Coils (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author), (Author) "Clickaderick. Clickaderick. Starboard, two degrees. Click. Click. . . . And through the half-built drowse-dream, words unlaunch a thousand ships, burn my topless towers, aluminum..." (more)
Key Phrases: computer activity, Willy Boy, Big Mac, The Boss (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A new entity is being born. Its cells are microprocessors, its soul lives in data banks from Wall Street to Red Square. It is neither good nor evil. But it is very dangerous. The Angra Oil Corporation thinks it is just another resource to be used up....

Coils: The story of a man and a woman trapped in the battle between a soulless corporation and the soul of a new machine.

About the Author

In addition to the popular Dracula Series, Fred Saberhagen is the author of the popular Berserker (tm) Series and the bestselling Lost Swords and Book of Lost Swords. Fred Saberhagen lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Tor Science Fiction (June 15, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812558774
• ISBN-13: 978-0812558777
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,955,105 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent S-F intrigue, June 20, 2001

By	G. Swift "97jedi" (Southwestern Missouri) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having met a new love, Don decides, on an impulse, to return home and have her meet his family. Imagine his surprise when he realizes that he has never been to his hometown! Apparently his entire past has been implanted, and he is determined to discover the truth of his life.

What follows is a VERY well-written tale in a very classic style. He meets up with former associates who were happy with his amnesiac state. They of course object most strenuously to his recovering memory, and they try to arrest his progress in increasingly lethal degrees. Eventually they resort to kidnapping the only loved one Don has, and that is beyond tolerance.

This novel is not very long, taking just a couple hours to read, but there are moany things that the authors foresaw (in 1982) that have more or less come to be, like universal access to facilities like banking from any computer outlet (one of the minor such cases). He is aided by a very unique ability, the reason his associates fear him, that of a sort of machine telepathy. He is able to send his consciousness into any electronic device. This you can bet comes in very handy in such a technological (1994!) setting.

I have only recently begun tracking down all of Zelazny's books, this being the third I have read, and I consider this to be a great novel. There is good character advancement, well-written first-person perspective, and action without excessive gratuitous violence.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but not great Zelazny, with a dash of Saberhagen, February 13, 2005

By	T. D. Welsh (Basingstoke, Hampshire UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This thoughtfully illustrated little book will provide anyone with a fine day's entertainment. For Zelazny fans, it is something more - even a mediocre Zelazny is better than most writers' best. Fred Saberhagen's contribution was not so obvious to me, although no doubt it had to do with the "conscious computer" aspect of the plot.

The action moves right along from the start, in a version of the "Wait a minute - I don't know who I am!" scenario that appears in Edward Dmytryk's movie "Mirage", Heinlein's short story "The Strange Profession of Jonathan Hoag", A.E. van Vogt's "The World of Null-A" and Desmond Bagley's fine thriller "The Tightrope Men".

Challenged by his new girlfriend Cora, Don BelPatri begins to wonder about his idyllic existence. Living in Florida, comfortably well off, enjoying life day to day, he has only vague recollections of his earlier life. But when he takes Cora to see his parents, he finds that he has never before seen the town he thought of as home. When he has himself examined by a psychologist, the man is found dead the very next morning. Then Don discovers that his mind can reach out and "see" the internal states of computers - and even change them.

The tension is built up skilfully as more and more of the truth is revealed, and Don finds himself up against formidable and ruthless enemies. Although his growing ability to control all kinds of electronic equipment gives him a huge advantage, in the end he needs all the help he can get from his friends - and even some of his enemies.

Don's ability to exercise direct mental control over computer circuitry remotely is a mixture of inspiration and naivete that only a handful of authors could pull off. "Coils" was published four years before William Gibson's first novel, "Neuromancer" appeared in 1986, but Alfred Bester had explored similar ideas in "The Computer Connection" (1973) and subsequent work. Bester's thinking seems to have paralleled Zelazny's, as can be seen from their later collaboration on "Psychoshop".

Zelazny was to take the theme much further, for instance in "24 Views of Mt Fuji, by Hokusai" (in "The Last Defender of Camelot") and his last, unfinished, novel, the magisterial "Donnerjack"...

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A moderately interesting collaborative novel, February 21, 2000

By	Jvstin "Paul Weimer" (Circle Pines, MN United States) - See all my reviews

A moderately interesting collaborative novel between Fred Saberhagen and the late, lamented Roger Zelazny. It feels a little dated in its treatment of computers, but somewhat entertaining nevertheless.