Weekly Reader: The Cloud by Robert Rivenbark; Involving High Tech Science Fiction Excels at Presenting Microcosms of Futuristic Tech Heavy World

 Weekly Reader: The Cloud by Robert Rivenbark; Involving High Tech Science Fiction Excels at Presenting Microcosms of Futuristic Tech Heavy World 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: It's always a treat when I read one book, then I read its polar opposite. I read two books set in the 2040s, Mark Richardson's Malibu Burns and Robert Rivenbark's The Cloud. Both are set in California, both after times of political and environmental unrest and both have worlds in which technology and AI have taken over. However, in execution the two books go in opposite directions. Malibu Burns doesn't concentrate on the futuristic world so much as it does on the mindscape of its lead protagonist. The Cloud does involve interesting characters but it concentrates more on how this futuristic world affects them. Malibu Burns is strong on character and The Cloud is strong on setting and world building.

Blaise Pascal is a VR designer who works for The Cloud, the tech corporation that practically runs the world. He is currently working on Gilgamesh V, the latest game to appeal to The Slags, the lower classes who aren't connected to The Cloud (like Blaise once was). His director, Minsheng is impressed with Blaise's work but wants him to tweak the game to include an addictive drug which will control The Slags. As Blaise climbs higher in the corporation and spends time with the Slags, he begins to see the corruption, dehumanization, and mass murder that his superiors are planning. He is caught between the luxurious technology driven world that he wants and the honest connections of the human driven world that he needs.

Many of the characters are well written, Blaise in particular, but mostly they serve as microcosms of the society in which they live. They are shaped and changed by the universe around them and we see the strengths and weaknesses of the world because of how it affects them.

Blaise is the person in the middle. He came up from the low tech Slag world leaving behind a missing father, a mentally ill and deceased mother, and intense poverty to move to the high rise Cloud world. He hooked himself up to the devices that monitor his actions and created VR simulations for the people that he was once a part of.  

While Blaise is a huge part of how the Cloud works, he is not exactly enamored with his surroundings. He is a military vet who has seen his share of bloodshed in the name of the corporations and governments who pulled the strings. He also is mourning the deaths of his wife and daughter, the last people he felt connected to. Now he buries himself in work and a sardonic attitude. While his remarks are humorous (for example when his immediate supervisor, Mitsuko gives him an order, he remarks, "I ignored you the first time."), they reveal a cynical detachment for a lifestyle that provided him with creature comforts but little else.

Blaise's only relief is the downtime he gets when he goes to the Slags towns, perhaps his only means of any type of companionship and the only time that he can be himself without being spied upon. It is here that he meets Kristina, who is part of a resistance group against The Cloud. She tells Blaise some important information about his mother and what his role is to be in this revolution. As Blaise starts to see the Cloud for its true colors, as a dictatorship, he becomes an active participant in ending it by being the revolution's inside person and saboteur. 

Unfortunately, Blaise's new role as rebel coincides with his promotion through The Cloud and his involvement with his supervisors, Mitsuko and Minsheng and the shady directors behind them. The threats and underhanded deals that collapse the lower classes are made all too real. In one chapter, Blaise is nearly tortured by mantises, cybernetic insects which inject their victims with a painful venom. He then watches in horror as those mantises are then used on people including many of the rebels.

Blaise becomes involved in a love triangle between Kristina and Mitsuko. While normally, I don't like love triangles because I find them cliched and often unnecessary with The Cloud, I will make an exception because of what each character represents. 

Mitsuko represents The Cloud. She is a narcissistic ambitious person who uses many that come near her. In her world, relationships can only be made on a superficial shallow level. Because of this, terms like "friends, "family," and "lovers" are mere words. Because they are just words without feeling around them, those terms can be redefined however they see fit as Mitsuko reveals during one of the few times when she displays some reality beyond the materialistic driven persona that we have already seen. She is a woman who has been hurt in the past, knows what it's like to struggle to get to where she is, but doesn't care. She lost her humanity and compassion for others and sees the people around her as allies for or obstacles against the company that she reveres and even worships. She represents the worst that Blaise could be.

Kristina represents the resistance, the rebels that are still in touch with their humanity. They have technology in that they were able to build a functioning self-sustaining community, but all of their technology is used to benefit a larger society, rather than controlling it. They, particularly Kristina, haven't lost who they are or the love for those around them.

Kristina cares about her fellow rebels and family. Even though she is in love with Blaise, she isn't afraid to call him out on the actions and the people behind The Cloud's actions.

Kristina has a strange ability to read into other's souls. This ability opens up possibilities that when society heads further into progress and science, what was once considered magic could be rediscovered.

It also gives Kristina deeper insight into people. She sees beyond the surface that Mitsuko sees. She sees into Blaise's past and how he really feels. She makes a real connection with him, a connection that Blaise thought was lost.

The Cloud shows us a world that becomes so intertwined with its technology, that only the very few remember what it means to be human and it is them who will rebuild the world once that heavily technological superficial world is gone.

New Book Alert: Dusk Upon Elysium by Tamel Wino; The Trouble With Technology in Trying Times of Seclusion and Quarantine

 

New Book Alert: Dusk Upon Elysium by Tamel Wino; The Trouble With Technology in Trying Times of Seclusion and Quarantine 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Tamel Wino's Dusk Upon Elysium may take an alternative view from many of the other science fiction novels that I have been reading that are inspired by the recent global pandemic. However, it is no less thoughtful and provocative with its themes about isolation and technological dependency during times of forced quarantine.

Dusk Upon Elysium is set during a pandemic. No, a different one in the future (probably near future). Government regulations have become even stricter to the point of making people "disappear" if they try to visit sick family members and friends. In fact, people are being forced inside their homes in what the media calls The Migration and makes this house arrest seem like a good thing.

Now, I have my personal reason to disagree with the anti COVID and anti-vaxxers. I won't discuss it, but let's just say that I have personal experiences with the after effects of COVID and am more than aware that it is real and not a hoax. Because of that, I disagree with many of them wholeheartedly. 

However, as I mentioned with other books, I can enjoy a book even if I disagree with the position of the author as long as that position holds a gripping story.  (Of course, I have my limits. See my review of Alexandra Lane's The Prophecy Has Begun: Donum for my views).

 However, anybody could become a dictator in any situation, especially during troubled times. It's not a Party thing. It's a human thing. Our potential inner tyrant could come out if we aren't held back by our laws, the people around us, and our personal values and reasonable mind to keep us in check.

There are opportunists who will take advantage of any type of emergency and force people to act in contrast to their beliefs and surrender their freedoms. This book is a worst case scenario and regardless of what you believe in real life, it is a strong theme to consider and think about.

Anyway, being  under house arrest can get deathly boring. So there is a virtual reality program, called Paradiso which allows users to go on technological vacations, starting with a beach setting. Then they can eventually program any place that they want. This is being experienced by a team that includes Geoff, a researcher.

The descriptions of Paradiso are some of the highlights.

There are five stages so far for Paradiso: Visual, Auditory, Somatosensory, Olfactory/Gustatory and Memories. Other future levels include Multiplayer and Creating New Worlds and New Characters. It seems like fun and an interesting way to pass the time.

These are intentionally pleasant scenes and I am sure that I am not the only Reader who would like to go inside the VR system, despite the inevitable problems that would result. 

Unfortunately, Paradiso isn't as perfect as it sounds. It's Science Fiction. When in Science Fiction has any technology ever not had problems?

The problems bring out the characterization and deep guilt of those who experience them.

Geoff and a colleague, Dawn, encounter characters that resemble people in their lives who have died: Dawn's mother and Geoff's life partner, Tim.

At first it's good to see them to reminisce and share deep emotions. But then these simulated characters become possessive, even volatile, wanting Dawn and Geoff to stay in Paradiso with them forever. They also appear to know things that they wouldn't have known in real life.

The most emotional moments are when Dawn and Geoff confront these ghosts in their lives. 

In Dawn's time with her mother, she fails to recognize the shrill possessive banshee figure as the kind nurturing supportive woman who raised her and fell ill. Dawn knows that there is something wrong with this system, but the more the mother simulation berates her, the weaker and more troubled Dawn becomes Someone is using Dawn's bond with her mother against her and enjoys the torture and control that the distorted memories produce.

Geoff on the other hand enjoys his reunions with Tim. He is mostly as he remembers him until he starts getting possessive and controlling. He slowly turns into someone that is far from

the Tim that Geoff remembers. However, Geoff is filled with guilt over things that happened in their relationship and the guilt manifests during his reunion. It gets to the point where Geoff condones Tim's transformation because he thinks that it's the least that he deserves.

Geoff, Dawn, and their colleagues weigh several possibilities over what is happening and some theories are quite provocative.

Something is going on with the system but what? Is somebody changing the codes for personal gain? Are they being monitored and tricked by a far reaching government that is reaching even further? Is Paradiso, an AI program that is adapting and learning too much? Is there a glitch in the Matrix? Speaking of the Matrix, how do they know that Paradiso is the simulation and they live in reality?  Have they been in a simulation all along?

The theories are so fascinating that the actual resolution is somewhat disappointing in contrast. However, it reveals how dependent humans can get on technology and that sometimes what is considered human error is not really an error. It's a reminder that we are human.

New Book Alert: Reality Testing (Sunrise Book #1) by Grant Price; Intricate Science Fiction Novel About The Price Paid For Overabundance of Technology

 

New Book Alert: Reality Testing (Sunrise Book #1) by Grant Price; Intricate Science Fiction Novel About The Price Paid For Overabundance of Technology

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Overabundance of Technology is a common theme in Science Fiction. Usually, authors write about the cost of humanity and what we will turn into when our gadgets control us. Remember Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt" when two children who are so addicted to their virtual room that they order lions to attack their parents as they passively watch? Or Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 where the people were so influenced by the wall screens in their house that their intelligence was diminished and they willingly gave up their books to the firemen who burned them? Or Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers where interstellar travel and mobile power suits gave young Earth soldiers the power to wage war on the residents of alien planets? Or the many episodes of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits that show Artificial Intelligence becoming more human and their creators becoming less so? 

A key difference between those works and current science fiction is that those technologies had yet to exist so authors were left to imagine what they could and capture their best and worst qualities. Now, that technology is here and now. Authors don't have to imagine it. It's right here with social media, quantum computing, passenger space travel, smart housing, energy efficient means of travel, and so on. All an author has to do is follow the news and see the next step of where these technologies are going for better or worse. Science Fiction is becoming Science Fact faster than we thought that it would.

One of the current Science Fiction Novels which explores this theme is Reality Testing by Grant Price, the first book in a series that deals with a young woman rebelling against the dystopian future of a world destroyed by corporate greed, environmental catastrophe, and a cabal of governments, corporations, and scientists that use that technology on human guinea pigs. Again these are not new themes, but what makes this book good is the intricate plot and the benefit of using technology we see every day to higher and more frightening levels.

In Reality Testing, our protagonist and potential rebel is Mara Kizing, a mechanic who lives in near future Germany. She is inside a dream tank reliving her apparent murder of a man. As Mara makes her escape from the tank and the building in which this experiment is taking place, she remembers that she signed on for some project to get creds but the details are not yet known. It becomes clearer when she goes to see her wife, Jema and Jema doesn't recognize her. The techs at LINK inserted her mind and consciousness into a completely different body.  

Now Mara is on the run because of the escape and murder. Even though it means separation, Jema (who was already anxious about Mara signing up in the first place) suggests that she hide out in a semizdat settlement with one of the resistance groups like the Vanguard. After a violent encounter, Mara is left alone and seeks redemption by finding the Vanguard.

There are two distinct separate sections that explores the impact of technology so much that it is clearly emphasized in Price's writing. The first section is more technical as Mara stumbles through the city hiding from her pursuers. It is fascinating and horrifying as we look at this new transformed world. Berlin is awash with technology so much that it is omnipresent and suffocates the human elements as much as the dense polluted clouds overhead. The walls speak and sing every advertisement to the point that they become a cacophonous symphony. The "bulls" catch their prey using augmented eyes to scan information like a robot Gestapo. A person is not only killed but their information is erased from records as though they never existed.

The vidlinks are everywhere and give the power to turn anyone from hero to villain as they do for Mara by turning her into a coldblooded killer when she was really just a desperate woman longing to escape. Unemployment is high so people sign on to be test subjects in some of the most bizarre experiments.

Many of the experiments are not purposely completely explained possibly for future volumes, but also because these characters live in this environment and they know what they are. They are familiar and have been exposed to them their whole lives.

 However, Price leaves clues for the Reader to guess. For example, besides Mara's LINK, we are also told about the Seahorse project. We aren't completely given all the details but there are hints.  Volunteers are only men. Women are considered "obsos" or obsolete. A quick study of male seahorses and knowing that they can do what few biological male species can do naturally, well it doesn't leave much to the imagination what the Seahorse project is about. (The next volume should feature a man who has actually been through the Seahorse project to get a more inside view of what it's like.)

Because of the emphasis more on setting and world building, there isn't much on character except between Mara and Jema. They are a couple who are on their last nerve. Mara is a woman so desperate for money that she will put herself through physical torture. Jema is worried and anxious about her, but is tired of the danger, the stress, and is ready to file for divorce for a peace of mind.  It's doubtful that

if things didn't end up the way they did, that Mara and Jema would have had a happily ever after.

In contrast to the Berlin setting, when the plot shifts to the Vanguard we are given more emphasis on character and less on setting. We are shown a cooperative community which lives off of minimal technology. They use solar energy and grow their own food. The members plan acts of rebellion that go from mere pinpricks to major consequences. It's all nothing new but we see strong sense of character in this section that was absent in the previous.

Even before Mara encounters the Vanguard, we get a whole chapter devoted to their founder known as The Abbot. We learn that she was a scientist whose research was used for the Seahorse project. She abandoned her cushiony life and high paying job to fight the system that she had once been a member.

The Vanguard is very secretive. Many of the characters use pseudonyms and put Mara through a variety of tests to prove her loyalty. This is a group that is wary of outsiders almost paranoiac. But as some say just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that someone isn't out to get them.

 The suspicion is a natural reaction to a group that is close to and protective of their members and don't want to see them get hurt or destroyed. They have worked hard for this new way of life and don't want to see it go the way of the old one, especially when they have the chance to rebuild society and start over again and make it better.