Slashdot Mirror
Feed
The trouble is, all the citizens of this future state are connected to the global network with a direct neural link, called the Feed. The Feed connects its users directly to all others, allowing instant access to information and communication.
Like today's Net, however, the flow of information has grown disturbingly two-way: the Feed is owned by corporations, and their agenda to increase consumerism has led to such privacy-stripping "innovations" as predictive marketing (getting "bannered" by merely looking at purchaseable items) and constant interruptions (such as chats being broken by Google AdSense-inspired ads).
Even more sinister, those same corporations bought out the government's role in education, and so Titus and his friends attend School(TM) -- where literacy is not on the curriculum. Instead, students learn how to make purchase decisions and better use their Feed.
Titus' new girlfriend, however, is representative of a growing counter-culture. Violet's education is strictly home-based, and her objections to the mainstream grow increasingly strident, even as she becomes a victim of it. It is perhaps no coincidence that her lack of affluence in this society is tied to her resistance against it.
The citizens of this future America, weaned on the Feed, are shockingly illiterate. Their language is largely incoherent, riddled with "like"s and "thing"s. Poor verbal composition is combined with an almost complete lack of vocabulary, so characters are often caught referring to objects as "thing... uh..." -- pause while they look up the term through their Feed -- "table."
We often attribute poor language skills to teenagers, but the author's willingness to show adults with the same deficiencies is telling. Even the President of the United States appears unfocused and uneducated.
Not surprisingly, the inhabitants of this world are incredibly self-absorbed. Titus repeatedly demonstrates a callous disregard for the feelings of his dying girlfriend, although he has the good grace to feel guilty buying a sweater while she confesses her fear of death. It's a culture where citizens are trained to value only what's shiny and new, and to dispose of the old and used. How any relationship can survive in that environment is a mystery only philosophers and Slashdot commentators might dare address.
The author's handling of the characters is both realistic and sensitive. I found myself shaking my head at Titus and his friends, but my disgust was accompanied by a sympathy; like a baby raised by wolves, his behaviour is completely understood, if not acceptable.
In fact, the picture drawn of this future is all too clear, and the author's skill at connecting the dots between today and that time make for some serious introspection. After all, today's Internet is an obvious precursor of the Feed, and as commercial life makes ever-greater demands of our attention online, where does it end?
The gear that makes this future possible is incredibly empowering. It connects all people together, literally, to the sum total of all human knowledge, while providing a complete, instant telecommunications network. But corporate interest is clearly the villain here, with all technology perverted to consumerist ends, ripping away privacy, individual expression and true liberty. In the right hands, the Feed would be more powerful than the agricultural, industrial and communications revolutions put together; instead, the Feed is leading its users to an apocalypse, as the author strongly hints at the end of the novel.
Most savage of all, the citizens of this future America don't see the apocalypse coming. As they increasingly turn a blind eye to how their goods are manufactured and delivered (sound familiar?), they ignore the radiation-induced skin lesions that everyone has, the fact that couples can't reproduce without a "conceptionarium", the glowing green clouds, the dead seas, the ash falling from the sky. In their dome habitats, life goes on, in the malls and upcars and fake lawns underneath the Clouds(TM) -- while the other nations of the Earth vow to obliterate America's corporations by any means necessary.
It's a hell on Earth, but a hell that seems destined to come to a crashing halt. Like the best in science fiction, this novel shows us the worst-case scenario, so we can thoughtfully avoid it.
You can purchase Feed from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
all the citizens of this future state are connected to the global network with a direct neural link, called the Feed.
When will the rip offs of Ghost in the Shell/Matrix end?!!
"Even the President of the United States appears unfocused and uneducated..."
Sounds a little familiar.
This book sounds totally unrealistic: "Even the President of the United States appears unfocused and uneducated."
This would never happen in real life, you know.
is NOT a porno.
Sorry!
Is that it kills the story. If there is a point that the story is trying to imply, it just kills it. Sometimes, the author is trying to leave something to the reader, but when you get it from another person, it just no longer is there.
...do the characters actually *do* anything about it, or does his rebellious girlfriend die and life goes on?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Set in a dystopian future America...
/snark
In SciFi is there any other kind? I'm still waiting for Manhattan to be turned into a maximum security prison. They're about 7 years behind schedule.
Why do I get the feeling that if SF writers were in charge of the industrial revolution we'd still all be dairy farmers?
Why does the future always suck, why is that the natural consequence of progress along any dimension? Why do they embrace defeat?
It's always some dark dystopian future and the cure is always either free love or fascism isn't it?
That's why I like PK Dick so much. No happy endings, we all die alone tortured by our paranoias.
Judging by the moderation and post quality, the average age of a slashdot poster is probably 15, while the editors seem to average around 12 judging on spelling, grammar and attention span.
Welcome to a novel form retelling of an Outer Limits episode.
At least they wont attempt to hack into a Gibson Supercomputer with Apple Notebooks. OR WILL THEY!
The consumers of today's America, zombified by television, are shockingly illiterate. That this trend continues doesn't surprise me.
Hmm sounds like most of the books about dystopian future Americas out there... Since this one seems even less likely than the nuclear war caused one in the books I read as a kid, and even THAT one was thwarted by humanity, I'm only wishing kids had more books of inspiring futures than angst-riddled depressing ones. Last think a teen needs, another thing to be depressed about.
I can almost imagine the thoughts of the author as he sat down to write this: "Hmmm... there used to be a lot of fear-the-future books 20 years ago. They sold really well. But we've fixed the threat of world war three, nuclear disaster, and this terrorist thing doesn't seem tangible enough to write about. Guess I'll just have to make up something about a capitalistic conspiracy gone awry and hope no one stops to think about how many people would have to abandon their ethics to participate in setting up this conspiracy."
Blah!
I'm tired of being told to be afraid. Hurray for hope.
I thought one of the most telling scenes in the book was a ride they took to "the country." They found a steak farm that allowed visitors to watch the blood flowing through tubes to irrigate fields of steak, with the occasional horn or hoof sticking out of a hedge of beef. I recall Titus thinking that it was important to visit these kinds of places so people would remember where their food really came from.
I read this in a few days, with only about 150 pages long during the school year, about 4 months ago. It's diction is pretty light, and is on a 8th grade reading level.
*Tries to remember the story more*
From what I do remember, it was pretty prophetic in describing the commercialization of schooling and teenagers. The reviewer touched on this point a little too. Speaking from a teenage geek's perspective; it's often sickening to see how invasive advertising is becoming in teenagers' lives.
Unfortunately, the advertisers seem to have already won - as I and many others are already 'casted' by other peers as 'outsiders' for not being as consumptious or brand-loyal as them.
Both the main character and I feel torn, as we do not like to befriend/hang out with such a 'phony' crowd [I hate to use Holden's word, but it fits here]; and there's little alternatives for us.
Poor boy. Female engineers become attractive to male geeks at puberty, and remain so until 20 minutes after death. Longer on warm days.
And as an engineer, she's probably way too smart to hang out with a boy named Titus.
We often attribute poor language skills to teenagers, but the author's willingness to show adults with the same deficiencies is telling. Even the President of the United States appears unfocused and uneducated.
You really posted this whole story just to say that, didn't you? ;)
We are seeing in the debates over the Japanese and Singaporean education systems the pressures being brought to bear by modern information, science and technology based industries upon the education system to turn out more creative, less regimented, adults.
If the mass illiteracy future happens, it ain't going to be because that's what companies want.
Douglas -- All speeling mistaks shoud be consedered intentionel irony
At least the part about the language skills.
Example (And I'm going to preface this with a solid "I have absolutely minimal input in this situation though I'm trying" statement)
My stepson is a frickin pod person thanks to DSL and a father (who he lives with) who literally refuses to pull the plug. The kid comes home from school (not School(TM) yet but soon I'm sure) and goes online. He stays online until he goes to sleep. When he's at our house (every other weekend, his dad got custody and then prompty opted to let the net and television handle most of the chores) it's a war to get him to do anything that doesn't involve a video game. We have broadband too but we try to keep him from spending the entire weekend on it. What's two days though every two weeks when he lives online the rest of the time (admittedly outside of school).
He seems to me to be a pretty bright kid and makes ok grades but his communication skills are almost non-existent. Getting more than a couple of sentences out of him at one time is a triumph and if they're understandable then that's a bonus. He's got to use the English language at school (doesn't he?) so you would think he'd know a few words. A noun or two here and there? Maybe? If that's the case though then he doesn't exhibit any sign of it that I can see.
At his age (Almost 16) I was trying to figure out how to earn enough money to get a car, trying to get laid (with little luck), and had interests in music, books, sports, and a pack of friends all thinking about much of the same things.
The idea of this kid working anywhere is laughable. He doesn't even mention cars or driving and to the best of my knowledge doesn't know what a girl is (and I check his browser cache when he leaves so we're not even talking about hitting the porn here). He doesn't read, he doesn't listen to music, and he doesn't even want to go outside much less actually do something that might require sweating. Friends? Hell if I know.
I wonder how many other kids are already hooked up to "The Feed" for all practical purposes?
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Damn to late the future is now. You do use some big words, googled for them? Pity you can't google grammar eh?
Just messing with you, not like I could do much better but then english ain't my first language.
As for advertising and american education, the rest of the world is just a few years behind, I once saw a documentary on kids in an american school being forced to watch commercials. The companies who owned the ads had paid for the lessons so if you didn't watch you were BANNED from class. It was a few years ago and I only saw half of the program so it could have been a spoof. It was supposed to be in one of the more depressed areas of big city.
Anyway we have long since passed the point of sponsored kantines and sponsored school books. We can bitch all we want about it but as long as we allow campaigns that promise tax cuts and don't gas people that vote based on this we can't expect anything else. He who promises the biggest cuts gets the power, to make the cuts he needs to cut money to schools. Then "industry" steps in but they don't do it for free.
Someone else commented how this kinda of future requires a lot of people to overcome their ethics. No it doesn't, it just requires everyone to make a tiny little adjustment of their ethics every couple of years. That is presuming people have ethics anyway. Look at how easily people turn to butchering their neighbours and perhaps the human race has about the same amount of ethics as a cat.
The book review talks about the "hero" having little feelings about his girlfriend dying while he is shopping. But as we shop for candy and luxury goods and speculate on the latest ship or bitch how camera phones are crap PEOPLE ARE DYING FROM HUNGER. Do we give a damn about them? I don't. Oh sure when you corner me on the street and shove a tv-camera in my face I will say I care but really I don't. If I did I would do something about it and I don't. None of us do. Well at least not enough of us to make any difference.
Oh well at least you and I feel torn about it. Better then some of the posters who prefer books that say "everything is going to be alright". We are all consumer slaves but at least some of us are aware of it. Like alcoholism the first step is admitting you got a problem. The real problem is all the steps that come after it. Looks like a long journey, better have a drink first to encourage us.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Ok, I'll dare to address the question of how any relationship can survive in such an environment: Frankly, it doesn't need to. In The Future®, relationships are superflulous and unnecessary as all human reproduction is handled by a corporation formed from the merging of the sperm bank, planned parenthood, and artificial insemination clinics. Certain males, selected from the gene pool after application and carefull screening, are permitted to make a 'deposit' in the sperm bank, where their 'funds' remain anonymous but are catagorized by physical characteristics. Certain select females are granted a license to reproduce when deemed necessary in light of population statistics, the desired qualities of new members, etc (do we need more scientists, hair stylists or equipment operators) and permitted to conceive (unlicensed conception is severely punished). After birth the newborn begins to spend more and more time in corporate training centers (day care) where s/he is raised to fulfill the role in society ordained for him/her.
So, all the sentiment about 'love', 'relationship' , 'romance' is completely unnecessary and dangerous to the established order and prone to produce troublemakers who don't 'fit in'. The only relationship necessary is that between the individual and the corporation.
And they have flying cars.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
To be honest this sounds interesting, I think branding it as another Matrix etc rip-off is probably missing the point, and I think slating it for using ideas that have occurred in other SF novels is probably doing the same. No novel is ever entirely original in all aspects: if you're going to nitpick about the reuse of ideas you may as well give up now and never read another book in your life.
However:
The citizens of this future America, weaned on the Feed, are shockingly illiterate.
The fact is that for most of human history, most of humanity, most of the time has been shockingly illiterate. Even today, if you look at literacy throughout the world, rather than looking at just the U.S.... it's quite shockingly low (America is not and never has been representative of the world at large). But the reasons are different and tend to be a reflection of the rich / poor divide, rather than because education is controlled by powerful corporations. The difference is that many people who are illiterate today would give almost anything for an education and some decent opportunities in life, whereas the characters in this novel just don't care.
It's a bait-and-switch, see, originating in the 1950s. The 1950s were supposedly the halcyon days of apple pie, clean (too cheap to meter!) nuclear power and robots that would clean your house---any day now! The 1950s were also a time of paranoia, McCarthyism and of course the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation.
To reflect this duality, take Asimov and PKD. Asimov's stories reflect the attitude that technology will save us, that robots will do our bidding and be our Fuzzy Friends. PKD's view is that aliens, or maybe robots, or maybe mutants, but in any case something utterly inhuman, will supplant and replace us. (See the short stories "The Golden Man", "The Hanging Man" or "The Father-Thing" for some really top-drawer examples of that.)
If you've been reading solely PKD, no wonder you think it's all doom and gloom!
Let's look at the last few SF books I read. "A Fire Upon the Deep" (Vernor Vinge), "The Left Hand of Darkness" (Ursula K LeGuin), "The Turing Option" (Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky). Hmm---not a dystopia to be found. (Though that last books was a damned waste of time.)
Hell, Vinge writes about ubiquitous computing in a way that doesn't lead to suckness and defeat. (See "Fast Times at Fairmont High" or the upcoming "Rainbows End".)
Also---you say that "the cure is always free love or fascism". Aside from Norman Spinrad trying to make a point ("The Iron Dream"), when is fascism recommended? When is "free love" recommended as a cure for a dystopia? The only free-love-proposing book I remember is "Stranger in a Strange Land", and that was hardly set in a dystopia.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Maybe he doesen't like cars and fast women!
God, is this the Fifties again...?
Just because you're "antisocial" doesn't mean there's something wrong with you!
Yeah. Terribly unfocused. Those hostages, stuck in Iran... it's good that we had the moral clarity of Reagan, who, you know, sent the Iranians arms in exchange for hostages. And look, our current chimp^Hpresident has the same kind of moral clarity! Sweet!
Have you tried beatings? If it doesn't work, at least it's exercise.
Well, for you that is.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
If you have a talented author who is able to work with interpersonal issues, relationships and so on, they write "respectible" fiction. SF only get the stories written by no-talent hacks or the stories by good authors that *can't* be told as non-SF.
I disagree, but would like to include a brief and admittedly vague anecdote. Ursula K LeGuin, who became famous for her SF exploring sociological and anthropological themes---but could The Left Hand of Darkness have been told without genetically engineered androgynes?---and later tried to distance herself from her SF roots, to be more palatable to The Literary Establishment. She ended up writing a lot of bad work.
You say, That said, I'd be happy to read a SF novel which focused on interpersonal or other "non-SF" sources of conflict, where the future is just a scenery choice. There's plenty of work that does just that. It's not SF; it's a Western or a crime drama with the word 'boat' crossed out and replaced with 'transgalactic skipship' or some similar verbal frottage.
SF is about hwo technology changes us. Vinge's "Realtime" series for stasis fields, "The Left Hand of Darkness" for a lack of gender, "1984" for two-way television and "Brave New World" for a genetically engineered caste system. I say that no really great work of SF could be re-cast in what you call a non-SF locale.
SF isn't just scenery. A lot of it is crap, but that can be said for general fiction as well. It's been unfairly ghettoized, its authors shunned until after their deaths, then grave-robbed for buzzwords and plot points. (See: Philip K Dick, Paycheck; Isaac Asimov, I, Robot; Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers.)
And the shunning of SF continues into other media, TV and movies. With the exception of Trek, which has its own problems, and which (I'm told) has gone straight to hell lately, what SF is there on television? What was the last SF movie you saw? And I mean real SF. Look what's considered SF.
There's a tendency among the general readership to shun SF. I can't imagine why someone would have such an aversion to picking up "The Left Hand of Darkness" or "A Deepness in the Sky". Do you know what causes it?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
That sounds terrible. Until you realize all you can actually do online, other than surf for porn.
He could be composing his own music, rather than listening to some fool sing about how terrible/great their life is.
He could be drawing.
He could be having intelligent discussions with other people, and have far more friends than you may think, even if they are just online.
He could be writing his own books, as well as reading them.
He could be making his own games, rather than just playing someone else's.
Many other things are also possible..
Not only can the internet/computers be used for creating many, many things but it also gives you a massive auidence to show them to.
Maybe it's just me, but about all of these seem more meaningful to me than looking into how to drive a stupid machine for getting to places, how to become a slave who merley does enough work to get food to continue his existence rather than living off his creations, and trying to reproduce when it wouldn't be feasible to raise said offspring.
Of course he could be doing nothing of the sort, but even sitting in front of a screen doing nothing in particular dosen't seem much worse in my eyes than your life at that age.
Of course, I'm probably severley biased on this issue since you practically just described my life.
Just out of curiousity, have you had a therapist talk with this kid? I ask this because it sounds as if the kid could be clinically depressed.
;-)
The fact he's your stepson & lives half of the time with his dad suggests that he's gone thru some serious trauma: he's seen his family break up & getting bounced back & forth could be undercutting his sense of a home & security. This would make a case of depression understandable.
Then consider your following paragraph:
> He doesn't even mention cars or driving and to the best of my knowledge doesn't know what a girl is (and I check his
> browser cache when he leaves so we're not even talking about hitting the porn here). He doesn't read, he doesn't listen
> to music, and he doesn't even want to go outside much less actually do something that might require sweating.
> Friends? Hell if I know.
Lack of interest in things like cars, sex, any activities or friends are all textbook indicators of depression. And doctors have only admitted in the last 5 years or so that children _can_ suffer from depression.
When he's not around sometime, use Google to find some webpages on depression, & compare a couple of the tests against his behavior. If they suggest he might have depression, get him some medical help: depression is a disease. And once he starts coping with it, & starts to show an interest in those things, he will be glad for the help.
On the other hand, if you have had him examined by a medical professional, & he's not depressed --just lazy -- then it's well within your rights to talk to his mother about sending him to a military boarding school.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p