Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1178780 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

excellent, highly complex, cyberpunk sci-fi
Pat Cadigan's "Synners" - excellent, highly complex, cyberpunk sci-fi by an author I now very much want to read more of. Perspective switches between different characters in different narratives and I'm sure I missed a lot by only reading this in bits interspersed with a lot of other things. Synners are those who take imagery from the brains of others and turn them into a consumable form through a new form of surgical cuber modules. The idea is similar to that I first saw in one of William Gibson's "Kings of Sleep", one of the short stories in the Burning chrome collection, or the performers with cybered creative skills in Joan D. Vinge's "Cat's Paw", but "Synners" takes the idea further, developing it into a complex plot with a sideline of studies in Self and Consciousness.

Goddess of cyberpunk
Synners - human synthesisers. Haven't you always wanted to be able to 'paint' music videos, straight from your mind? BE the music, BE the image. Just plug into your musician/band of choice, plug yourself into an output and wheeee! Of course, when you can jack straight into someone's brain and pervert their sense of reality or steal the odd thought, things CAN get a bit rocky.
Synners is not an easy ride, but if you enjoy working hard at a book you'll LOVE it. From the first word you're dropped without warning into a possible future, just around the corner from here and now.
There's a great idiosyncratic cast, murder, machiavellian mystery, pathos, sex-drugs-&-rock n'roll, virtual reality, Artificial Intelligence, cybernetics… you name it. A fascinating plot woven by unusual, three-dimensional characters. Cadigan spins you up, down and sideways, but always with supreme control and elegance. A great wordsmith and a great story.

And if you think that's hard, try Mindplayers and Fools, too!