THE DIGITAL SEA

The author sent me a copy of this novel to review:

The confused world of augmented reality resurfaces in this mystery/spy novel set in the year 2052 by Thomas K. Carpenter. I only say that because this theme is my least favorite when I’m reading sci-fi or fantasy novels. I’m reminded of Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End, the 2007 Hugo Award winner for best novel. I disliked that novel! Vernor spoke of a world in which “ ...the virtual and the real are a seamless continuum, layers of reality built on digital views seen by a single person or millions, depending on your choice.” Well, here we go again. The difference is that I didn’t dislike Carpenter’s novel. Don’t get me wrong, I was still perplexed, but so were some of his characters. One of the main "good" characters, Zel Aurora, thinks to herself on page 193, “Damn it. Even with you I don’t always understand what’s going on. It’s like having a play in a foreign country explained to you. I hear the explanation, but I don’t know what it means.” Amen, Zel. I had the same problem reading this avant-garde novel. That being said, I think the author is highly competent. Some of the character’s lines are clever, such as Jartelle, a reporter, reflecting on an affair he had with a girl named Anesha: ”I cannot be so blind to think it is a relationship. Still, what’s the difference, it’s only a title. Journalist. Prostitute. Some say they are no different, and the latter pays better.” There are quite a few of these kinds of snippets throughout the novel. This was a well written and thought through novel that just happened to be about a topic that I don’t like.

The story is about our world in the future where Sagan’s Law has been enacted, a world-wide one child policy. The population is still too high, and there are many devious plans to lower it further. The cost of health care is only available for the rich. Limbs can be regrown. ARNet computers (the Digital Sea) are embedded into the body in order for a person to change their outward appearance and viewed surroundings. But can you now be controlled and monitored by unknown forces? Can some people take this a step further and become invisible at times? These are some of the questions in this new complex world. Mr. Carpenter weaves a unique tale that tries to unravel this complicated and puzzling dilemma that man has enacted on himself. Well done, Mr. Carpenter, you had this reviewer guessing, chapter after chapter.  

Our heroine is Zel Aurora, a reality hacker savant, who has fashioned her own augmented reality system called the Pandora. Her child lies in bed dying from a shaking sickness. She contacts the crime lord Djed, whom she has betrayed in the past, to seek employment in exchange for enough funds to get hemangioblast therapy for her daughter, Liala. The Djed, who speaks to her as a projection, wants to find out who is trying to start a war between India and Pakistan. They are interfering with his business. She agrees to take the job but must take Djed’s Russian assassin, Sasha, with her. Meanwhile, a Japanese politician is beheaded by an invisible assassin and the seasoned reporter Jartelle suspects a bigger situation brewing and starts to follow leads (don’t worry about all the ‘ands’, I’m invoking polysyndeton syntax). Jartelle stays one step ahead of Zel and Sasha as they seek the answer to the plot against humanity, seemingly from a mysterious corporation called Ecoverse. Carpenter writes some of the chases like it’s an episode from the Keystone Cops! For example, Zel and Sasha arrive in a now dead New Orleans to see Quicksilver Spider, then to New York to see TenNinety and the Unseen gang, only to be sent to Siberia to see Fat Tennessee (and he is super fat!), and then sent to Free Africa South. And guess who was there first? Yes, Jartelle! Now the story gets exciting, and this is where I stop. Now that you have tasted a little of the plot, I suggest you grab your own copy of this China Mieville-like weird fiction novel, sans the neologisms.

One flaw I find in books of this type is that the author writes in too many sidebar characters with names. It gets too hard for the reader to remember all the character’s names, only to find out that they were menial at best. I haven’t even mentioned: Mekena Dembo ( he’s not one of the menials ), Kaydar Ayasha, Ava, the Jackal, Cutter, the twins, NURBS, or Ubiq to name a few. The reader will have a lot more empathy for characters when he can concentrate on three or four people. But, this was a enjoyable novel, even though I didn’t like the theme.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: On Mr. Carpenter’s blog, he states: “The Future Digital Life is about, among other things, augmented reality. AR is the evolution of the Internet, a visual medium of data overlain our reality, creating an enhanced living experience with new dilemmas that will require careful exploration. My interest in augmented reality spawned from a science-fiction novel project and has bloomed into this blog. While I regularly talk about AR, on occasion I delve into my experience as a writer and update with progress on the perils of publication.” That being said, I still don’t like reading books that cause me to run to Google or Wikipedia every ten minutes or so.

In 2011, Thomas K. Carpenter published Mirror Shards: Extending the Edges of Augmented Reality . The synopsis is as follows: “EXPLORE the edge of augmented reality in thirteen tales from thirteen fantastic authors. When the digital world collides with our real one, bringing all its problems and benefits, mankind will have to relearn what it means to be human. In this glimpse of possible futures, you will go on the hunt to track down a fugitive on the other side of the known Universe. Learn the price of ubiquitous knowledge, or find peace and understanding in the absence of it. Dive deep into the ocean to avert a kidnapping using only the tools at hand. Experience new realities underwritten by an alien love of entertainment. Find hidden truths contained within our smallest gestures. Hide something so valuable, it would drive a man to crime. Or find that sometimes, what it doesn't hide is what endangers us most.”