A dark, intense character study of a man who offsets many personal acts of valor and selflessness with a few acts of horrifying cruelty. Literal warfare as a metaphor for the main character’s inner turmoil. Big Philosophical Questions about good and evil, the ethics of interfering with less advanced civilizations, finding purpose in a post-scarcity society, and most interesting of all, what it means to be human in an era when machines do everything better than people, including the things we thought made us uniquely human.
Great stuff. I would have given it 5 stars if not for the twist ending. I have nothing against twist endings per se (in fact I love them when they’re well executed), but in this case I felt like it robbed me of a perception that I had spent 468 pages developing.
In any case, the scene with The Chair was the most unsettling thing I’ve ever read. It disturbs me even now.
Cato's Life of the Mind is the personal site of Jamel Cato, a blogger and database developer who can usually be found between the pages of a good book when he's not laughing with his wife and kids. | 