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Charles Platt
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The Silicon Man Hardcover – January 1, 1993

by Charles Platt (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 7 ratings
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James Bayley, an investigator for the High Technology Crime division of the FBI, investigates LifeScan, a secret project that has embezzled millions of dollars in public funds to create a detailed cyberspace that offers virtual immortality
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  1. Part of series
    The Charles Platt Science Fiction Library
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Tafford Pub
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 1993
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0962371270
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0962371271
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tafford Pub (January 1, 1993)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0962371270
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0962371271
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.06 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 7 ratings

About the author

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Charles Platt

Charles Platt

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Charles Platt is a Contributing Editor and regular columnist for Make magazine, where he writes about electronics. He is the author of the highly successful introductory hands-on book, Make: Electronics, and the sequel, Make: More Electronics.

His book Easy Electronics claims to be the easiest available introduction to the field. His Make: Tools provides a hands-on introduction to workshop tools.

Platt's ambitious reference work, Encyclopedia of Electronic Components, consists of three volumes, two of which were coauthored with physicist Fredrik Jannson.

Platt was a Senior Writer for Wired magazine. As a prototype designer, he created semi-automated rapid cooling devices with medical applications, and air-deployable equipment for first responders. He was the sole author of four mathematical-graphics software packages, and has been fascinated by electronics since he put together a telephone answering machine from a tape recorder and military-surplus relays at age 15. He lives in a Northern Arizona wilderness area, where he has his own workshop for prototype fabrication and projects that he writes about for Make magazine.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
7 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dottie Randazzo
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book Ever
Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2005
Verified Purchase
I totally loved this book. I couldn't put it down. I loved the 5 digit area codes. A must read for any sci-fi reader.
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Jim Richards
3.0 out of 5 stars Shiny
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2009
I had an uneasy feeling about this book when I read the introduction. This book (published here in 1997) is part of a series of Wired Books (from Wired Magazine) that changed the world. That's a tall order. The other books in the series have the same self-inflated sense of self worth. (The other books aren't so bad, it's just that they aren't exactly Nobel Prize level fiction.) But the thing that made me feel uneasy is that compared to the other books which are slightly better known, the author is also a contributor to Wired magazine, which smells just a bit incestuous.

As for the book itself, it has it's moments. For a 1991 work of fiction some of the ideas were pretty good at the time (but now dated.) Platt, the author, has thought a lot about the details of how to upload a mind into a computer, and some of the moral and philosophical implications of it. The end was an interesting twist, which was good to see. But I really had a bit of an issue with the writing style itself. It just wasn't so dynamic. It read more like a perfect textbook example of how to write a novel. Some pieces of the plot seemed somewhat a little to convenient. Characters were introduced the same way each time and after a while a few of them were a little two dimensional for my liking. The character I like the most was Dr Gottbaum's daughter Yumi, but she only figures in part of the book. But we never really get into some of the motivations, side thoughts or neuroses of some of the characters (but it's all we see of the others.)

I picked up the book in a discount bin at a discount book store, so I thought it was okay for what I paid for it. And I'm a sucker for a shiny cover.
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TY
4.0 out of 5 stars Kind of a precursor to "The Matrix" minus special effects
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2000
Verified Purchase
Can you live forever by electronically replicating your brain in the form of a computer program? "Uploading," as the concept is sometimes referred to, has been around in science fiction for a long time: variations of it were kicked around in episodes of the old Star Trek ("What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "I, Mudd" and "Return to Tomorrow", among others), The X-Files ("Kill Switch"), and so on.
In "The Silicon Man," Charles Platt aims at providing a technically plausible approach to uploading. The plot, such as it is, involves an FBI agent who, while investigating illegal trafficking in a special kind of gun, stumbles upon a group of scientists working on a publicly-funded project thought to have been a money sink, but which has actually succeeded beyond the wildest dreams. The scientists have to get rid of the FBI agent, but they can't quite bring themselves to kill him, so they copy his mind and put him in their electronic universe -- which is kind of like the Matrix (from the movie), though without any of the bells and whistles. Instead of Agents (the computer programs in "The Matrix") to torment our hero, however, there's the main computer scientists, who is a megalomaniac with the power to alter the computer environment as he sees fit. Yikes!
Platt pushes the science and technology reasonably far, but the concept still seems a little unbelievable. Happily, that doesn't detract from the novel, which I finished in basically one sitting.
4 people found this helpful
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