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The Nanotech Succession #1
The Bohr Maker
Nikko is the first true "post human"-a man genetically engineered to survive in the airless void of space-but the research permit that allows his existence is about to expire. His body has already begun an insidious, pre-programmed failure that will end in his death. Nikko's only hope for survival rides on an illegal and extremely powerful nanotech device known as the Bohr Maker, that will allow him to rewrite his genetic code and extend his life. He attempts to steal the Maker from the archives of the Commonwealth police, but his plan goes awry. The device escapes into the wild, infecting a young woman named Phousita who lives in an impoverished slum where nanotechnology is regulated only by the black market. Phousita's genetic code is rewritten by the Maker. Her senses are enhanced, and she gains extraordinary powers of healing, but like Nikko she has become a fugitive. The Commonwealth police are on the hunt, determined to sterilize all traces of the Bohr Maker before it can be copied and spread throughout the population. Together, Phousita and Nikko must evade a ruthless pursuit, both to preserve their own lives and to save the Bohr Maker, which holds the promise of re-defining humanity-for good or for ill.A brilliantly original, fast-paced thriller, The Bohr Maker won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. The Bohr Maker is Book 1 of The Nanotech Succession, a collection of stand-alone novels exploring the rise of nanotechnology and the strange and fascinating future that follows.
326 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1995
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About the author
Linda Nagata
105 books647 followersI'm a writer from Hawaii best known for my high-tech science fiction, including the near-future thriller,
The Last Good Man
, and the far-future adventure series, INVERTED FRONTIER.
Though I don't review books on Goodreads, I do talk about some of my favorite books on my blog and those posts are echoed here. So I invite you to follow me for news of books and many other things. You can also visit my website to learn more about my work, and to sign up for my newsletter.
Though I don't review books on Goodreads, I do talk about some of my favorite books on my blog and those posts are echoed here. So I invite you to follow me for news of books and many other things. You can also visit my website to learn more about my work, and to sign up for my newsletter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 123 reviews
September 11, 2013
This is a stunning cyberpunk novel by a female writer, so close to classic cyberpunk (in the sense that it has not diluted the hard SF feel of the sub-genre) and yet so closely affiliated with its more politically correct, flexible successor feminist cyberpunk. Along with Melissa Scott's Trouble and Her Friends, it is one of those few hard SF works that, while staying true to the specifications of classic cyberpunk simultaneously break its boundaries boldly – or rather, I should say, expand the horizons of classic cyberpunk to make it more inclusive.
The world is divided into two political factions – one part allied with the Commonwealth government, which strictly controls biotechnology and ensures the new systems are registered and do not exceed its stringent specifications – in order to stay in power and do away with potential better programs that may usurp its dominance (so reminiscent of WTO, isn’t it?)
The other part is Spill, that has decided to remain independent of the coalition, but which is nevertheless governed by Commonwealth laws on bio-tech, making it a ripe place for all illegal bio-tech and their Makers to indulge in black-marketing. A slum-infested, poverty-ridden, ugly place, the under-belly of the squeaky- clean Commonwealth.
Nikko is the world’s first “posthuman” – a code of programming with free-will that is bound to expire after the treaty with Commonwealth expires – but he wishes to live, and decides to steal a powerful program – called the Bohr Maker – to ensure he will live on. But the program escapes and ends up in the body of an illiterate, impoverished prostitute Phousita in Spill, who has no understanding of it and thinks she is possessed by a spirit.
With the Commonwealth police on her heels for a program she doesn’t know she possesses, she becomes a fugitive, and with Nikko (and an interesting horde of characters), must escape and find a way to deal with the Bohr Maker. (Of course, this is only the thinnest plot – the vastly interesting other sub-plots are left out to make it a spoiler-free review).
The GR blurb is brilliant - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...
The classic cyberpunk feel is so obvious – the radical breakdown in the political/social aspects strongly alludes to the present world – the Commonwealth representing the “Big, bad corporations” while Nikko, Phousita and other characters are, basically, the punk elements, the rebels who break the rules, who exist on the fringes of the corporate world represented by Kirstin.
It was well paced, thought-provoking. With the main character being a genetically engineered post-human struggling to keep himself alive, it is evident that it will tease our notions of what it means to be human. But it goes a step further - - which makes it harder.
What is consciousness without a body? How far does a body determine our identity as a human or a living entity? What kind of post-humanism will it be when you can create multiple ghosts of yourself, some of which will not return to you to save you from painful memories? Or when a ghost, its body destroyed, has to merge with a larger network, so that it can go places mentally, but not physically? What is it to be alive? Is it the mind or the body? What is a mind without a body of its own? What happens when a male ghost inhabits a female body? Does it matter? Or does it matter if the mind is preserved, but has no body, and has to exist only as a programming code?
Much unexpected, it was a pleasant change in the cyberpunk comeback to see female characters of consequence. Equally laudable is Phousita’s foil – Kirstin, again a woman, but the exact opposite of the warm, caring Phousita. Kirstin’s negative portrayal completes the circle of breaking female stereotypes as either too-good or too-bad women.
Like classic cyberpunk, it deals with the question of what it means to be human, and the Gibson-esque issue of the merging of metal and “meat”. Like its feminist successor, it teases our expectations of one body, one mind – this is a world where a part of your consciousness, your ghost can be sent out for a virtual meeting, and the ghost might return to you and fill in the info to your mind, or might not, if it deems the info too painful for you to bear. And not one, but innumerable ghosts can be downloaded or uploaded in the atriums of other people’s minds. It is a world where one can live with the ghosts of other people in their minds.
On the surface, it is a Neuromancer kind of novel – fast-paced, full of amiable twists, breathtaking possibilities and radical ideas about the future – but it is also a deeper novel, questioning our notions of what it means to be alive, and what it means for a woman to wield power through technology. Phousita is a prime example, and Kirstin is her foil – both are women in control of immense power – and both grow in radically different directions.
I wonder what is wrong with readers – I used to believe readers will always love a good story, the gender of the writer notwithstanding – now I’m beginning to have serious doubts.
There’s a staggering proportion of extremely creative women writers in feminist cyberpunk, all of whom are mostly unknown to most fans of classic cyberpunk, barring a few discerning, eclectic readers. Wachowski brothers, read this!
The world is divided into two political factions – one part allied with the Commonwealth government, which strictly controls biotechnology and ensures the new systems are registered and do not exceed its stringent specifications – in order to stay in power and do away with potential better programs that may usurp its dominance (so reminiscent of WTO, isn’t it?)
The other part is Spill, that has decided to remain independent of the coalition, but which is nevertheless governed by Commonwealth laws on bio-tech, making it a ripe place for all illegal bio-tech and their Makers to indulge in black-marketing. A slum-infested, poverty-ridden, ugly place, the under-belly of the squeaky- clean Commonwealth.
Nikko is the world’s first “posthuman” – a code of programming with free-will that is bound to expire after the treaty with Commonwealth expires – but he wishes to live, and decides to steal a powerful program – called the Bohr Maker – to ensure he will live on. But the program escapes and ends up in the body of an illiterate, impoverished prostitute Phousita in Spill, who has no understanding of it and thinks she is possessed by a spirit.
With the Commonwealth police on her heels for a program she doesn’t know she possesses, she becomes a fugitive, and with Nikko (and an interesting horde of characters), must escape and find a way to deal with the Bohr Maker. (Of course, this is only the thinnest plot – the vastly interesting other sub-plots are left out to make it a spoiler-free review).
The GR blurb is brilliant - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...
The classic cyberpunk feel is so obvious – the radical breakdown in the political/social aspects strongly alludes to the present world – the Commonwealth representing the “Big, bad corporations” while Nikko, Phousita and other characters are, basically, the punk elements, the rebels who break the rules, who exist on the fringes of the corporate world represented by Kirstin.
It was well paced, thought-provoking. With the main character being a genetically engineered post-human struggling to keep himself alive, it is evident that it will tease our notions of what it means to be human. But it goes a step further - - which makes it harder.
What is consciousness without a body? How far does a body determine our identity as a human or a living entity? What kind of post-humanism will it be when you can create multiple ghosts of yourself, some of which will not return to you to save you from painful memories? Or when a ghost, its body destroyed, has to merge with a larger network, so that it can go places mentally, but not physically? What is it to be alive? Is it the mind or the body? What is a mind without a body of its own? What happens when a male ghost inhabits a female body? Does it matter? Or does it matter if the mind is preserved, but has no body, and has to exist only as a programming code?
Much unexpected, it was a pleasant change in the cyberpunk comeback to see female characters of consequence. Equally laudable is Phousita’s foil – Kirstin, again a woman, but the exact opposite of the warm, caring Phousita. Kirstin’s negative portrayal completes the circle of breaking female stereotypes as either too-good or too-bad women.
Like classic cyberpunk, it deals with the question of what it means to be human, and the Gibson-esque issue of the merging of metal and “meat”. Like its feminist successor, it teases our expectations of one body, one mind – this is a world where a part of your consciousness, your ghost can be sent out for a virtual meeting, and the ghost might return to you and fill in the info to your mind, or might not, if it deems the info too painful for you to bear. And not one, but innumerable ghosts can be downloaded or uploaded in the atriums of other people’s minds. It is a world where one can live with the ghosts of other people in their minds.
On the surface, it is a Neuromancer kind of novel – fast-paced, full of amiable twists, breathtaking possibilities and radical ideas about the future – but it is also a deeper novel, questioning our notions of what it means to be alive, and what it means for a woman to wield power through technology. Phousita is a prime example, and Kirstin is her foil – both are women in control of immense power – and both grow in radically different directions.
I wonder what is wrong with readers – I used to believe readers will always love a good story, the gender of the writer notwithstanding – now I’m beginning to have serious doubts.
There’s a staggering proportion of extremely creative women writers in feminist cyberpunk, all of whom are mostly unknown to most fans of classic cyberpunk, barring a few discerning, eclectic readers. Wachowski brothers, read this!
January 4, 2020
3¾ body-hopping-stars
My first ever cyberpunk novel! From reading others reviews, I see I picked well. Even though it is 25 years old, it didn't show any signs of its age. The tech, world building and focus on a diverse set of characters, I felt like I was reading a 2020 release. I particularly liked the exploration of the ethics and laws of nanotechnology and how that applied to the various classes in a far future earth.
It is a thriller at heart, but the style and magic like nature of the science and narrative sometimes made for a psychedelic experience. While satisfying, I only have the barest idea of what happened in part of the ending, but I'm confident that it will all become clear in bk #2.
Overall, I can see why it won the Locus award for best first novel, it was ambitious in its scope and prose and I'm surprised it hasn't become more of a classic. Now the author has recently written the 4th in the series, maybe it will be discovered by more and earn its place.
Read for the World's Beyond the Margins Annual Reading Challenge
My first ever cyberpunk novel! From reading others reviews, I see I picked well. Even though it is 25 years old, it didn't show any signs of its age. The tech, world building and focus on a diverse set of characters, I felt like I was reading a 2020 release. I particularly liked the exploration of the ethics and laws of nanotechnology and how that applied to the various classes in a far future earth.
It is a thriller at heart, but the style and magic like nature of the science and narrative sometimes made for a psychedelic experience. While satisfying, I only have the barest idea of what happened in part of the ending, but I'm confident that it will all become clear in bk #2.
Overall, I can see why it won the Locus award for best first novel, it was ambitious in its scope and prose and I'm surprised it hasn't become more of a classic. Now the author has recently written the 4th in the series, maybe it will be discovered by more and earn its place.
Read for the World's Beyond the Margins Annual Reading Challenge
September 8, 2022
My booklog refers me to my paper journal, and continues: VG first novel.
So here is the ever-reliable Gerald Jonas of the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/14/bo...
"In a society with virtually unlimited power to "mix and mingle" genes, the law forbids augmenting "the human inheritance with nonhuman or artificial instructions," especially "machine intelligence." Offenders are destroyed for the sake of the greater good. The obvious pleasure that Kirstin takes in carrying out her official duties does not prevent her from enjoying an occasional off-hours romp with the likes of Nikko ("rhymes with psycho"), a space-adapted "freak" encased in a "living armor" of enameled "platelets." Actually, Kirstin and Nikko meet not in the flesh but through an electronically assisted simulation so convincing that she can enjoy the pressure of each smooth, cool "china-blue" platelet against her "soft and vulnerable" breasts.
As if these technological marvels were not enough to propel her narrative, Ms. Nagata envisions "programmable molecular machines" that endow their users with almost magical powers of regeneration and transformation. These too are illegal. When one such device, the Bohr maker of the title, is thrust on Phousita, who lives in a slum in one of Earth's technologically deprived back waters, the plot achieves a level of complexity that disdains not only the plausible but the comprehensible. Buried in the excess are some provocative speculations on what limits human beings can and should set on their definition of "human."
On the reread list. Sometime, maybe?
So here is the ever-reliable Gerald Jonas of the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/14/bo...
"In a society with virtually unlimited power to "mix and mingle" genes, the law forbids augmenting "the human inheritance with nonhuman or artificial instructions," especially "machine intelligence." Offenders are destroyed for the sake of the greater good. The obvious pleasure that Kirstin takes in carrying out her official duties does not prevent her from enjoying an occasional off-hours romp with the likes of Nikko ("rhymes with psycho"), a space-adapted "freak" encased in a "living armor" of enameled "platelets." Actually, Kirstin and Nikko meet not in the flesh but through an electronically assisted simulation so convincing that she can enjoy the pressure of each smooth, cool "china-blue" platelet against her "soft and vulnerable" breasts.
As if these technological marvels were not enough to propel her narrative, Ms. Nagata envisions "programmable molecular machines" that endow their users with almost magical powers of regeneration and transformation. These too are illegal. When one such device, the Bohr maker of the title, is thrust on Phousita, who lives in a slum in one of Earth's technologically deprived back waters, the plot achieves a level of complexity that disdains not only the plausible but the comprehensible. Buried in the excess are some provocative speculations on what limits human beings can and should set on their definition of "human."
On the reread list. Sometime, maybe?
December 30, 2012
Bohr Maker was Linda Nagata's debut novel and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel in 1996. It is about nanotechnology and about privilege and poverty.
Phousita is a slum girl in a future country/region that doesn't exist at present but which I read as being in southern Asia (I don't think anything specific was mentioned though, and it's possible I missed a reference). Her country isn't part of the Commonwealth, meaning that nanotechnology is less present and when present unregulated. The Commonwealth enjoys sticking its nose into other countries affairs and takes it upon itself to police everyone's nanotechnology. But it doesn't care about minor offences, only major ones which could threaten its way of life. So when Phousita is poisoned with nanotech that stunts her growth, or when her friend has his face disfigured no one cares. But as soon as an Important Person inadvertently infects Phousita with the potentially dangerous Bohr Maker (the general term for a nanotech system), the Commonwealth is all over it and Phousita is in different trouble to anything she could have imagined.
There was a lot to like about The Bohr Maker. I very much enjoyed the worldbuilding; one of my favourite things was the nanotech introduced into the river running through the slum (which was downriver of the rest of the city) which changed the water from foetid to clear with edible "fluff" floating on top of it that some of the poorest residents of the city collect to eat. Obviously, it sucks to have to eat river fluff, but how neat is the technology? It would be an awesome invention to carry through to the real world.
I liked the juxtaposition of the high technology belonging to rich people — including space stations, a sort of brain-to-brain communication system, and of course the nanotech — and the very low-tech world in the poorest regions on Earth. Phousita and her cohorts don't know what nanotechnology is and interpret as magic and curses. When Phousita is infected by and gains control of the very advanced Bohr Maker, she thinks she's possessed by a sorcerer and is becoming a witch. When she heals people with the technology, they see it as a spell. All of which makes perfect sense given the context.
What I didn't like about this book, was many of the characters. I liked Phousita, who was genuinely a nice person, and I didn't mind her friend Arif, who wasn't a nice person but understandably so, given his circumstances (actually, I thought he was OK until Phousita started getting more power and threatening his power in their little family). Nikko, a genetically engineered human designed to survive vacuum (a character like him features in Nagata's short story In The Tide, briefly reviewed here), was the other main protagonist and I liked him too. He finds himself in the rather intolerable position of having a fast-approaching expiration date on his genome. When his father created him, the Commonwealth forced him to put in the expiration date 30 years in the future, which he agreed to under the assumption that by then the law would have caught up and he could remove the fail-safe. It didn't. Nikko sets out to try to steal the Bohr Maker (before it's passed onto Phousita) to try to save himself. In the course of events he gets caught up with Phousita (and gets his brother caught up in the trouble as well).
The central character I really hated was Kirsten, the Chief of the Commonwealth police force. She was a horrible person and an unnecessarily large part of the narrative was told from her point of view. I say unnecessarily because while I acknowledge that she instigated a lot of plot-relevant things (she was the one trying to track down the Bohr Maker and get both Nikko and Phousita executed), there were also chunks of worldbuilding exposition filtered through her point of view. And really, it was her point of view that repulsed me. She didn't see Nikko as a person, but as an animal (despite, prior to the opening, conducting an affair with him) and had zero compassion for anyone. She righteously upholds the spirit of the law (not the letter) by any means necessary, with her convictions reinforced by a zealous religious belief that the Bohr Maker and any other unsanctioned nanotech threatened the sanctity of natural life on Earth (unless it was minor nanotech making lives harder in the slums). I simply could not stand the religious zealotry. I'm not sure if she was supposed to be a partially sympathetic character, but she wasn't and I felt I was inside her head too often. She wasn't the sort of antagonist I love to hate either. At one point I had to put the book down for the evening because I couldn't bring myself to finish the current chapter and get back to her sections. However, depending on your particular set of prejudices, your mileage may vary.
The only other thing that bothered me a little bit were a few slow points throughout the book. It wasn't a particularly long book but there were a few bits when I wished the plot would hurry up because I wanted to know what happened next. However, they weren't enough to ruin my enjoyment except for the slow bits with Kirsten
In all, there is a lot to like about The Bohr Maker. Particularly notable is that almost ten years later, this book didn't feel at all dated. I will definitely be picking up the next book in the series (or indeed any other science fiction of Nagata's that crosses my path). I've now read her debut novel as well as her most recent novel (which I loved, and which was rather more fast-paced), and I see no reason not to fill in the blanks. I strongly recommend The Bohr Maker to fans of reasonably hard science fiction (although the technical details aren't discussed in detail) as well as fans of sociological science fiction.
4 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
Phousita is a slum girl in a future country/region that doesn't exist at present but which I read as being in southern Asia (I don't think anything specific was mentioned though, and it's possible I missed a reference). Her country isn't part of the Commonwealth, meaning that nanotechnology is less present and when present unregulated. The Commonwealth enjoys sticking its nose into other countries affairs and takes it upon itself to police everyone's nanotechnology. But it doesn't care about minor offences, only major ones which could threaten its way of life. So when Phousita is poisoned with nanotech that stunts her growth, or when her friend has his face disfigured no one cares. But as soon as an Important Person inadvertently infects Phousita with the potentially dangerous Bohr Maker (the general term for a nanotech system), the Commonwealth is all over it and Phousita is in different trouble to anything she could have imagined.
There was a lot to like about The Bohr Maker. I very much enjoyed the worldbuilding; one of my favourite things was the nanotech introduced into the river running through the slum (which was downriver of the rest of the city) which changed the water from foetid to clear with edible "fluff" floating on top of it that some of the poorest residents of the city collect to eat. Obviously, it sucks to have to eat river fluff, but how neat is the technology? It would be an awesome invention to carry through to the real world.
I liked the juxtaposition of the high technology belonging to rich people — including space stations, a sort of brain-to-brain communication system, and of course the nanotech — and the very low-tech world in the poorest regions on Earth. Phousita and her cohorts don't know what nanotechnology is and interpret as magic and curses. When Phousita is infected by and gains control of the very advanced Bohr Maker, she thinks she's possessed by a sorcerer and is becoming a witch. When she heals people with the technology, they see it as a spell. All of which makes perfect sense given the context.
What I didn't like about this book, was many of the characters. I liked Phousita, who was genuinely a nice person, and I didn't mind her friend Arif, who wasn't a nice person but understandably so, given his circumstances (actually, I thought he was OK until Phousita started getting more power and threatening his power in their little family). Nikko, a genetically engineered human designed to survive vacuum (a character like him features in Nagata's short story In The Tide, briefly reviewed here), was the other main protagonist and I liked him too. He finds himself in the rather intolerable position of having a fast-approaching expiration date on his genome. When his father created him, the Commonwealth forced him to put in the expiration date 30 years in the future, which he agreed to under the assumption that by then the law would have caught up and he could remove the fail-safe. It didn't. Nikko sets out to try to steal the Bohr Maker (before it's passed onto Phousita) to try to save himself. In the course of events he gets caught up with Phousita (and gets his brother caught up in the trouble as well).
The central character I really hated was Kirsten, the Chief of the Commonwealth police force. She was a horrible person and an unnecessarily large part of the narrative was told from her point of view. I say unnecessarily because while I acknowledge that she instigated a lot of plot-relevant things (she was the one trying to track down the Bohr Maker and get both Nikko and Phousita executed), there were also chunks of worldbuilding exposition filtered through her point of view. And really, it was her point of view that repulsed me. She didn't see Nikko as a person, but as an animal (despite, prior to the opening, conducting an affair with him) and had zero compassion for anyone. She righteously upholds the spirit of the law (not the letter) by any means necessary, with her convictions reinforced by a zealous religious belief that the Bohr Maker and any other unsanctioned nanotech threatened the sanctity of natural life on Earth (unless it was minor nanotech making lives harder in the slums). I simply could not stand the religious zealotry. I'm not sure if she was supposed to be a partially sympathetic character, but she wasn't and I felt I was inside her head too often. She wasn't the sort of antagonist I love to hate either. At one point I had to put the book down for the evening because I couldn't bring myself to finish the current chapter and get back to her sections. However, depending on your particular set of prejudices, your mileage may vary.
The only other thing that bothered me a little bit were a few slow points throughout the book. It wasn't a particularly long book but there were a few bits when I wished the plot would hurry up because I wanted to know what happened next. However, they weren't enough to ruin my enjoyment except for the slow bits with Kirsten
In all, there is a lot to like about The Bohr Maker. Particularly notable is that almost ten years later, this book didn't feel at all dated. I will definitely be picking up the next book in the series (or indeed any other science fiction of Nagata's that crosses my path). I've now read her debut novel as well as her most recent novel (which I loved, and which was rather more fast-paced), and I see no reason not to fill in the blanks. I strongly recommend The Bohr Maker to fans of reasonably hard science fiction (although the technical details aren't discussed in detail) as well as fans of sociological science fiction.
4 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
September 1, 2018
A bit clunky, but solid. Very clearly a debut novel, but kept me engaged and interested the whole way.
The characters were usually interesting, if loosely drawn - I appreciated Phousita as a protagonist, and Nikko was really interesting as a genetically-engineered blue space human. On the other hand, the villain was cartoonishly vicious and Sandor was the blandest sad-boy love interest since Ash Tyler.
The world and the technology were the draw here, I think. They were fascinating, and I loved the matter-of-fact treatment - but also extensive use and heavy integration into the everyday workings of the world - of things like "ghosts", memory uploading, and emailing a copy of your brain from Earth to a space station and around the world (a lot of sci-fi with technological memory backups that I've read, at least, doesn't seem to go much beyond "having a backup for in case you die," so all the things that these ghosts were used for in The Bohr Maker were really interesting ideas). The nanotechnology and bioengineering bordered on rules-less magic, but as that seemed to be kinda the point, I actually kinda appreciated it.
The book placed a lot of emphasis on Phousita's superstition. She's an uneducated homeless girl who suddenly got access to immensely powerful technology she didn't understand, and she assumed it was magic, and that she was now a witch weaving spells. I was a bit hesitant about this plotline - it so often & so easily becomes "naive brown girl from the slums thinks tech is magic, rich white boy teaches her about TECHNOLOGY and MODERN LIFE and HOW TO BE SMART LIKE HIM" but the book... never went there. Phousita came into her own on her own, still treating the nanotech inside her like magic, and integrating that understanding into how she solved problems and made choices, and the narrative never really condescended to her for it, never made it seem like she was stupid or foolish or needed to learn how the tech actually worked. Her interpretation was treated as a valid one - and in a world where tech allows her to do pretty much anything she wants to, just by thinking it, why not? That's basically magic. I feel like this kind of attitude of tech-as-magic is low-level through a lot of cyberpunk, but this directness, and refusal to condemn the character for thinking this way, is refreshing.
The characters were usually interesting, if loosely drawn - I appreciated Phousita as a protagonist, and Nikko was really interesting as a genetically-engineered blue space human. On the other hand, the villain was cartoonishly vicious and Sandor was the blandest sad-boy love interest since Ash Tyler.
The world and the technology were the draw here, I think. They were fascinating, and I loved the matter-of-fact treatment - but also extensive use and heavy integration into the everyday workings of the world - of things like "ghosts", memory uploading, and emailing a copy of your brain from Earth to a space station and around the world (a lot of sci-fi with technological memory backups that I've read, at least, doesn't seem to go much beyond "having a backup for in case you die," so all the things that these ghosts were used for in The Bohr Maker were really interesting ideas). The nanotechnology and bioengineering bordered on rules-less magic, but as that seemed to be kinda the point, I actually kinda appreciated it.
The book placed a lot of emphasis on Phousita's superstition. She's an uneducated homeless girl who suddenly got access to immensely powerful technology she didn't understand, and she assumed it was magic, and that she was now a witch weaving spells. I was a bit hesitant about this plotline - it so often & so easily becomes "naive brown girl from the slums thinks tech is magic, rich white boy teaches her about TECHNOLOGY and MODERN LIFE and HOW TO BE SMART LIKE HIM" but the book... never went there. Phousita came into her own on her own, still treating the nanotech inside her like magic, and integrating that understanding into how she solved problems and made choices, and the narrative never really condescended to her for it, never made it seem like she was stupid or foolish or needed to learn how the tech actually worked. Her interpretation was treated as a valid one - and in a world where tech allows her to do pretty much anything she wants to, just by thinking it, why not? That's basically magic. I feel like this kind of attitude of tech-as-magic is low-level through a lot of cyberpunk, but this directness, and refusal to condemn the character for thinking this way, is refreshing.
September 30, 2015
DUDE! BRAVO!!!! What a book! What a sweet piece of science fiction.
Ok, I've been on such a sci-fi run lately and have read lots of great books. Now I realize that even with the best sci-fi there tends to be something missing, heart (awww), a good ol tug on the feels. I'm not bitching though, it has to be really hard to come up with a story that elicits all the various human emotions when your mostly talking about non human things (space,technology,AI, etc.). This book seemed to brilliantly come up with solutions to that.
I won't give anything away, but just know that this book is so so so smart, it's intriguing psychologically, philosophically and intellectually. Covers all the bases. The characters are wonderful. Even the ones that you hate, you understand the mentality behind their actions. I could go on and on. Just read this fucking book already!
Ok, I've been on such a sci-fi run lately and have read lots of great books. Now I realize that even with the best sci-fi there tends to be something missing, heart (awww), a good ol tug on the feels. I'm not bitching though, it has to be really hard to come up with a story that elicits all the various human emotions when your mostly talking about non human things (space,technology,AI, etc.). This book seemed to brilliantly come up with solutions to that.
I won't give anything away, but just know that this book is so so so smart, it's intriguing psychologically, philosophically and intellectually. Covers all the bases. The characters are wonderful. Even the ones that you hate, you understand the mentality behind their actions. I could go on and on. Just read this fucking book already!
July 5, 2016
3 1/2, really. A compelling read, rich in big ideas, that I found almost...grotesquely unpleasant to read (in a good way?). Nagata has created a harsh, ugly world. Spending time in it isn't exactly fun, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I hope to read more in the Nanotech Succession, but it may have to wait until my consciousness is uploaded and digitized and I have the gift of infinite time.
October 10, 2019
Well ... this is a weird book.
It's part nanotech, part gaia-loving, part birth allegories, part disturbo-body-obsession, and never quite cohesive enough to be thrilling. Moreover, at first, I found the writing style quite annoying, but then it sort of settled, and I got past my sense of oily revulsion.
Anyway, the book follows a few "weird" characters - Nikko a porcelain AI, Phousita a grown woman in a child's body, Arif, a pimp with Shrek's head (no joke), Kirsten a super-old but young-looking police officer who doesn't mind having sex with a porcelain AI, and a few other miscellaneous personas of interest.
The plot? Well, the future world is all about genetic modifier tools - nanorobots I guess - called Makers that alter things, and the most wicked of them is one called Bohr Maker. Sounds cool, and it makes for a central plot theme, except the book defocuses and derails itself a few times. I wasn't sure what the core message was supposed to be, and whether I should think about Nikko, Phousita, Summer House (a fake Earth-like thingie in orbit somewhere), or what. Lots of jumping around, but without any sense of drama.
I didn't fear for any of the characters - not once. It felt hectic, with fleeting introductions of ideas that sound cool. Like atriums - mind-in-mind virtual spaces where you can inhabit other people's brains and take possession of them, the whole Maker concept, the sudden appearance of a Matrix-like Architect character, the constant revival and death, and so forth. These ideas are never explored deeply enough to be more than name-dropping.
To Linda's credit, she managed to keep me engaged to the end, even though the story is very disorganized and a bit disturbing (she seems fascinated with body/spirit intrusions), and the writing is kind of off kilter, and yet somehow, I kind of wanted to finish reading. Weird. Like the book.
Not the best read, but a refreshing departure from pretty much 100% of the stuff I've read. You might want to try, but I have no clue if you're going to love it or hate it. Unpredictably bizarre. And average overall.
I'm not sure I can do a limerick here that would make any sense.
Hence, THE END.
Igor
It's part nanotech, part gaia-loving, part birth allegories, part disturbo-body-obsession, and never quite cohesive enough to be thrilling. Moreover, at first, I found the writing style quite annoying, but then it sort of settled, and I got past my sense of oily revulsion.
Anyway, the book follows a few "weird" characters - Nikko a porcelain AI, Phousita a grown woman in a child's body, Arif, a pimp with Shrek's head (no joke), Kirsten a super-old but young-looking police officer who doesn't mind having sex with a porcelain AI, and a few other miscellaneous personas of interest.
The plot? Well, the future world is all about genetic modifier tools - nanorobots I guess - called Makers that alter things, and the most wicked of them is one called Bohr Maker. Sounds cool, and it makes for a central plot theme, except the book defocuses and derails itself a few times. I wasn't sure what the core message was supposed to be, and whether I should think about Nikko, Phousita, Summer House (a fake Earth-like thingie in orbit somewhere), or what. Lots of jumping around, but without any sense of drama.
I didn't fear for any of the characters - not once. It felt hectic, with fleeting introductions of ideas that sound cool. Like atriums - mind-in-mind virtual spaces where you can inhabit other people's brains and take possession of them, the whole Maker concept, the sudden appearance of a Matrix-like Architect character, the constant revival and death, and so forth. These ideas are never explored deeply enough to be more than name-dropping.
To Linda's credit, she managed to keep me engaged to the end, even though the story is very disorganized and a bit disturbing (she seems fascinated with body/spirit intrusions), and the writing is kind of off kilter, and yet somehow, I kind of wanted to finish reading. Weird. Like the book.
Not the best read, but a refreshing departure from pretty much 100% of the stuff I've read. You might want to try, but I have no clue if you're going to love it or hate it. Unpredictably bizarre. And average overall.
I'm not sure I can do a limerick here that would make any sense.
Hence, THE END.
Igor
December 7, 2023
second read – 6 December 2023 - *****. The Bohr Maker was Linda Nagata’s first novel, and was later extended into a series known as the Nanotech Succession. Not the earliest in the eventual chronology, but definitely the place to start. The novel won the Locus Award for best SF novel by a new writer in 1996.
The future Earth is divided in two – the Commonwealth, a high technology outgrowth of the EU where a primary purpose of the police is to suppress AI nanotechnology, and the Spill, where extreme poverty is the norm and illegal technology hides. The reader is immediately thrown into the lives of Phousita and Arif, in slum cities of the Sunda (Indonesia) – and into the lives of Commonwealth Chief of Police Kirstin and a transient copy of bioengineered Nikko Jiang-Tibayan living in the cybernetic atriums of other people’s minds, such as Kirsten’s. In this swirl of speculative technology and vocabulary, an illegally intelligent Maker, invented by the deceased technology criminal Leander Bohr, is unwittingly dumped on Phousita. It takes up residence in her body and mind, providing her with abilities that she does not understand. At the time it was written, this was probably the only cyberpunk novel that featured a female lead.
The action eventually moves the characters up to the seat of orbital governance in the Castle, and to a hidden habitat near Venus, where Nikko’s father has established a house of illegal technology. It is a thrilling plot, with tension right up to the last page and epilog.
13 November 2009 - *****. Just excellent. I was as impressed with this as I was with Neuromancer when that first came out. Like that, it throws you into an unfamiliar world and you figure it out with the plot already in progress. Nanopunk subgenre, so I count it as cyberpunk. Set largely in Indonesia.
The future Earth is divided in two – the Commonwealth, a high technology outgrowth of the EU where a primary purpose of the police is to suppress AI nanotechnology, and the Spill, where extreme poverty is the norm and illegal technology hides. The reader is immediately thrown into the lives of Phousita and Arif, in slum cities of the Sunda (Indonesia) – and into the lives of Commonwealth Chief of Police Kirstin and a transient copy of bioengineered Nikko Jiang-Tibayan living in the cybernetic atriums of other people’s minds, such as Kirsten’s. In this swirl of speculative technology and vocabulary, an illegally intelligent Maker, invented by the deceased technology criminal Leander Bohr, is unwittingly dumped on Phousita. It takes up residence in her body and mind, providing her with abilities that she does not understand. At the time it was written, this was probably the only cyberpunk novel that featured a female lead.
The action eventually moves the characters up to the seat of orbital governance in the Castle, and to a hidden habitat near Venus, where Nikko’s father has established a house of illegal technology. It is a thrilling plot, with tension right up to the last page and epilog.
13 November 2009 - *****. Just excellent. I was as impressed with this as I was with Neuromancer when that first came out. Like that, it throws you into an unfamiliar world and you figure it out with the plot already in progress. Nanopunk subgenre, so I count it as cyberpunk. Set largely in Indonesia.
April 2, 2016
Very enjoyable sci-fi - Makers, ghosts, poverty and a police-state with various and somewhat confusing levels of virtual reality and artificial intelligence only up to a point - and then there's the Bohr Maker... This volume does a great job of introducing characters and this universe and preparing us for the moment when nothing will ever be the same again - due to two related events that end this book. I'm looking forward to the continuing story and will be on the lookout for other Nagata books - the Red Trilogy is still my favorite of hers, but I'll see how I feel after more of this saga.
March 17, 2014
This showed up on sale one day and, while I have been promising myself I won't buy more books until I get through all the unread ones, the blurb sounded pretty interesting and it did win a Locus award. So, I bought it, and I'm guardedly thankful that I did. I mean, it was a pretty good book, but now I probably have to put a whole lot more Linda Nagata on my to-read list…
Nagata presents us with a dystopian society in which nano-technology allows humanity to redesign itself—naturally within parameters set by the current ruling class. Anything that doesn't tamper with your basic humanity is permitted—so you can change your skin color, make yourself immune to disease, probably give yourself amazing strength or speed. But you can't have four legs or—as our protagonist Nikko (rhymes with ‘psycho’) does—have a ceramic carapace and be capable of living in a vacuum. The "Commonwealth" has no problem with "humans" with essentially unlimited lifespans, but permits Nikko's existence only as an experiment with a 30 year expiry date. And the thirty years are up.
When Nikko steals the Bohr Maker—a piece of nanotechnology that can solve the immediate problem of his impending death—and the Commonwealth police begin hunting him, his brother Sandro, and Phousita (the woman currently hosting the Bohr Maker) we're confronted with a slew of moral problems. Is it wrong to modify the human form? If so, how much modification does it take to become wrong? Is it morally acceptable to give some people immortality (or something close—I think the evil chief of the Commonwealth Police is the oldest person we meet and she's only 134, iirc), while allowing others to live in slums, starve to death, and be subject to any number of plagues? Does the end justify the means (to Kirsten, the police chief: yes, always!)?
The "science" in this story is just hand-waving, there's no attempt to rationalize it, but that's okay. The real story is about the moral issues, and whether you can ever put the genie back in the bottle.
June 12, 2019
After 11 years (??) in my to-read queue, it was a recommendation from a friend that brought my attention back around on this one. Like a PKD novel, I enjoyed the central conceit of this one, but found many of the characters a little wooden and thin. The plot moves fast though and is at least internally inconsistent. I'm particularly intrigued by the notion of nanotech and AI that, while present and powerful, is also so highly regulated as to be rare — and that the consequence of this is that the poor of the world (because what's a far-off sci-fi Earth without extreme resource inequality?) would misinterpret the effects of that technology as if it were witchcraft (Clarke, anyone?)
Totally worth the $5 Kindle edition.
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See also:
• http://io9.com/361597/the-twenty-scie...
• http://io9.com/5959618/20-books-about...
Totally worth the $5 Kindle edition.
---
See also:
• http://io9.com/361597/the-twenty-scie...
• http://io9.com/5959618/20-books-about...
July 18, 2017
Good. But not as good as I had hoped. 4 of 5. Still, I have books 2 and 3 and am looking forward to them (slotting them in between library books though). Complicated future looking stuff - mostly nano and teleportation (by body destruction) but not describing the how - so it ended up a bit closer to fantasy.
November 21, 2019
It took a long while to finish this one, and I'm pretty sure I know why. As interesting as the premise was, a few things stopped me from really getting into this book.
Positives first. The plot is really good. Nagata puts forth a really unique world here, with the premise of makers being prevalent and influencing lives. We understand that there are artificial worlds here too. I'd also say the characters are all different and well realised. I cannot pick a favorite character though.
That transitions me nicely to why I didn't enjoy it as much. The writing is... well tough to follow most of the time. It seems overly descriptive sometimes and others feels inadequate. Another gripe is that I never really could pick a favorite character. As much as I liked them, I never loved them.
Positives first. The plot is really good. Nagata puts forth a really unique world here, with the premise of makers being prevalent and influencing lives. We understand that there are artificial worlds here too. I'd also say the characters are all different and well realised. I cannot pick a favorite character though.
That transitions me nicely to why I didn't enjoy it as much. The writing is... well tough to follow most of the time. It seems overly descriptive sometimes and others feels inadequate. Another gripe is that I never really could pick a favorite character. As much as I liked them, I never loved them.
Read
February 22, 2022this book didn't capture me, but then again i feel it is a series of tropes of its time; nanopunk had its time in the sun for sure, but to me a contemporary reader "sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic" has lost its romance, right? and in addition nanopunk is just from an era where technology was gonna uplift us all, and now it's just like, uplifting specifically and only elon musk or someshit so that vibe doesn't fly as well. aside from the SF stuff (1) i thought the sort of like, tech-as-liberation angle and the sort of unbelievable saintly naiveté of the uneducated, slum-born prostitute felt rough and didn't give her as much agency as i'd like (2) the villain's radicalism was very flat and one-dimensional so that wasn't compelling as a driving force.
that being said things i liked:
- nikko was great, i loved the design of the first and only posthuman, bred to survive space. his cool kisheer, a cowl around his neck that flares and shrivels emotively and that can also become a mask over his face in space conditions was hella cool. Nikko himself is a pleasantly complicated protag; he definitely Uses people and exploits them, i love that he is posthuman so that his exploitation of others feels? idk? not like a subhuman trait but a species-different trait when paired with the fact that he cannot emote well with his face because of his facial structure. he's not a robot, but the feel that he's different from other humans in what he's willing to do for himself is cool.
- i liked the characterization between nikko and his father, Fox, as well. i love that Fox is a coward - politically father and son are aligned in thinking the Commonwealth is too conservative in not allowing Nikko to continue to live, but Fox is burnt out and refuses to do things that are illegal while he can still be persecuted by the law, refuses to help Nikko not die in a way that will get him in any trouble. i love that Nikko kinda hates him for that.
- the worldbuilding did rock in places; i was very fond of nanotech 'curses', these swarms run amok or that seedy hackers can sell to uneducated people to fuck up the genetic code of people they don't like. the giant genetically engineered cop dogs that can Smell illegal genetic engineering was such a cool extrapolation from like, dogs that can detect blood sugar dropping for diabetics and detect cancer by smell etc. in general i think the world was very rich and interesting and clearly lovingly thought out. the atrium - a cyborgian organ most orbital humans have grown inside their brains that allow them to access the internet, take stim-sim'd visitors, etc - was a fucking cool and great idea, i thought that was hella creative.
in short this book really lost me because Phousita wasn't a very compelling point of view character, and the nanobot tech that can genetically hack you was a little too powerful (if a fun and clever take! liked the biohacking bit generally) so the stakes were wacky, and the villain was v cartoony, so i just wasn't feeling any pleasant tensions. good worldbuilding though. will not pursue the sequels.
that being said things i liked:
- nikko was great, i loved the design of the first and only posthuman, bred to survive space. his cool kisheer, a cowl around his neck that flares and shrivels emotively and that can also become a mask over his face in space conditions was hella cool. Nikko himself is a pleasantly complicated protag; he definitely Uses people and exploits them, i love that he is posthuman so that his exploitation of others feels? idk? not like a subhuman trait but a species-different trait when paired with the fact that he cannot emote well with his face because of his facial structure. he's not a robot, but the feel that he's different from other humans in what he's willing to do for himself is cool.
- i liked the characterization between nikko and his father, Fox, as well. i love that Fox is a coward - politically father and son are aligned in thinking the Commonwealth is too conservative in not allowing Nikko to continue to live, but Fox is burnt out and refuses to do things that are illegal while he can still be persecuted by the law, refuses to help Nikko not die in a way that will get him in any trouble. i love that Nikko kinda hates him for that.
- the worldbuilding did rock in places; i was very fond of nanotech 'curses', these swarms run amok or that seedy hackers can sell to uneducated people to fuck up the genetic code of people they don't like. the giant genetically engineered cop dogs that can Smell illegal genetic engineering was such a cool extrapolation from like, dogs that can detect blood sugar dropping for diabetics and detect cancer by smell etc. in general i think the world was very rich and interesting and clearly lovingly thought out. the atrium - a cyborgian organ most orbital humans have grown inside their brains that allow them to access the internet, take stim-sim'd visitors, etc - was a fucking cool and great idea, i thought that was hella creative.
in short this book really lost me because Phousita wasn't a very compelling point of view character, and the nanobot tech that can genetically hack you was a little too powerful (if a fun and clever take! liked the biohacking bit generally) so the stakes were wacky, and the villain was v cartoony, so i just wasn't feeling any pleasant tensions. good worldbuilding though. will not pursue the sequels.
August 3, 2020
Pretty good read but the plotline of the continued persecution of the ultimate nano maker while allowing lesser makers becomes a bit tedious for the story with extreme continuous unlikely escapes. The Gaia mother analogy is appropriate in some of the dialogs, is mankind capable of being wiser than the evolution of the ages. However, Gaia has no compassion but neither does the Greed of the Commonwealth. Hope is what endures for even AI-controlled Homo sapien programmed changes still face the same evolutionary survival testing in a hostile Universe. Cast out your seeds on the chaotic currents for perhaps some will find fertile soil, light, air, and water to grow to a better resolution.
book quote: "Gaia spoke in a complex language of predator and prey, of growth and dormancy, of birth and migration, of seasonal change, of storms, of currents, and finally, of cruelty and death and necessity."
book quote: "Gaia spoke in a complex language of predator and prey, of growth and dormancy, of birth and migration, of seasonal change, of storms, of currents, and finally, of cruelty and death and necessity."
May 9, 2013
An interesting book exploring the far-reaching power of nanotechnology (mostly bio-based) and restrictions placed by a government trying to control that. The book seemed a little brisk and could have used more text devoted to exploration of the setting and the various cultures involved. I also would have liked to see more context to the lives and views of the various actors, but none were unbelievable.
I would recommend this book to people who enjoyed Neil Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age'. Similar themes are explored.
I would recommend this book to people who enjoyed Neil Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age'. Similar themes are explored.
June 5, 2023
Dans un monde cyberpunk bien lointain du nôtre, Nikko est le premier “post-humain”, un être génétiquement modifié dont l’existence va bientôt arriver à expiration, devant avoir un permis spécial pour rester en vie, la société dans laquelle il vit étant extrêmement contre ce genre de modification génétique (alors qu’on t’explique tout le long que tous les habitants du Commonwealth subissent des traitements pour rester jeune, go fucking figure). Afin de rester en vie malgré son obsolescence programmée, il tente de voler un appareil très puissant, le Bohr Maker, mais il le paume et infecte une jeune femme, Phousita, vivant dans un bidonville et survivant de menu larcin et de prostitution. Elle et Nikko doivent donc s’échapper du joug de la puissante cheffe de la police, Kirstin.
Bon.
Y’a du bon, et du franchement moins bon, pour faire dans l’euphémisme.
L’idée de base est très cool - j’aime bien cette idée de société un peu “entre-deux” qui développe seulement l’ingénierie génétique … SI c’était le cas. Parce que ça l’est pas. Tout le long du bouquin, on essaye de te faire comprendre que Nikko est une abomination … Sauf qu’il a rien de franchement différent de, genre, la méchante (une caricature de connasse nymphomane sans aucun intérêt ni réel danger), qui a subi des traitements de longévité en veux-tu en voilà. En quoi c’est “moins grave”, pouah, aucune idée. C’est juste comme ça et point barre. Caricaturaux sont en fait tous les persos - Nikko et son frère Sandor des anges blonds aux yeux bleus et à la peau diaphane apportant la sainte parole à la populace, notamment à la jeune Phousita, une pauvresse tellement à la masse que, dans son monde mega technologique, elle croit quand même que la science est de la magie (OK, elle vit dans un bidonville, mais on te répète sans cesse que la contrebande de Makers y est importante, ça n’a aucun sens). Je ne parle pas de Fox, le typique scientifique dépassé par sa création, ni d’Arif, le mac violent mais qui te frappe pour ton bien (ouch).
A voir si la suite est de meilleure qualité.
Bon.
Y’a du bon, et du franchement moins bon, pour faire dans l’euphémisme.
L’idée de base est très cool - j’aime bien cette idée de société un peu “entre-deux” qui développe seulement l’ingénierie génétique … SI c’était le cas. Parce que ça l’est pas. Tout le long du bouquin, on essaye de te faire comprendre que Nikko est une abomination … Sauf qu’il a rien de franchement différent de, genre, la méchante (une caricature de connasse nymphomane sans aucun intérêt ni réel danger), qui a subi des traitements de longévité en veux-tu en voilà. En quoi c’est “moins grave”, pouah, aucune idée. C’est juste comme ça et point barre. Caricaturaux sont en fait tous les persos - Nikko et son frère Sandor des anges blonds aux yeux bleus et à la peau diaphane apportant la sainte parole à la populace, notamment à la jeune Phousita, une pauvresse tellement à la masse que, dans son monde mega technologique, elle croit quand même que la science est de la magie (OK, elle vit dans un bidonville, mais on te répète sans cesse que la contrebande de Makers y est importante, ça n’a aucun sens). Je ne parle pas de Fox, le typique scientifique dépassé par sa création, ni d’Arif, le mac violent mais qui te frappe pour ton bien (ouch).
A voir si la suite est de meilleure qualité.
October 20, 2021
On a future Earth where ungoverned nanotechnology is closely, even rabidly, proscribed, a young destitute woman is infected by chance with a power that many consider terrifying, but to others is the chance at racial apotheosis.
The Bohr Maker is very well written and paced, with interesting characters - as a novel it can hardly be faulted. It won't set your world alight, but it will entertain. As an SF novel, however, there is a lack. Nagata seems to be restraining herself, keeping things polite, keeping her imagination in check. The world she creates is an interesting one... or, at least it HINTS at being interesting. Ungoverned nanotechnology is the driving force of the plot, but we see very little of it aside from a few attack dogs being put to sleep and a rapidly burgeoning intelligence. What we get instead is an extended chase sequence through slum districts, across space, and within a few headspaces, climaxing in a slowly exploding space station (where some REALLY interesting nano-biology has been taking place... but is again barely described).
TBM is the start of a trilogy. I think it is Nagata's first novel, and as such it is impressive - the mechanics are near-perfect. I only hope that she EXPLORES her world more in the sequels, to which -until I learn otherwise- I choose to define TBM as a lengthy introduction to their hopefully greater wonders. For there is enough promise here for me to want to read more.
The Bohr Maker is very well written and paced, with interesting characters - as a novel it can hardly be faulted. It won't set your world alight, but it will entertain. As an SF novel, however, there is a lack. Nagata seems to be restraining herself, keeping things polite, keeping her imagination in check. The world she creates is an interesting one... or, at least it HINTS at being interesting. Ungoverned nanotechnology is the driving force of the plot, but we see very little of it aside from a few attack dogs being put to sleep and a rapidly burgeoning intelligence. What we get instead is an extended chase sequence through slum districts, across space, and within a few headspaces, climaxing in a slowly exploding space station (where some REALLY interesting nano-biology has been taking place... but is again barely described).
TBM is the start of a trilogy. I think it is Nagata's first novel, and as such it is impressive - the mechanics are near-perfect. I only hope that she EXPLORES her world more in the sequels, to which -until I learn otherwise- I choose to define TBM as a lengthy introduction to their hopefully greater wonders. For there is enough promise here for me to want to read more.
April 15, 2020
The Bohr Maker is an illegal bit of tech created by Leander Bohr, an intelligent nano factory that is capable of allowing its host to modify biochemistry on a scale that even the far-future Commonwealth police can't compete with. It was confiscated long ago and is safely under lock and key. At least at the start of the book.
I thought this was pretty good cyberpunk adjacent bit of science fiction. The pacing of the denouement dragged a bit but I was pleasantly surprised to see that this novel is a complete story on its own.
I thought this was pretty good cyberpunk adjacent bit of science fiction. The pacing of the denouement dragged a bit but I was pleasantly surprised to see that this novel is a complete story on its own.
September 10, 2021
3.5 stars
November 10, 2022
Heavily influenced by Altered Carbon: people can be reduced to digital versions of themselves (and move between bodies), extending the lifetimes of the fortunate while the poor live in squalor. Nagata adds a new twist with a Maker that can create new Makers (loosely, an AI that can alter human DNA and also create other new AIs like it). Parts of it felt like hard sci-fi, but yet there were also gaps in the technology and plot that felt like magic, so the novel felt inconsistent to me.
April 17, 2022
DNF. Got about a quarter of the way through, found myself bored, a bit confused, and in now way excited by the plot, so I gave up.
February 20, 2018
Very solid 3.5 stars, probably losing a half star because of how cliche a lot of the concepts in this book have become in the years since it was published.
Bohr Maker is a solid first novel from Nagata, who has grown into one of the more impressive novelists working in SF since. It`s written in stripped down prose, not quite as smooth as her later works would become, but with a solid economy of phrase and a consistency of language that helps hold together what were extremely esoteric concepts when this book came out.
This is one of the early nanotech books, written just after the tail end of the cyberpunk and close to Diamond Age and Queen City Jazz. The setting is cyberpunk+, with Maker technology grown mature and heavily regulated by a combination of commercial fear and Gaia-esque fundamentalism. The Commonwealth, in the person of Police Chief Kirstin, ruthlessly suppress any Maker technology, posthumanist modifications and free AI to preserve `nature` and their current political structure. Kirstin is a well drawn, creative example of a villain, and she is profoundly unlikable.
Nikko, one of the main characters, is a post-human one off adapted to live in a vacuum. He was created as an exception to the laws on the subject, and that legal exception is about to end. When it does, so does he. He`s having an affair with Kirstin because she likes to play with her food before she eats it. He sets in motion a complex plan to steal the Bohr Maker, a generalized, a-conscious Maker that optimizes and enhances and individual into a walking wet-nano factory.
The tech he intends to steal ends up in Phousita, a street prostitute living in a region that has, for religious reasons, not adopted the Maker tech, and her life is unpleasant in a Dickensian sense. She`s by far the most sympathetic of the characters, to the extent where her virtuous nature seems almost unlikely except for how effectively her character is conveyed to the reader.
Bohr Maker features a whole raft of fictional technologies that would end up being almost cliche with the first set of Singularity writers in the early 2000s like Stross and Doctorow. There are brain emulations, partial copies, duplicates, clones, wet nanotech, life extension and a whole list of extropian ideals. Nagata is judicious with her rules, limiting her tech in ways that make sense for her setting but don`t feel like authorial fiat. Her emulations, for example, are limited to running on `atriums` that are tiny machine interface units that are quasi-biological, suggesting that pure digitalized brain emulation hasn`t been developed yet. All of this kind of techno development takes place behind the curtain, and is explained economically and without slowing the story or interfering with the characters.
This is very much a Schismatrix type setting, but it was clearly written as a novel, and flows smoothly from scene to scene, never halting, never bogging down. It is extremely readable, if occasionally grim. Excellent first novel, with a pair of sequels.
Bohr Maker is a solid first novel from Nagata, who has grown into one of the more impressive novelists working in SF since. It`s written in stripped down prose, not quite as smooth as her later works would become, but with a solid economy of phrase and a consistency of language that helps hold together what were extremely esoteric concepts when this book came out.
This is one of the early nanotech books, written just after the tail end of the cyberpunk and close to Diamond Age and Queen City Jazz. The setting is cyberpunk+, with Maker technology grown mature and heavily regulated by a combination of commercial fear and Gaia-esque fundamentalism. The Commonwealth, in the person of Police Chief Kirstin, ruthlessly suppress any Maker technology, posthumanist modifications and free AI to preserve `nature` and their current political structure. Kirstin is a well drawn, creative example of a villain, and she is profoundly unlikable.
Nikko, one of the main characters, is a post-human one off adapted to live in a vacuum. He was created as an exception to the laws on the subject, and that legal exception is about to end. When it does, so does he. He`s having an affair with Kirstin because she likes to play with her food before she eats it. He sets in motion a complex plan to steal the Bohr Maker, a generalized, a-conscious Maker that optimizes and enhances and individual into a walking wet-nano factory.
The tech he intends to steal ends up in Phousita, a street prostitute living in a region that has, for religious reasons, not adopted the Maker tech, and her life is unpleasant in a Dickensian sense. She`s by far the most sympathetic of the characters, to the extent where her virtuous nature seems almost unlikely except for how effectively her character is conveyed to the reader.
Bohr Maker features a whole raft of fictional technologies that would end up being almost cliche with the first set of Singularity writers in the early 2000s like Stross and Doctorow. There are brain emulations, partial copies, duplicates, clones, wet nanotech, life extension and a whole list of extropian ideals. Nagata is judicious with her rules, limiting her tech in ways that make sense for her setting but don`t feel like authorial fiat. Her emulations, for example, are limited to running on `atriums` that are tiny machine interface units that are quasi-biological, suggesting that pure digitalized brain emulation hasn`t been developed yet. All of this kind of techno development takes place behind the curtain, and is explained economically and without slowing the story or interfering with the characters.
This is very much a Schismatrix type setting, but it was clearly written as a novel, and flows smoothly from scene to scene, never halting, never bogging down. It is extremely readable, if occasionally grim. Excellent first novel, with a pair of sequels.
April 24, 2023
"Fluff" is corpses that have soaked in water.
Sandor is the brother of the protagonist Nikko. While Nikko is a construct from nanoware and human genes, sandor is a human. But Nikko is considered totally his son by their father Fox.
When Sandor is coming through the airport, Nikko is picking him up and they see some police dogs scanning people's ID chips. Then Sandor sees something really startling:
" 'love nature, Nikko. What's that?'
he stopped to stare at a trio of human creatures squatting against the wall of the concourse. One of them seemed to have melted. His flesh hung down in Black, decomposing wattles beneath his throat while the skin on his hairless head had grown so thin it had become translucent and Sandor could see patches or white bone shining through it. The sockets of the pitiful creatures eyes had stretched halfway down his cheeks. Dried mucus clung to his bloodshot orbs. His nose wobbled like a bit of dead flesh at the level of his lips. His partner suffered the same afflictions, though her State seemed less advanced. The stench was horrific. A child huddled with them, a little girl, healthy-seeming, except for a crusty looking growth of dull blue enamel on her stunted forearms that was nothing like the smooth blue enamel platelets of Nikko's skin. Nikko was strong and beautiful in the way of natural things. These... these people (they were a family group, he realized, father, mother, daughter), how ugly and unfunctional and unnatural they seemed. The crowd flowed around him as he stared. A few individuals turned uncomfortable eyes on him, but no one else dared to look at the plaintive creatures waiting mournfully beside empty bowls.
Sandor had never seen anything like it. Why would anyone accept such hideous, non-functional modifications? 'what are they, Nikko?'
'victims of a cruel joke,' he growled. 'someone cast a spell on them.'
'what?'
'they've been scarred by uncataloged Makers.' "
And indeed, the Commonwealth exists to maintain strict laws forbidding unregistered Makers. Where Phousita and her family live, it's an impoverished slum where Makers are not traced and regulated. People can buy anything in this place, a new face, a new body, or a curse on someone they wish harm.
Chief Kirsten Adair is the head of the Commonwealth police. SHe's an asshole who abuses her power, forcing Nikko to come and have sex with her on the threat of turning him in for being created with a Maker that has been outlawed. His father was able to create him with a term of indulgence on his being, but this lease is about to run out.
She goes in front of a Senate committee to get permission to amplify her power in the investigation to find the stolen Bohr Maker, which Nikko has stolen (though he doesn'tremember doing this), and this is where the reader gets some background information on the Bohr Maker that created Nikko:
"he nodded, as if to congratulate himself for having gone straight to the source by summoning her here. 'would you please explain the exact nature of the incident?'
'yes, sir.' She'd be happy to do that. The raw facts would be enough to frighten these Senators and buy her a free hand in the investigation. 'you may be familiar with a device popularly known as the Bohr Maker. It's an enhancing Maker that was retrieved from the body of the convicted criminal, Leander Bohr. It's an Adaptive artificial intelligence, imbued with Bohr's talents in molecular design. It will modify the body of its host, allowing that individual to become a literal molecular factory, capable of producing Makers for nearly any function, including camouflage, espionage, and assault. Although it's an antique, the police have never been able to devise a Maker of similar talents, because to do so would require the revocation of current statutes limiting the independence of artificial intelligence.'
the committee chair frowned, his expression one of open concern. 'so in effect you're saying the Bohr Maker is an illegal artificial intelligence.'
'that's right. It's capacity for independent action exceeds statute limits.'
'so it's smarter than police makers.'
'intelligence is a thorny issue, Senator, intelligent Behavior being so dependent on natural instinct, which this Maker lacks. Let us say instead that it would be more adaptive than police Makers.'
'And better armed.' "
In this book, the author has created worlds that are located in space in the Solar system. These worlds are created by Makers and use Nano machines to create them and keep them functioning. The world that Fox and Sandor and Nikko live in and come from is called Earth House.
Chief Adair is going after Earth House, because Nikko is hidden inside of it, in code. She's going to destroy it, so Fox and its citizens decide to upload themselves into code, and cause the House to be able to split apart and be regrown from each of these parts.
"Fox glanced away for a moment. He seemed mildly troubled, mildly pleased, like a father at the start of his wife's labor. 'we knew it had to happen sooner or later. This is a bit sooner than expected, but we're ready just the same.
'The House is coming apart, Sandor. This is what the biogenesis function is all about. The House is already in the process of absorbing all interior structures. When that's done, it'll divide into a thousand propagules, little vehicles of life, each one capable of regenerating a new house once it latches onto an appropriate substrate.'
Sandor blinked, astounded. Fox had never talked about this vision before. 'and the people?' He asked, too stunned to disbelieve anything Fox said.
Fox smiled and nodded. 'it didn't sit well with a lot of the citizens to be reduced to code. You've been through that. Guess it's a helpless feeling.'
Sandor shrugged. He hadn't done so well when he's he was corporeal either.
'well, that's the general feeling anyway. So most of us will continue to exist in the tissue of the largest propagules.' He grinned. 'like legendary homonculi embedded in the ovaries of a fecund mother.' Sandor stared at him blankly. 'well,' he said with the shrug, 'you were never much for biology. But the point is there'll be too many of us to police. That's the beauty of it. The status quo will have to change.' Fox's eyes shown as he spoke of it. But he sobered quickly. 'the cops are hot on us, though. If that Kirsten ADair suspects what we're doing, she could finish us with one missile.' "
The story is mostly about the fight for this Nano machine. Nikko, the main character, will do anything to get it and hold on to it, because it means his survival.
I'm not much on science, but the author shows us some very interesting things and worlds that nano technology could supposedly create in the future.
The character of Phousita, who lives in a slum, and who survives, along with her family on disintegrated corpses that turn up in the river. They Live in a warehouse that's abandoned and is built over this river. Inside of this River are Nanobytes that can keep the river clean from the sewage, chemicals, and bodies that are dumped into it. The very poor of the slum live off these disintegrated corpses. When a corpse is fished out from a trapdoor hole in their warehouse out of the river, Phousita is impaled by an object that comes out of the corpse. This is the Bohr Maker. It transforms this ex sex worker in a marvelous way, And she helps nikko to survive.
I loved the character of Phousita, and I hated her pimp/boyfriend who was always beating her.
Sandor is the brother of the protagonist Nikko. While Nikko is a construct from nanoware and human genes, sandor is a human. But Nikko is considered totally his son by their father Fox.
When Sandor is coming through the airport, Nikko is picking him up and they see some police dogs scanning people's ID chips. Then Sandor sees something really startling:
" 'love nature, Nikko. What's that?'
he stopped to stare at a trio of human creatures squatting against the wall of the concourse. One of them seemed to have melted. His flesh hung down in Black, decomposing wattles beneath his throat while the skin on his hairless head had grown so thin it had become translucent and Sandor could see patches or white bone shining through it. The sockets of the pitiful creatures eyes had stretched halfway down his cheeks. Dried mucus clung to his bloodshot orbs. His nose wobbled like a bit of dead flesh at the level of his lips. His partner suffered the same afflictions, though her State seemed less advanced. The stench was horrific. A child huddled with them, a little girl, healthy-seeming, except for a crusty looking growth of dull blue enamel on her stunted forearms that was nothing like the smooth blue enamel platelets of Nikko's skin. Nikko was strong and beautiful in the way of natural things. These... these people (they were a family group, he realized, father, mother, daughter), how ugly and unfunctional and unnatural they seemed. The crowd flowed around him as he stared. A few individuals turned uncomfortable eyes on him, but no one else dared to look at the plaintive creatures waiting mournfully beside empty bowls.
Sandor had never seen anything like it. Why would anyone accept such hideous, non-functional modifications? 'what are they, Nikko?'
'victims of a cruel joke,' he growled. 'someone cast a spell on them.'
'what?'
'they've been scarred by uncataloged Makers.' "
And indeed, the Commonwealth exists to maintain strict laws forbidding unregistered Makers. Where Phousita and her family live, it's an impoverished slum where Makers are not traced and regulated. People can buy anything in this place, a new face, a new body, or a curse on someone they wish harm.
Chief Kirsten Adair is the head of the Commonwealth police. SHe's an asshole who abuses her power, forcing Nikko to come and have sex with her on the threat of turning him in for being created with a Maker that has been outlawed. His father was able to create him with a term of indulgence on his being, but this lease is about to run out.
She goes in front of a Senate committee to get permission to amplify her power in the investigation to find the stolen Bohr Maker, which Nikko has stolen (though he doesn'tremember doing this), and this is where the reader gets some background information on the Bohr Maker that created Nikko:
"he nodded, as if to congratulate himself for having gone straight to the source by summoning her here. 'would you please explain the exact nature of the incident?'
'yes, sir.' She'd be happy to do that. The raw facts would be enough to frighten these Senators and buy her a free hand in the investigation. 'you may be familiar with a device popularly known as the Bohr Maker. It's an enhancing Maker that was retrieved from the body of the convicted criminal, Leander Bohr. It's an Adaptive artificial intelligence, imbued with Bohr's talents in molecular design. It will modify the body of its host, allowing that individual to become a literal molecular factory, capable of producing Makers for nearly any function, including camouflage, espionage, and assault. Although it's an antique, the police have never been able to devise a Maker of similar talents, because to do so would require the revocation of current statutes limiting the independence of artificial intelligence.'
the committee chair frowned, his expression one of open concern. 'so in effect you're saying the Bohr Maker is an illegal artificial intelligence.'
'that's right. It's capacity for independent action exceeds statute limits.'
'so it's smarter than police makers.'
'intelligence is a thorny issue, Senator, intelligent Behavior being so dependent on natural instinct, which this Maker lacks. Let us say instead that it would be more adaptive than police Makers.'
'And better armed.' "
In this book, the author has created worlds that are located in space in the Solar system. These worlds are created by Makers and use Nano machines to create them and keep them functioning. The world that Fox and Sandor and Nikko live in and come from is called Earth House.
Chief Adair is going after Earth House, because Nikko is hidden inside of it, in code. She's going to destroy it, so Fox and its citizens decide to upload themselves into code, and cause the House to be able to split apart and be regrown from each of these parts.
"Fox glanced away for a moment. He seemed mildly troubled, mildly pleased, like a father at the start of his wife's labor. 'we knew it had to happen sooner or later. This is a bit sooner than expected, but we're ready just the same.
'The House is coming apart, Sandor. This is what the biogenesis function is all about. The House is already in the process of absorbing all interior structures. When that's done, it'll divide into a thousand propagules, little vehicles of life, each one capable of regenerating a new house once it latches onto an appropriate substrate.'
Sandor blinked, astounded. Fox had never talked about this vision before. 'and the people?' He asked, too stunned to disbelieve anything Fox said.
Fox smiled and nodded. 'it didn't sit well with a lot of the citizens to be reduced to code. You've been through that. Guess it's a helpless feeling.'
Sandor shrugged. He hadn't done so well when he's he was corporeal either.
'well, that's the general feeling anyway. So most of us will continue to exist in the tissue of the largest propagules.' He grinned. 'like legendary homonculi embedded in the ovaries of a fecund mother.' Sandor stared at him blankly. 'well,' he said with the shrug, 'you were never much for biology. But the point is there'll be too many of us to police. That's the beauty of it. The status quo will have to change.' Fox's eyes shown as he spoke of it. But he sobered quickly. 'the cops are hot on us, though. If that Kirsten ADair suspects what we're doing, she could finish us with one missile.' "
The story is mostly about the fight for this Nano machine. Nikko, the main character, will do anything to get it and hold on to it, because it means his survival.
I'm not much on science, but the author shows us some very interesting things and worlds that nano technology could supposedly create in the future.
The character of Phousita, who lives in a slum, and who survives, along with her family on disintegrated corpses that turn up in the river. They Live in a warehouse that's abandoned and is built over this river. Inside of this River are Nanobytes that can keep the river clean from the sewage, chemicals, and bodies that are dumped into it. The very poor of the slum live off these disintegrated corpses. When a corpse is fished out from a trapdoor hole in their warehouse out of the river, Phousita is impaled by an object that comes out of the corpse. This is the Bohr Maker. It transforms this ex sex worker in a marvelous way, And she helps nikko to survive.
I loved the character of Phousita, and I hated her pimp/boyfriend who was always beating her.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2021
4 Stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Linda Nagata's The Bohr Maker is a story about illegal nano technology in the hands of a street urchin prostitute. Now this is perhaps an oversimplification, but is ultimately the primary plot.
Wealth disparities and the effects of those disparities are prevalent themes. For example, Phousita, the prostitute, lives in the Spill, a favela outside of the city of Sunda, in southeast Asia (the straits of Malacca). She sees nano technology, a standard in the Commonwealth (most of society), as magic. To no fault of get own, she can't comprehend the technology because she never had the means to learn about technology.
Another theme can be summed up with a great quote: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." How far is too far, ethically speaking? The Commonwealth has strict molecular laws that are intended to prevent science from impeding on Gaia/Nature. AI is only allowed to have "dull" intelligence because creating "adaptive, volitional, or conscious machine intelligences" are banned. It is also illegal to augment the human mind when machine intelligence. Nikko, a posthuman designed for space, is an experiment whose existence would be illegal outside of experimental purposes.
Overall I enjoyed this book. The first half of the book felt a little slow to me but the second half was much more engaging. I personally didn't enjoy reading Phousita's POV as much as Nikko, Sandor, or Kristens. The technology was interesting and my favorite part of this book. I look forward to reading the other books of The Nanotech Succession and Inverted Frontiers.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Linda Nagata's The Bohr Maker is a story about illegal nano technology in the hands of a street urchin prostitute. Now this is perhaps an oversimplification, but is ultimately the primary plot.
Wealth disparities and the effects of those disparities are prevalent themes. For example, Phousita, the prostitute, lives in the Spill, a favela outside of the city of Sunda, in southeast Asia (the straits of Malacca). She sees nano technology, a standard in the Commonwealth (most of society), as magic. To no fault of get own, she can't comprehend the technology because she never had the means to learn about technology.
Another theme can be summed up with a great quote: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." How far is too far, ethically speaking? The Commonwealth has strict molecular laws that are intended to prevent science from impeding on Gaia/Nature. AI is only allowed to have "dull" intelligence because creating "adaptive, volitional, or conscious machine intelligences" are banned. It is also illegal to augment the human mind when machine intelligence. Nikko, a posthuman designed for space, is an experiment whose existence would be illegal outside of experimental purposes.
Overall I enjoyed this book. The first half of the book felt a little slow to me but the second half was much more engaging. I personally didn't enjoy reading Phousita's POV as much as Nikko, Sandor, or Kristens. The technology was interesting and my favorite part of this book. I look forward to reading the other books of The Nanotech Succession and Inverted Frontiers.
August 22, 2017
Pomysłowe, oryginalne science-fiction, udanie łączące klasyczne dla gatunku motywy z koncepcjami skojarzonymi z cyberpunku i powieści sensacyjnej. Świetnie nakreśleni bohaterowie i antagoniści, oraz doskonała dynamika akcji, obfitująca w liczne i zaskakujące zwroty fabularne.
Nieco chaosu narracyjnego w drugiej połowie powieści, na który - w zestawieniu z powyższymi plusami - można przymknąć oko. Polscy czytelnicy nie doczekali się - dotychczas - wydania pozostałych dwóch tomów trylogii (oraz jej prequelu), ale "Struktor Bohra" wieńczy zakończenie na tyle eleganckie, że po powieść można sięgać bez obawy, iż pozna się zaledwie skrawek całości, urwany w najciekawszym momencie. Gorąco polecam - jedna z mniej znanych, a z pewnością wartych przeczytania, książek fantastycznonaukowych.
Nieco chaosu narracyjnego w drugiej połowie powieści, na który - w zestawieniu z powyższymi plusami - można przymknąć oko. Polscy czytelnicy nie doczekali się - dotychczas - wydania pozostałych dwóch tomów trylogii (oraz jej prequelu), ale "Struktor Bohra" wieńczy zakończenie na tyle eleganckie, że po powieść można sięgać bez obawy, iż pozna się zaledwie skrawek całości, urwany w najciekawszym momencie. Gorąco polecam - jedna z mniej znanych, a z pewnością wartych przeczytania, książek fantastycznonaukowych.
August 22, 2011
These three very loosely connected novels span thousand of years. Nagata writes competently about a future in which humanity is first technologically lifting itself off earth, and finally scattered about a hostile universe. I enjoyed them even though Nagata does two things which annoy me. The first is that the novels are in parts rather boring. Nothing much happens. The other thing is that she can be very depressing. Vast especially makes me feel just a bit too small in a vast (heh) universe.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1014
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1014
August 12, 2023
In a world where every new subgenre takes on the '-punk' suffix, I think that with "nanopunk", Linda Nagata has created one that is offbeat enough to actually use it. The cyberpunk (and more specifically, Neuromancer) influence was clear here: the extreme economic inequality, the breakdown of national and geographic identities, the battle between governments and corporations. Heck, Nagata's name for the poor area where some of The Bohr Maker's central characters live - "the Spill" - even sounds like Neuromancer's "the Sprawl". However, Nagata's use of nanotech makes the whole human-technology integration trope feel different and prevents the book from feeling derivative. I definitely dug the world of this novel.
With regard to this book's characters, I'm of two minds. One the one hand, I felt like most of them were just there to advance the novel's plot and help illustrate its themes - I only really felt any sort of emotional connection to Nikko and Fox Jiang-Tibayan. But with that said, they do give meaning to the book. For all the time spent with Poushita, I found her uninteresting until she expressed the desire to use the Bohr Maker to help humanity. This brings out another recurring cyberpunk theme: the dual potentials of technology in shaping the future. The book depicts an elite class that hoards technology in order to use it to control the masses and maintain their superiority. Poushita's desire to "spread the wealth" thus constitutes a step towards realizing the untapped liberatory potential of technology. Poushita's insistence on seeing the nanotech as magic helps emphasize this, with her being unwillingness to adopt the upper-class vernacular acting as a sort of method of maintaining her purity of mind in the face of a repugnant status quo. Together with her romantic relationship with Sandor, Nagata also seems to be advocating for the retention of some amount of naivety, which was the main message in the book that I wasn't wild about. Virtual consciousness was a big part of the novel's world but I didn't feel that there was really any commentary about exactly what this meant. I think this is best exemplified characters sending out digital "ghosts" of themselves - an idea I thought was really cool but wasn't really developed at all.
As much as this book was fun to think about, I found that its themes weren't matched by its plot. The book reminded me of Samuel R. Delany's Nova, where one of the main characters has so much that he wants to say with his novel but no idea how to say it. I'm still not sure I totally understand what happened in the last two chapters, but this book is generally easier to read than the two famous cyberpunk novels I mentioned and might be a nice intro to the same sort of milieu.
With regard to this book's characters, I'm of two minds. One the one hand, I felt like most of them were just there to advance the novel's plot and help illustrate its themes - I only really felt any sort of emotional connection to Nikko and Fox Jiang-Tibayan. But with that said, they do give meaning to the book. For all the time spent with Poushita, I found her uninteresting until she expressed the desire to use the Bohr Maker to help humanity. This brings out another recurring cyberpunk theme: the dual potentials of technology in shaping the future. The book depicts an elite class that hoards technology in order to use it to control the masses and maintain their superiority. Poushita's desire to "spread the wealth" thus constitutes a step towards realizing the untapped liberatory potential of technology. Poushita's insistence on seeing the nanotech as magic helps emphasize this, with her being unwillingness to adopt the upper-class vernacular acting as a sort of method of maintaining her purity of mind in the face of a repugnant status quo. Together with her romantic relationship with Sandor, Nagata also seems to be advocating for the retention of some amount of naivety, which was the main message in the book that I wasn't wild about. Virtual consciousness was a big part of the novel's world but I didn't feel that there was really any commentary about exactly what this meant. I think this is best exemplified characters sending out digital "ghosts" of themselves - an idea I thought was really cool but wasn't really developed at all.
As much as this book was fun to think about, I found that its themes weren't matched by its plot. The book reminded me of Samuel R. Delany's Nova, where one of the main characters has so much that he wants to say with his novel but no idea how to say it. I'm still not sure I totally understand what happened in the last two chapters, but this book is generally easier to read than the two famous cyberpunk novels I mentioned and might be a nice intro to the same sort of milieu.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 24, 2020
I don't know how to describe this book with the wild science that is going on but basically it's a story of a man who only has a few weeks left to live and does not want to die. He has tried bribing, begging certain people with the power to allow a "Maker" (some kind of nanotechnology that can change you, even your DNA) but is refused because of the law. The titular "Bohr Maker" was created by a man named Leander Bohr and it went further than any Maker out there and was killed, his Maker banned and only a copy of the code left in the archives. So the main character tries to find a way to steal it but it ends up inside a girl in the slum, a former child prostitute who has banded together with other children in a group for safety. She knows nothing of Makers, she can't even read. But inside her she's learning things she doesn't have words for (atoms and molecules and stuff). She heals people and calms their fears. The slum children consider her a witch or a goddess.
Meanwhile the top dog of the police finds out that a copy of the Bohr Maker is out there and starts investigating. And she won't stop until she finds it and destroys it and also executes the people involved. And I think that's all I'll say about the story so I don't give too much away.
The story is told in 3rd person and switches between various people's POVs. I liked the wild future technology that I barely understood. Oh and people can send ghosts of themselves instantly to other places or to other people's "atriums", which is a space in one's mind where a ghost can go and you can talk to the ghost and evict them anytime because you have control over your own atrium. So a person can be killed in body but still have a ghost out there somewhere, so in a way they are still alive. It's weird but I just went with it. Overall a very good story told with weird science too.
This is the first book in a series but each book but each book has a separate stand-alone story. The science may be the same, I don't know because I haven't read the next books in the series yet but I assume so because there has to be something the same in each book to tie them together in a series since their stories are separate. I'm going to read the 2nd book next.
Meanwhile the top dog of the police finds out that a copy of the Bohr Maker is out there and starts investigating. And she won't stop until she finds it and destroys it and also executes the people involved. And I think that's all I'll say about the story so I don't give too much away.
The story is told in 3rd person and switches between various people's POVs. I liked the wild future technology that I barely understood. Oh and people can send ghosts of themselves instantly to other places or to other people's "atriums", which is a space in one's mind where a ghost can go and you can talk to the ghost and evict them anytime because you have control over your own atrium. So a person can be killed in body but still have a ghost out there somewhere, so in a way they are still alive. It's weird but I just went with it. Overall a very good story told with weird science too.
This is the first book in a series but each book but each book has a separate stand-alone story. The science may be the same, I don't know because I haven't read the next books in the series yet but I assume so because there has to be something the same in each book to tie them together in a series since their stories are separate. I'm going to read the 2nd book next.
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