MultiReal: Resonates With Past Classics
This Sci Fi Weekly review of David Louis Edelman’s MultiReal,
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MultiReal
Edelman Interview
There’s an interview up with MultiReal
Well worth checking out. Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt, apropos in light of my earlier post on conflating an author with his/her protagonist:
The political factions in the Jump 225 trilogy are divided between governmentalists and libertarians. If you were a character in the books, which would you be?
A lot of people who’ve read Infoquake assumed that my sympathies lie with the libertarians, because that’s where Natch’s sympathy lies. But I’m definitely more conflicted in my politics. I like to pick and choose among the different parties and philosophies. I have some definite liberal tendencies but a number of conservative ones as well.
You’ll discover in MultiReal that the political situation is much more nuanced than Natch makes it out to be in Infoquake. The central government, which really seems like the epitome of evil in Infoquake, is a conflicted organization itself with some do-gooders working in the fringes. And the libertarians are full of self-interested schemers who’ll stab you in the back.
Update 7/09/08: John Joseph Adams conducts another interview with Edelman over on the SciFi Channel’s Sci Fi Wire:
“In Infoquake, our hero, Natch, managed to connive his way into co-owning this mysterious new technology called MultiReal. Now, in the sequel, this all-powerful government agency called the Defense and Wellness Council decides that MultiReal is too dangerous to be left to an unscrupulous businessman, so they come after him with both barrels.”
Has It Really Been So Long Since "Who Shot JR" ?
The latest issue of Locus magazine has a review of David Louis Edelman’s just-released MultiReal,
“As SF, it’s a brilliant imagining of a near-future that not only extrapolates convincingly from current technology and culture but fills in the gaps with world-building so detailed as to verge on the tedious.”
…and….
“Others have imagined a future in which nano-machines have colonized the human body, …but few have done so as convincingly as Edelman does in these books.”
…and…
‘Others have also focused on the business side of SF, …but I’ve never encountered an SF writer whose focus is so relentlessly on the nuts and bolts of the entrepreneurial world, from the boardroom to the factory to the sales office, and who—pontification aside—can make the minutiae of that world seem as exciting and dangerous as a military operation.”
But the reviewer does seem to have tripped up on the idea that because Dave’s character Natch is the protagonist that he is being held up as a laudable individual. As witness:
“I have no doubt that others will be enamored of a novel in which the main character is frequently referred to as ‘the entrepreneur,’ as if there were no higher accolade available, and no one else worthy to bear it. Whenever I came across this descriptor, I simply replaced it with ‘the demigod’ and read on.”
Mind you, I’m not arguing with the review – because it’s always a bad idea to contest someone else’s subjective opinion – and I’m plenty happy with the quotables above. I’m just interested in the notion of protagonist as role model because a few other people came away with similar sentiments from the first book. (I myself worked for someone very much like Natch once upon a time, and so had no trouble recognizing exactly what he was.) But I find myself wondering why we seem to have such a hard time with flawed protagonists in SF. Our sister genre, mystery, is practically built on the adventures of broken human beings you might want on your case but wouldn’t necessarily enjoy having a beer with, loaning money to, or dating.
Anyway, I find this amusing, given that Dave himself just compared Natch to Adolph Hitler here in his post on John Scalzi’s Whatever blog author spotlight, The Big Idea.
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MultiReal: A Matrix fans delight!
Over at Grasping at the Wind, John reviews David Louis Edelman’s just-released MultiReal,
John is also the second reviewer to suggest that Edelman beats middle-book-of-a-trilogy syndrome, as he says, ” This is one of those rare cases (like The Empire Strikes Back vs. A New Hope) where the second movie far surpasses the first in quality and level of enjoyment. Fans of stories that mix philosophy and ethics, with action and technology will enjoy Edelman’s works.”
And who can balk at the final sentiment here: “It is a Matrix fans’ delight, and a worthy successor to Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. I highly recommend Edelman as an author, and suggest you read Infoquake and its sequel MultiReal if you are looking for high-octane action, deep thinking, and eloquent writing.“
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The Latest from Edelman
David Louis Edelman is funnier than I could ever be:
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The Latest from David Louis Edelman
David Louis Edelman’s latest newsletter, too funny & informative not to repurpose as a Pyr blog entry:
All
There’s a convergence of astral forces in the air… a locus of spiritual energies… a crossroads in the galaxy where Ebb and Flow meet. The buzzer has sounded, it’s a tie game, and the universe has gone into quantum harmonic electro-mega overtime.
What’s causing all this? Why, it’s the imminent release of MultiReal and the re-release of Infoquake, of course! We’re a scant few months away from what I am now officially labeling the Summer of Jump 225. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as the Summer of Love, but these things take time to build.
Very, very soon I’ll have new websites, new reviews, new appearances, and the like to report. But in the meantime, here’s all the David Louis Edelman writing news that’s fit to, uh, type.
- John W. Campbell Nomination for Best New Writer.
Yes, it happened! Thanks to all your efforts, I’m now a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in science fiction and fantasy. The other nominees: Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jon Armstrong, and David Anthony Durham. The winner is voted by Worldcon members and will be announced (along with the rest of the Hugo awards) this August at the Denver Worldcon. (You’ll be pleased to know that my editor, Lou Anders, is up for a Hugo this year as well.) - MultiReal Chapters 1-5 Available Online in the Pyr Sampler.
My publisher, Pyr, has released a 326-page sampler of its upcoming titles. Included in the sampler are the first five chapters of MultiReal, available for the first time anywhere. Download the whole sampler from Pyr (Adobe Acrobat 3.5 MB file) and then head over to my blog to tell me what you think of it. - My Story “Mathralon” Now Available.
My first, and so far only, completed science fiction short story has been published and is now available in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 2. It’s called “Mathralon,” and it’s a story about economically oppressed space miners told without plot, characters, or dialogue from a Greek chorus point of view. The UK Guardian singled “Mathralon” out as one of the standouts in the collection, calling it “a deliberately dry, unconventionally narrated account of the mining of a rare mineral, a story on a galactic scale which only serves to show what very small worlds we inhabit.” Intrigued, you say? Go thou forth and order the anthology on Amazon. Solaris was kind enough to allow me to publish “Mathralon” for free on my website as well. You can read the entire story here and read an introduction on my blog as well. - Robert Sawyer Praises MultiReal.
Rob Sawyer, author of too many acclaimed novels to list here (including this year’s Hugo nominee for Best Novel, Rollback), has given an advance blurb for MultiReal. Here’s what Rob has to say: “Just when we thought cyberpunk was dead, David Louis Edelman bursts on the scene with defibrillator paddles and shouts, ‘Clear!’ If there’s any web more tangled than the World Wide one, it’s the Byzantine networks of high finance; Edelman intermeshes them in a complex, compelling series. This DOES compute!” - My Introduction to Titus Alone Now Available.
Overlook Press has just reissued Mervyn Peake’s 1959 novel Titus Alone, the third in the classic Gormenghast Trilogy. Gracing the opening pages is a new introduction by Yours Truly. The gist of it? Despite what you may have heard, Mervyn Peake’s last novel is not the product of a deteriorating mind, but a vibrant counterpoint to the first two books in the series. Go order Titus Alone on Amazon. Overlook Press has also graciously allowed me to post the introduction in full on my blog. - I’m on Wikipedia.
The gods of communal knowledge have seen fit to provide me with my own Wikipedia page, which makes me happy out of all proportion to the actual achievement itself. I actually had Wikipedia pages before, twice, both of which were almost instantly taken down by the Powers That Wiki. So you might want to see the page before someone decides I’m not important enough to merit it. - MultiReal and Infoquake Available for Pre-Order.
Just in case you weren’t already aware, you can pre-order MultiRealon Amazon, among other places.
Coming very, very soon: brand spankin’ new redesigned websites for me as well as for Infoquake and MultiReal.
Towards Perfection,
David Louis Edelman
www.davidlouisedelman.com
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Edelman on DC and in DC
David Louis Edelman is the guest-blogger today on John Scalzi’s Whatever, for day fifteen of his “Month of Writers.” Scalzi is inviting authors who blog to post their favorite entry from 2007, and Edelman’s is his piece on what the Bourne Identity films tell us about America and American politics (which originally appeared on Dave’s blog here.) This happens to be my favorite post from Edelman to date as well, not the least for its contrasting of James Bond and Jason Bourne.
Meanwhile, Dave has let me know that he is going to be part of the Library of Congress’ “What If… Science Fiction and Fantasy Forums” series, appearing on February 21, 2008.
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