unconditionally. He adds the capacity to reproduce to the mix of characteristics and so the stage is set for predictable disaster.
The novel's fantastic setting is never fully described, the details of his unnamed city shimmer before us like a heat mirage, evaporating as we approach.
What is most disappointing about this book is its deception. In the beginning, it appears to mimic those rare and wonderful works that delve into the philosophical underpinnings of scientific advance, raising questions and providing society with a forum for contemplation, and exploration of possible outcomes. These books live long in our memories: Brave New World; 1984; and closer to home the work of P.K. Dick and Margaret Attwood's The Handmaiden's Tale. True, with the exception of Attwood, these works are often high on meaning, and low on literary language, but the depth of their understanding of the human condition transcends bad writing. Nova's command of language is masterful, but beautiful prose isn't sufficient to transcend his superficiality, amorality, and perversion.
Instead of a novel exploring the moral and philosophical implications of artificial intelligence we have a book that reveals in, indeed celebrates, the possibilities offered by laboratory created life forms.
Nova writes at length about the nature of truth and beauty, yet depriving Kay of free will, thus enslaving her, is a perversion of real grace, beauty and love. Indeed, Nova articulates a lingering American nostalgia for slavery. After all, what else is it when something that looks and feels like a human, but has no free will, is compelled to stroke the needs of its owner up to and including performing sexual acts? Briggs is soothed and nurtured by the love equivalent of breast implants. Genuine female consent, in Mr. Nova's world, is irrelevant to male pleasure, and the erotic is not contingent upon it.
There is little unique or original in Nova's setting, rather it is a hodge podge of hackneyed and clichéd settings from science fiction films like Bladerunner and Terminator. Nova can't even come up with a unique crisis for his society to face. Instead, just as the Bunker-Hunt family did in Texas during the 1980s "a group of investors in India had been trying to manipulate silver futures."
Wetware is thin on plot and suspense. What plot exists is resolved by about half way through. Relieved of the tedium of storytelling, Nova's principal interest--ogling at, and touching women--comes to the fore. Because so many of the women in this book are artificially created replica's, with all their feelings, thoughts, and responses programmed into them, Nova is effectively erotosizing slavery.
The moral and philosophical assumptions of Wetware are repugnant to anyone who values free will. I found the misogynist objectification of women distressing to read.
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