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Cobweb is not bad, but Interface, the other one he wrote under a nom de plume, is better. Though once again the ending kind of sucks.
I couldn't agree less, though doing so will necessitate major
SPOILERS
for both Stephen Bury books.
Interface is just great. I'd rate it as one of Neal's best. It's just-barely-sci-fi in the Michael Crichton style, extropolating from today's technology and positing one stage further. It's a horribly forensic analysis of U.S politics during a takeover attempt, when the usual cabal of self-interested corporations and super-rich individuals decide their interests are no longer served by free elections and they need their own President. Juxtaposed with this is the story of mother who ends up homeless, and from that begins an unlikely political career.
It's one of those books where all the different elements converge frictionlessly and neatly, but remain entertaining. The ending; well, multiple murderer Floyd Wayne Vishniak is an unlikely hero who's strayed into the wrong book. He puts together everything from the tiniest fragments of information, works out the plot and ultimately sacrifices himself for a free America. Only his timing is wrong. And this is a book which ends with a former homeless black woman as President of the United States. Almost plausibly. What's not to like?
The Cobweb is nowhere near as good, though it is prescient. A group of Arabic terrorists living within the United States, following orders and financed from outside the country, use U.S facilities to train for and stage an aerial terrorist attack on New York. All this well before 9/11. The terrorists were Iraqi and the attack was biological, that's what they got wrong. And that the attack was stopped. |
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