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progI liked it, though it's very structurally different than his two famous novels, and will soon be famous for having an ending that is at once both clear-cut and mystifying. I reserve the right to post more about this, or not, after sleeping on it.
* Rabbit is an AI, right? I thought it was weird that some secondary characters said "Hey, I bet he's an AI" less than halfway through the book, before the reader really has cause to start thinking this themselves. But then again, this is the book where the double-agent antagonist reveals himself to the reader (and to nobody else) in the first chapter. What cinched it for me was his apparent composition of that lengthy PDF within a few seconds' time -- even though Rabbit's POV sections don't imply that he experiences subjective time any differently from anyone else.
I have been reading posts about him on Usenet, and my favorite theory is that he's an emergent property of the Secure Hardware Environment. There is a lot of confusion over why the carrot stub he left in Alfred's office were a clue, explicitly identified as such by both characters; in this theory, its carrotyness isn't as important as the fact that it was there at all, after Rabbit left, indicating not a subversion of Alfred's network defenses but a co-option of the SHE itself.
What was up with his trying to trick Robert and Miri into putting the canisters into the launcher, though? Wouldn't that have made Alfred's plan ultimately succeed? Or was he trying to knock Alfred aside and take over the plan for himself? Bleah?
* The book is surprisingly, hm, "aromantic"? I don't want to say unromantic, but it's just that it spent sufficient energy in character development to make the almost complete lack of romantic entanglement a little strange.
I was assuming that Xu and Robert would end up together at the end, but instead she gets Tommie, kind of randomly. There's implied unrequited teenage goo-goo between Juan and Miri at the end, but the heat even there is on a low boil at best.
But jmac, you hate romance! Wasn't this perfect for you? Yeah, it was kind of refreshing, actually. But maybe a little unsettling too.
* Why that title?
* Rabbit is an AI, right? I thought it was weird that some secondary characters said "Hey, I bet he's an AI" less than halfway through the book, before the reader really has cause to start thinking this themselves. But then again, this is the book where the double-agent antagonist reveals himself to the reader (and to nobody else) in the first chapter. What cinched it for me was his apparent composition of that lengthy PDF within a few seconds' time -- even though Rabbit's POV sections don't imply that he experiences subjective time any differently from anyone else.
I have been reading posts about him on Usenet, and my favorite theory is that he's an emergent property of the Secure Hardware Environment. There is a lot of confusion over why the carrot stub he left in Alfred's office were a clue, explicitly identified as such by both characters; in this theory, its carrotyness isn't as important as the fact that it was there at all, after Rabbit left, indicating not a subversion of Alfred's network defenses but a co-option of the SHE itself.
What was up with his trying to trick Robert and Miri into putting the canisters into the launcher, though? Wouldn't that have made Alfred's plan ultimately succeed? Or was he trying to knock Alfred aside and take over the plan for himself? Bleah?
* The book is surprisingly, hm, "aromantic"? I don't want to say unromantic, but it's just that it spent sufficient energy in character development to make the almost complete lack of romantic entanglement a little strange.
I was assuming that Xu and Robert would end up together at the end, but instead she gets Tommie, kind of randomly. There's implied unrequited teenage goo-goo between Juan and Miri at the end, but the heat even there is on a low boil at best.
But jmac, you hate romance! Wasn't this perfect for you? Yeah, it was kind of refreshing, actually. But maybe a little unsettling too.
* Why that title?
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Date: 2006-06-14 10:22 pm (UTC)My interpretation was that Rabbit was definitely trying to launch the canisters to a destination of his own choosing, thus stealing the fruit flies from Alfred. However,
a.) we don't know what Rabbit would have done with the canisters if he'd actually received them. As a matter of fact, I doubt Rabbit was even sure at the time, but had enough faith in his abilities to come to that decision once he knew more about what Alfred was trying to do. (He may even have been most interested in developing a countermeasure.)
b.) it's clear that Rabbit was mistaken in his assumption that the fruit fly canisters were Alfred's project. Alfred's attempt to fake Rabbit out about the specific canisters in which he was interested worked.