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Avatars Dance #2
Proxies
Carli D'Auber, who has invented a new form of communication that enables people to transfer their consciousness thousands of miles away, finds herself hunted by a conspiracy that wants to use her invention for their own purposes. Reprint.
468 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1998
2 people are currently reading
84 people want to read
About the author
Laura J. Mixon
15 books38 followersLaura J. Mixon is a chemical and environmental engineer better known as a science fiction writer. She writes about the impact of technology and environmental changes on personal identity and social structures. Her work has been the focus of academic studies on the intersection of technology, feminism, and gender. She has also experimented with interactive storytelling, in collaboration with renowned game designer Chris Crawford. She is married to SF writer Steven Gould (Jumper), with whom she collaborated on the novel Greenwar. In 2011, she began publishing under the pen name Morgan J. Locke. Under that name, she is one of the writers for the group blog Eat Our Brains.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 5, 2017
Proxies has a lot going for it. It's a remarkable novel in many respects, well ahead of its time in its depiction of robotic telepresence, a mid-21st century world greatly affected by a changing climate, and a large cast of wonderfully diverse characters. The plot is ambitious and admirably complex, the setup is terrific, and a few standout scenes are spectacular feats of SF invention.
Too bad it's bloated, boring, and too far too complicated for its own good. A wealth of ideas are bogged down by scenes that drag interminably, chapter after chapter, as the plot lurches unevenly to a deflated anticlimax. This is a book could easily have been trimmed by 1/3rd of its length, at least, and been much better for it.
That said, I'd recommend it to patient SF readers who are interested in truly high-concept mid-90s extrapolations. I wouldn't call this a great book, but it's far too smart and inventive to be ignored.
Too bad it's bloated, boring, and too far too complicated for its own good. A wealth of ideas are bogged down by scenes that drag interminably, chapter after chapter, as the plot lurches unevenly to a deflated anticlimax. This is a book could easily have been trimmed by 1/3rd of its length, at least, and been much better for it.
That said, I'd recommend it to patient SF readers who are interested in truly high-concept mid-90s extrapolations. I wouldn't call this a great book, but it's far too smart and inventive to be ignored.
November 27, 2011
Summary:
Set in a near-future Southwest U.S. where global warming and international wars have taken their toll on both people and the environment, Proxies is a fast-paced cyber-thriller full of political intrigue, fascinating technology and complex interpersonal relationships. It is told from the point of view of three very different people: Pablo, Daniel and Carli.
Both Pablo and Daniel are “proxy” pilots. Proxies are robotic waldo bodies that look like humans but are enhanced (super strong, super fast and indestructible). Proxy pilots are humans who are able to “link” their consciousness to their waldo bodies through complicated software and an implanted jack in their skulls. Pablo and Daniel are very, very different, though: Pablo has spent nearly all his life in various proxies and is never “in corpus”, whereas Daniel has trained for piloting since becoming an adult, and is used to going back and forth between his own flesh and his proxy. Though both of them work for secret government projects that are experimenting with waldo technology, they are in different groups and have very different approaches to reality and relationships. As the book begins, Pablo is playing secret spy for “Mother”, the head of his project, and Daniel is attempting to track down a “renegade” proxy. I won’t say too much more so as not to spoil the plot, but I will say that we soon discover that Pablo is more than he appears at first, and though he and Daniel do cross paths, Daniel never really knows it.
Carli is the character at the heart of the novel, a bridge of sorts between Pablo and Daniel. She is a brilliant, recently divorced professor and scientist who early in her career discovered an instantaneous communication technology. But that communication technology was stolen from her and appropriated by a giant corporation, and due to their legal gag order, she has never been able to go any farther with her work. She is also the daughter of a powerful, wealthy senator, who is involved in the secret government waldo technology projects. As the book begins, Carli is packing up her university office and moving her things to her new office downtown, where she and a colleague have created a new research company. But things start to unravel when she meets Daniel, who has been sent to watch over her in case the renegade tries to harm her. Daniel is forced to tell her about the renegade; Carli doesn’t believe him and threatens him at gunpoint to leave her alone.
The plot thickens as Daniel continues to shadow Carli and we learn more about the renegade, not to mention the grandiose secret plan that Pablo’s “Mother” has for hijacking a spaceship. Then Carli gets kidnapped and the stakes get higher and the action more exciting right up until the end of the book, where Carli has to make an important decision about her own destiny.
What I liked:
For the most part, all the characters in this book were real and nuanced, and it was easy to be sympathetic to their widely varying motives. I especially liked Carli, and really identified with her motives and choices. The near-future world that Mixon imagined was fascinating, and definitely provided that “goshasensawunda” that good SF or Fantasy should. I especially liked the way she imagined the ways that human civilization, especially in an already hot and dry place like the U.S. Southwest, would have to change and adapt due to global warming aftereffects. The politics of the time and the alternate history (e.g. the global wars over Antarctica) that she touched on lightly here and there felt real to me also. Though most of the actual science and technology parts went right over my head and I sort of skim-read whenever things got too detailed (disclaimer: I’m not one of those who reads SF for the actual science, but rather for the overall “goshasensawunda” stuff), the science and technology bits certainly had the feel of authenticity and were consistently presented. The idea of “proxies” and how they affected the people who piloted them was an interesting one to me, and I liked how Mixon explored those issues throughout the story. I would have liked even more exploration of those bits.
There were some great, page-turner climactic action sequences involving the hijacking of the spaceship and the attempted rescue of Carli towards the end of the book that I won’t spoil but I will say were really well done. ☺
What didn’t work for me:
My main difficulty with this book was that it was one of those spec fic reads that thrusts the reader immediately into a very different world, multiple points-of-view, and a whole lot of intrigue and action, and it took me probably the first 100 pages or so before I really felt like I’d sorted out what was happening, whom to care about, and what all these strange new words and technologies referred to. Luckily, there was enough general “ooo shiny” ideas and interesting people/action to keep me going, but it was a tough slog at first, and my brain felt very stretched trying to comprehend it all at once. Some people really like that total immersion and having to puzzle out what’s going on, and they may see this book as an enjoyable challenge and fun mystery to unravel, so I’m not necessarily saying this wasn’t well done, just that it was a little bit more than I wanted. YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).
There were a lot of secondary characters in this book, and it took awhile for me to figure out each of their places in the book as a whole, and how much I needed to remember or care about each of them. Though all of them were interestingly drawn (Mixon has a gift for characterization), I think what was already a fairly complex and initially difficult-to-get-into book could have been considerably simplified for the reader with the subtraction of a few unnecessary characters/conflicts (e.g. Carli’s nephew Paint’s ex-girlfriend Tania, or Carli’s mom’s spiritual advisor, or Daniel’s co-workers Scott James and Leanne, or some of the scientists that worked with Pablo and Mother).
I also think (and remember my disclaimer above, so YMMV) that it would have been a simpler, more enticing and memorable read for me if Mixon hadn’t put quite so much exploration of various kinds of futuristic technology and science ideas in the book, but rather restrained herself to those that were germane to the plot. For example, at one point Carli was “floating” (experiencing by proxy) a probe mission to the sun, and that was certainly interesting and cool, but wound up having relatively little to do with the overall plot.
Overall reaction: this was a book I had to really work at in the beginning, but eventually I got into it and I was invested in finding out what happened, and when I finished I wanted to read it again because I finally understood it and I wanted to pick up the nuances I’d missed while I was struggling with immersion into the world and characters.
If you like near-future, technologically and scientifically imaginative, “hard” SF that also has well-drawn, complex characters and human relations, you’ll like this book.
Set in a near-future Southwest U.S. where global warming and international wars have taken their toll on both people and the environment, Proxies is a fast-paced cyber-thriller full of political intrigue, fascinating technology and complex interpersonal relationships. It is told from the point of view of three very different people: Pablo, Daniel and Carli.
Both Pablo and Daniel are “proxy” pilots. Proxies are robotic waldo bodies that look like humans but are enhanced (super strong, super fast and indestructible). Proxy pilots are humans who are able to “link” their consciousness to their waldo bodies through complicated software and an implanted jack in their skulls. Pablo and Daniel are very, very different, though: Pablo has spent nearly all his life in various proxies and is never “in corpus”, whereas Daniel has trained for piloting since becoming an adult, and is used to going back and forth between his own flesh and his proxy. Though both of them work for secret government projects that are experimenting with waldo technology, they are in different groups and have very different approaches to reality and relationships. As the book begins, Pablo is playing secret spy for “Mother”, the head of his project, and Daniel is attempting to track down a “renegade” proxy. I won’t say too much more so as not to spoil the plot, but I will say that we soon discover that Pablo is more than he appears at first, and though he and Daniel do cross paths, Daniel never really knows it.
Carli is the character at the heart of the novel, a bridge of sorts between Pablo and Daniel. She is a brilliant, recently divorced professor and scientist who early in her career discovered an instantaneous communication technology. But that communication technology was stolen from her and appropriated by a giant corporation, and due to their legal gag order, she has never been able to go any farther with her work. She is also the daughter of a powerful, wealthy senator, who is involved in the secret government waldo technology projects. As the book begins, Carli is packing up her university office and moving her things to her new office downtown, where she and a colleague have created a new research company. But things start to unravel when she meets Daniel, who has been sent to watch over her in case the renegade tries to harm her. Daniel is forced to tell her about the renegade; Carli doesn’t believe him and threatens him at gunpoint to leave her alone.
The plot thickens as Daniel continues to shadow Carli and we learn more about the renegade, not to mention the grandiose secret plan that Pablo’s “Mother” has for hijacking a spaceship. Then Carli gets kidnapped and the stakes get higher and the action more exciting right up until the end of the book, where Carli has to make an important decision about her own destiny.
What I liked:
For the most part, all the characters in this book were real and nuanced, and it was easy to be sympathetic to their widely varying motives. I especially liked Carli, and really identified with her motives and choices. The near-future world that Mixon imagined was fascinating, and definitely provided that “goshasensawunda” that good SF or Fantasy should. I especially liked the way she imagined the ways that human civilization, especially in an already hot and dry place like the U.S. Southwest, would have to change and adapt due to global warming aftereffects. The politics of the time and the alternate history (e.g. the global wars over Antarctica) that she touched on lightly here and there felt real to me also. Though most of the actual science and technology parts went right over my head and I sort of skim-read whenever things got too detailed (disclaimer: I’m not one of those who reads SF for the actual science, but rather for the overall “goshasensawunda” stuff), the science and technology bits certainly had the feel of authenticity and were consistently presented. The idea of “proxies” and how they affected the people who piloted them was an interesting one to me, and I liked how Mixon explored those issues throughout the story. I would have liked even more exploration of those bits.
There were some great, page-turner climactic action sequences involving the hijacking of the spaceship and the attempted rescue of Carli towards the end of the book that I won’t spoil but I will say were really well done. ☺
What didn’t work for me:
My main difficulty with this book was that it was one of those spec fic reads that thrusts the reader immediately into a very different world, multiple points-of-view, and a whole lot of intrigue and action, and it took me probably the first 100 pages or so before I really felt like I’d sorted out what was happening, whom to care about, and what all these strange new words and technologies referred to. Luckily, there was enough general “ooo shiny” ideas and interesting people/action to keep me going, but it was a tough slog at first, and my brain felt very stretched trying to comprehend it all at once. Some people really like that total immersion and having to puzzle out what’s going on, and they may see this book as an enjoyable challenge and fun mystery to unravel, so I’m not necessarily saying this wasn’t well done, just that it was a little bit more than I wanted. YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).
There were a lot of secondary characters in this book, and it took awhile for me to figure out each of their places in the book as a whole, and how much I needed to remember or care about each of them. Though all of them were interestingly drawn (Mixon has a gift for characterization), I think what was already a fairly complex and initially difficult-to-get-into book could have been considerably simplified for the reader with the subtraction of a few unnecessary characters/conflicts (e.g. Carli’s nephew Paint’s ex-girlfriend Tania, or Carli’s mom’s spiritual advisor, or Daniel’s co-workers Scott James and Leanne, or some of the scientists that worked with Pablo and Mother).
I also think (and remember my disclaimer above, so YMMV) that it would have been a simpler, more enticing and memorable read for me if Mixon hadn’t put quite so much exploration of various kinds of futuristic technology and science ideas in the book, but rather restrained herself to those that were germane to the plot. For example, at one point Carli was “floating” (experiencing by proxy) a probe mission to the sun, and that was certainly interesting and cool, but wound up having relatively little to do with the overall plot.
Overall reaction: this was a book I had to really work at in the beginning, but eventually I got into it and I was invested in finding out what happened, and when I finished I wanted to read it again because I finally understood it and I wanted to pick up the nuances I’d missed while I was struggling with immersion into the world and characters.
If you like near-future, technologically and scientifically imaginative, “hard” SF that also has well-drawn, complex characters and human relations, you’ll like this book.
June 6, 2017
Didn't know this was a second - found it in the re-use bin in the library and loved it.
So, it's interesting, and fun, and can be read as it's own book but probably shouldn't.
So, it's interesting, and fun, and can be read as it's own book but probably shouldn't.
April 17, 2020
A software designer aids a group of cyborg children in stealing a starship.
Read
July 7, 2023Dnf. Decided to give up on this series. The first was just ok and can't get into this one.
August 28, 2010
I thought that this book was fresh. It was written over ten years ago now, and so other things have been done along these lines. But this book balanced the mental/phycological elements that science fiction can sometimes approach in a way that no other genre does. Great tension and solid characters to boot.
November 23, 2015
bluhhh i hated almost everything about this book. all the names for the new technology were stupid, the erotic descriptions made me think it was written by a eunuch, and i found the dialogue when multiple people were present in one avatar/body/whatever irritating to read. maybe it gets better after page 100, but i wasn't going to waste my time finding out.
January 13, 2009
Kinda neat, but not very memorable. The only part I remember was the protagonist's internet glasses, so she could check her email while walking around.
September 14, 2012
summary: pretty much everything in this book is becoming reality
October 6, 2012
Decent story. When I got to the end I felt like a few of the
pieces still didn't fit together.
pieces still didn't fit together.
October 31, 2016
Well-written but has serious plausibility problems. Disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews