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Virtual Reality #1
Rim: Una novela de la realidad virtual
Es el año 2027. Tokyo ha sobrevivido al megaterremoto del Milenio y la Satori Corporation, dueña de un imperio de Ocio en la realidad virtual, está empeñada en una guerra a muerte para conservar su cuota de mercado y, de paso, salvar las vidas de los miles de usuarios que han quedado atrapados dentro de sus mundos virtuales. Todo esto parece muy lejano para el profesor Frank Gobi mientras se pasea tranquilamente por el campus universitario de Berkeley, California, hasta que llega a casa y descubre que su hijo de diez años, que siempre está conectado a la red, ha quedado atrapado dentro del gran juego virtual de Satori y está, literalmente, luchando por sobrevivir.
365 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1994
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March 15, 2017A little more than a year ago I acquired this book from a neighbor who was getting rid of boxes and boxes of books and was kind enough to let me root through them beforehand. The front cover design and back cover synopsis spoke to me (much like a bag of Combos does at a rest stop during a long trip). I stuck it in the car a couple months ago and I read it at stop lights, drive-thru-lanes, while waiting to pick up my son, etc. It started as a wonderfully imaginative near-future written by someone who is obviously a Japanophile. Besher creatively meshes together cultural and historical items and concepts while weaving it all together with a kind of new-agey mysticism. Just a bit too over-written--felt like almost every sentence was an attempt to prove the author's understanding of Japanese culture (e.g., "The smile on her face was drawn tight like the string of a samisen."). Luckily, there aren't too many sex scenes in the book, but here's an example of one that actually made me guffaw (and who likes to admit when they guffaw... so embarrassing... especially during intimate moments): "His hands traveled down her back and felt the globes of her derriere." That scene actually got worse as it went on to detail "the lubricated third rail of her shaven vulva."
Last night, I brought the book inside from the car and this was the first time I read more than 5 pages at a time. I read a good 50 pages or so. I hit page 216 and thought "Wow, I don't even really care what happens. Why am I still reading this?" I couldn't answer that question. It's like when you eat something just because it's in front of you and not because you're either hungry or it tastes good. It's hard for me to stop in the middle of a book, especially if I'm past the midway point, but life is short and, I think, it's only getting shorter.
Last night, I brought the book inside from the car and this was the first time I read more than 5 pages at a time. I read a good 50 pages or so. I hit page 216 and thought "Wow, I don't even really care what happens. Why am I still reading this?" I couldn't answer that question. It's like when you eat something just because it's in front of you and not because you're either hungry or it tastes good. It's hard for me to stop in the middle of a book, especially if I'm past the midway point, but life is short and, I think, it's only getting shorter.
February 18, 2011
Hey look! I found an old write-up I had to do for an internship:
The book is a strange combination of science fiction and new age that never works. I suppose mixing technology and mysticism is an admirable idea, but Besher undeniably fails in his attempt to reconcile the two. And as if this straddling of genres isn’t enough, Besher even throws in zombies for good measure – although, as far as I can tell, they have absolutely no bearing on the plot. Granted, Besher does not seem to take his story too seriously, as he throws in some humorous moments, but unfortunately the novel is only funny unintentionally.
The utter saturation of the entire world in Japanese culture is hard to believe and taken way too far. Practically every American institution has a Japanese moniker attached, and everyone uses Japanese terminology and modes of dress. Maybe in the mid-90s it seemed like Japan had a corner on technology, but that seems very unrealistic today, especially in a novel set less than 30 years into the future.
There is very little character development. Gobi is a cartoon character at best. His son is in peril, but the only time that is evident is when Besher remembers to mention that Gobi is in pain. When Besher is not spelling out Gobi’s grief, he goes on at length about Gobi’s sex life – yes, even while in the midst of saving his son and the world, Gobi still has time to sleep with two women (in two days) and congratulate himself on his own attractiveness and sensitive nature. For a grieving and brilliant investigator, Gobi is awfully easily distracted.
The rest of the characters barely register. Claudia and Yuki are interchangeable Asian femme fatales, Tara disappears midway through the book, and Kimiko serves absolutely no purpose. Trevor’s adventure trying to escape Gametime might have been an interesting sub-plot, but Besher deals with it in one chapter oddly thrown in at the end – and who couldn’t have guessed that Trevor would meet Devi?
Besher’s ideas are at once interesting and outdated. The virtual metropolis and gaming are believable (and even seem somehow quaint, as many others have built stories around the same idea) and there could be real suspense (if Besher could actually write) in the idea of getting trapped there. Unfortunately, this plot line is smothered with pointless tangents about reincarnation, evil geniuses and Gobi’s previous career as a private eye.
The gumshoe (Besher’s word) plot point seems to function only as a way for Besher to insert some hard-boiled detective dreck in the middle for no apparent reason except to add more sex and a long-lost love who pointlessly comes back from the dead. Gobi and other characters constantly gush about how good he was as an up-and-coming investigator, but that seems hard to believe since Gobi himself says he quit the profession after getting his first serious client killed. His skill in his present career is not that convincing either – in fact, I was never truly clear on what his career even was or why he was the only person who could save Satori City, or what he actually did to accomplish it.
Actually, I was never truly clear on anything that happens in this book. Between all the Japanese, pseudo-scientific terminology, new age mumbo-jumbo, and just plain gibberish it’s very hard to figure out what the heck Besher is talking about. But then, it’s hard to actually care.
The book is a strange combination of science fiction and new age that never works. I suppose mixing technology and mysticism is an admirable idea, but Besher undeniably fails in his attempt to reconcile the two. And as if this straddling of genres isn’t enough, Besher even throws in zombies for good measure – although, as far as I can tell, they have absolutely no bearing on the plot. Granted, Besher does not seem to take his story too seriously, as he throws in some humorous moments, but unfortunately the novel is only funny unintentionally.
The utter saturation of the entire world in Japanese culture is hard to believe and taken way too far. Practically every American institution has a Japanese moniker attached, and everyone uses Japanese terminology and modes of dress. Maybe in the mid-90s it seemed like Japan had a corner on technology, but that seems very unrealistic today, especially in a novel set less than 30 years into the future.
There is very little character development. Gobi is a cartoon character at best. His son is in peril, but the only time that is evident is when Besher remembers to mention that Gobi is in pain. When Besher is not spelling out Gobi’s grief, he goes on at length about Gobi’s sex life – yes, even while in the midst of saving his son and the world, Gobi still has time to sleep with two women (in two days) and congratulate himself on his own attractiveness and sensitive nature. For a grieving and brilliant investigator, Gobi is awfully easily distracted.
The rest of the characters barely register. Claudia and Yuki are interchangeable Asian femme fatales, Tara disappears midway through the book, and Kimiko serves absolutely no purpose. Trevor’s adventure trying to escape Gametime might have been an interesting sub-plot, but Besher deals with it in one chapter oddly thrown in at the end – and who couldn’t have guessed that Trevor would meet Devi?
Besher’s ideas are at once interesting and outdated. The virtual metropolis and gaming are believable (and even seem somehow quaint, as many others have built stories around the same idea) and there could be real suspense (if Besher could actually write) in the idea of getting trapped there. Unfortunately, this plot line is smothered with pointless tangents about reincarnation, evil geniuses and Gobi’s previous career as a private eye.
The gumshoe (Besher’s word) plot point seems to function only as a way for Besher to insert some hard-boiled detective dreck in the middle for no apparent reason except to add more sex and a long-lost love who pointlessly comes back from the dead. Gobi and other characters constantly gush about how good he was as an up-and-coming investigator, but that seems hard to believe since Gobi himself says he quit the profession after getting his first serious client killed. His skill in his present career is not that convincing either – in fact, I was never truly clear on what his career even was or why he was the only person who could save Satori City, or what he actually did to accomplish it.
Actually, I was never truly clear on anything that happens in this book. Between all the Japanese, pseudo-scientific terminology, new age mumbo-jumbo, and just plain gibberish it’s very hard to figure out what the heck Besher is talking about. But then, it’s hard to actually care.
September 11, 2013
-Espiritualidad oriental, virtualidad generalizada y mucha imaginación.-
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. En el 2067, Trevor Gobi nos presenta su breve reflexión sobre los tiempos de las guerras mega-empresariales que ya han quedado atrás. En 2025, en Nuevo Tokio, un anciano gravemente enfermo al frente de una de las mayores corporaciones de su tiempo participa en la ceremonia de la realidad virtual. En 2027, en la frontera entre México y USA, un hombre con la cara plateada se hace con unos procesadores de conciencia. En el aeropuerto de Los Ángeles, el profesor Frank Gobi , experto en chamanismo organizativo, antropología empresarial transcultural y otros temas relacionados, sale en dirección al Aeropuerto Internacional Nueva Narita sólo doce meses después del Mega-temblor que afectó a Nuevo Nipón. Frank no deja de pensar en su hijo Trevor, que tras un incidente “vive” en una Unidad de Realidad Virtual para Adolescentes. Primer volumen de la trilogía Rim.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. En el 2067, Trevor Gobi nos presenta su breve reflexión sobre los tiempos de las guerras mega-empresariales que ya han quedado atrás. En 2025, en Nuevo Tokio, un anciano gravemente enfermo al frente de una de las mayores corporaciones de su tiempo participa en la ceremonia de la realidad virtual. En 2027, en la frontera entre México y USA, un hombre con la cara plateada se hace con unos procesadores de conciencia. En el aeropuerto de Los Ángeles, el profesor Frank Gobi , experto en chamanismo organizativo, antropología empresarial transcultural y otros temas relacionados, sale en dirección al Aeropuerto Internacional Nueva Narita sólo doce meses después del Mega-temblor que afectó a Nuevo Nipón. Frank no deja de pensar en su hijo Trevor, que tras un incidente “vive” en una Unidad de Realidad Virtual para Adolescentes. Primer volumen de la trilogía Rim.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
August 22, 2008
Everything I have read from Alexander Besher has been very good. This was his first work that I read - and from here I went to his other books. All worth reading!
July 30, 2013
It's a real shame this book isn't better, because there's the germ of some interesting ideas here: a near future where VR has been pretty much perfected; a city which shifts into a different reality every night; technology crossing over with the deeper meaning of consciousness. But Besher never really capitalises on these - the VR is the hackneyed old "like real life, only pixellated" (seriously, the moderate success of Second Life notwithstanding, who would actually rent a virtual office that was exactly like a real office?), and I never really got a feel of what was so different about the "post-virtual" world around which the plot revolves, other than that it shockingly didn't adhere to the same rules as real life.
His world-building is best exemplified for me by his obsession with the word "New": we are given no indication at all of why "New Nippon" is not just "Japan", and "Neo-Tokyo" is inexplicably called that before becoming a reality-shifting enigma. Putting "New" in front of a name just does not make sense unless the setting is a new world - "New York" is three thousand miles away from "York", and "New England" isn't what Oliver Cromwell decreed after the Civil War (and as for New South Wales...). There's even mention of a "New UN", which if you think about it should surely be the "New New League of Nations" - except that, you know, that's not what anyone would ever call it. This may seem like I'm being picky, but for a "vision" described by one cherry-picked review quote as "increasingly likely", this is dreadfully poor futurology.
One of the book's biggest conceits is the mixing of technology with spirituality - something I wouldn't normally be a fan of, but I was willing to suspend my disbelief if it made for an interesting novel. Unfortunately, Besher falls into a classic logical trap: if one "non-traditional science" is real, then clearly they must all be real, right? This is what most annoys me about things like "alternative medicine" - the idea that not only might science be wrong occasionally, but that absolutely any alternative is right, however crackpot it may be. Thus along with the musings on consciousness transfer and higher states of mind, we have crystal healers (from California, which would sound like an in-joke, if they weren't taken completely seriously by everyone around them), and at one point somebody says with a completely straight face that they confirmed a previous encounter with a ouija board. I mean, seriously!?
He also fails to set any clear rules about where each of his "technologies" begins and ends, letting seeming technological ideas become increasingly arbitrary as the book goes on - like "stealing" a consciousness through the window of a space station; or the ability to manipulate what passes for reality on the "Other Side" of Neo-Tokyo only when it is convenient for the plot that you do so. Perhaps Besher misunderstood Clarke's famous Law that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and thought he could substitute one for the other.
The plot, again, is a waste of some good ideas, let down by an awkward structure that feels like an unedited first draft. The entire first "Bardo" is a flashback catching up with its own opening, although I'm not entirely sure why the airport check-in seemed such an important scene to pivot on. At one point, we're in a flashback (presented in italics, so we don't get lost) within a flashback (where our hero wakes up in a hospital waiting room and remembers being in the hospital waiting room), within that overall flashback; if the intention was to make the narrative feel interestingly non-linear, it failed - it just felt like the author had forgotten some details and was going off on a tangent to fill them in. The supposed driver of the plot is the disappearance into an "unstable virtual reality" of a teenage boy, about whom we hear nothing for 95% of the novel, and who turns out not to be in much danger after all, so that's alright then.
In fact, given how little his actions have to do with finding his son, I was somewhat at a loss to understand why the protagonist did anything in this novel. It's not at all clear what his skills are - if I have this right, he was a P.I. but his only client died, is now a Professor of something or other, secretly enters people's minds while they're dying, but is also writing a book about trade etiquette. Oh, and is the only person who can save the world, and is thus being followed and manipulated by a bewildering array of factions ready to act as deus ex machina in rescuing him from each other's plots.
Last but not least, there is the dreadful misogyny. The only female characters who don't have sex with the protagonist are lesbians - and cardboard cliché lesbians, at that. There is one other exception, Melissa Ulbricht, who is consistently introduced as the wife of a male friend of "our hero"; she receives about enough description to give the impression of being "motherly", and takes no part in the plot. And then there's this delightful piece of incidental scene-setting: "a dyke slut and her femme girlfriend were sharing an espresso in a kissaten, their nose rings linked by a silver chain" - a choice of words and imagery so unnecessarily demeaning I almost wonder if a disgruntled editor slipped it into the manuscript as some kind of revenge.
I very nearly didn't finish this book, but the odd thing is I didn't actually hate it enough to overcome my curiosity, and I speed-read my way through to the end. I won't say it was a waste of time, but if I'd been interrupted before the end, I might not have bothered picking it back up. Whenever explanations were avoided with the words "he didn't understand it but..." I found myself thinking "yeah, that's kind of how I feel".
His world-building is best exemplified for me by his obsession with the word "New": we are given no indication at all of why "New Nippon" is not just "Japan", and "Neo-Tokyo" is inexplicably called that before becoming a reality-shifting enigma. Putting "New" in front of a name just does not make sense unless the setting is a new world - "New York" is three thousand miles away from "York", and "New England" isn't what Oliver Cromwell decreed after the Civil War (and as for New South Wales...). There's even mention of a "New UN", which if you think about it should surely be the "New New League of Nations" - except that, you know, that's not what anyone would ever call it. This may seem like I'm being picky, but for a "vision" described by one cherry-picked review quote as "increasingly likely", this is dreadfully poor futurology.
One of the book's biggest conceits is the mixing of technology with spirituality - something I wouldn't normally be a fan of, but I was willing to suspend my disbelief if it made for an interesting novel. Unfortunately, Besher falls into a classic logical trap: if one "non-traditional science" is real, then clearly they must all be real, right? This is what most annoys me about things like "alternative medicine" - the idea that not only might science be wrong occasionally, but that absolutely any alternative is right, however crackpot it may be. Thus along with the musings on consciousness transfer and higher states of mind, we have crystal healers (from California, which would sound like an in-joke, if they weren't taken completely seriously by everyone around them), and at one point somebody says with a completely straight face that they confirmed a previous encounter with a ouija board. I mean, seriously!?
He also fails to set any clear rules about where each of his "technologies" begins and ends, letting seeming technological ideas become increasingly arbitrary as the book goes on - like "stealing" a consciousness through the window of a space station; or the ability to manipulate what passes for reality on the "Other Side" of Neo-Tokyo only when it is convenient for the plot that you do so. Perhaps Besher misunderstood Clarke's famous Law that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and thought he could substitute one for the other.
The plot, again, is a waste of some good ideas, let down by an awkward structure that feels like an unedited first draft. The entire first "Bardo" is a flashback catching up with its own opening, although I'm not entirely sure why the airport check-in seemed such an important scene to pivot on. At one point, we're in a flashback (presented in italics, so we don't get lost) within a flashback (where our hero wakes up in a hospital waiting room and remembers being in the hospital waiting room), within that overall flashback; if the intention was to make the narrative feel interestingly non-linear, it failed - it just felt like the author had forgotten some details and was going off on a tangent to fill them in. The supposed driver of the plot is the disappearance into an "unstable virtual reality" of a teenage boy, about whom we hear nothing for 95% of the novel, and who turns out not to be in much danger after all, so that's alright then.
In fact, given how little his actions have to do with finding his son, I was somewhat at a loss to understand why the protagonist did anything in this novel. It's not at all clear what his skills are - if I have this right, he was a P.I. but his only client died, is now a Professor of something or other, secretly enters people's minds while they're dying, but is also writing a book about trade etiquette. Oh, and is the only person who can save the world, and is thus being followed and manipulated by a bewildering array of factions ready to act as deus ex machina in rescuing him from each other's plots.
Last but not least, there is the dreadful misogyny. The only female characters who don't have sex with the protagonist are lesbians - and cardboard cliché lesbians, at that. There is one other exception, Melissa Ulbricht, who is consistently introduced as the wife of a male friend of "our hero"; she receives about enough description to give the impression of being "motherly", and takes no part in the plot. And then there's this delightful piece of incidental scene-setting: "a dyke slut and her femme girlfriend were sharing an espresso in a kissaten, their nose rings linked by a silver chain" - a choice of words and imagery so unnecessarily demeaning I almost wonder if a disgruntled editor slipped it into the manuscript as some kind of revenge.
I very nearly didn't finish this book, but the odd thing is I didn't actually hate it enough to overcome my curiosity, and I speed-read my way through to the end. I won't say it was a waste of time, but if I'd been interrupted before the end, I might not have bothered picking it back up. Whenever explanations were avoided with the words "he didn't understand it but..." I found myself thinking "yeah, that's kind of how I feel".
August 7, 2025
This book was terrible! The author clearly has a weird fetish for Asian people, specifically Japanese people, and lesbians were treated horribly! It was super wordy in the worst way. Do not read.
October 11, 2018
"Things are different here, too, Kimiko, since I met you," he told her. He meant it. She had turned his life into a love factory and production was going up every day."
What do you do with a passage like that? As a reader, you have to respond to it, by flinching or gagging or falling to your knees in horrified respect that someone would think it, let alone put it down, let alone allow it to go to print.
All I can say is if you admire that turn of phrase ... she had turned his life into a love factory ... you might enjoy this book.
.......
The rest of this is my review of the first half of the book, which I had laid aside.
This is billed as cyber-noir. It ain't. Altered Carbon is cyber-noir. Burning Chrome is cyber-noir. This is a Hello Kitty lunch box with kanji letters spelling out Your Base Are Belong to Furious 7.
But false advertising on the cover aside, there's not a lot of there, here.
One of the challenges of spec fic is deciding how to integrate the speculative in such a way that it seems normal and is preferably not an infodump. (Actually, it's the same with noir. The cops are on their way over to slap the cuffs on Brigette O'Shaughnessy before Sam Spade tells her why he's got to turn her in for the murder that kicks off The Maltese Falcon. Besher would have opened with an earnest description of how there had to be a fall guy, what a fall guy is and how it's pronounced in Japanese.)
Halfway in this one and the author is still defining his terms. Honestly, he would be better off with the infodump. The plot thus far ... the largest virtual reality space has been crashed by shadowy entity / entities and the owner, Japanese based conglomerate Sartori, has asked Frank Gobi to investigate. Gobi's son is among the victims left in a coma.
Not to belabor the point, but a decent thriller establishes that much in the prologue.
I paid 50 cents for this at the library book sale. It doesn't feel like a good investment of that half-dollar. I could have had 4.5 ounces of coffee for that.
What do you do with a passage like that? As a reader, you have to respond to it, by flinching or gagging or falling to your knees in horrified respect that someone would think it, let alone put it down, let alone allow it to go to print.
All I can say is if you admire that turn of phrase ... she had turned his life into a love factory ... you might enjoy this book.
.......
The rest of this is my review of the first half of the book, which I had laid aside.
This is billed as cyber-noir. It ain't. Altered Carbon is cyber-noir. Burning Chrome is cyber-noir. This is a Hello Kitty lunch box with kanji letters spelling out Your Base Are Belong to Furious 7.
But false advertising on the cover aside, there's not a lot of there, here.
One of the challenges of spec fic is deciding how to integrate the speculative in such a way that it seems normal and is preferably not an infodump. (Actually, it's the same with noir. The cops are on their way over to slap the cuffs on Brigette O'Shaughnessy before Sam Spade tells her why he's got to turn her in for the murder that kicks off The Maltese Falcon. Besher would have opened with an earnest description of how there had to be a fall guy, what a fall guy is and how it's pronounced in Japanese.)
Halfway in this one and the author is still defining his terms. Honestly, he would be better off with the infodump. The plot thus far ... the largest virtual reality space has been crashed by shadowy entity / entities and the owner, Japanese based conglomerate Sartori, has asked Frank Gobi to investigate. Gobi's son is among the victims left in a coma.
Not to belabor the point, but a decent thriller establishes that much in the prologue.
I paid 50 cents for this at the library book sale. It doesn't feel like a good investment of that half-dollar. I could have had 4.5 ounces of coffee for that.
January 2, 2013
A somewhat weird mix of high tech and new age spirituality. Which is a pity since it had a reasonably interesting plot and some nice takes on how and where our technology might be able to take us and the societies in which we live.
However, and this is a rather big however, the use of new age mumbo jumbo, like energy meridians, kudalinis and other such mystical references as an actual functioning reality, as opposed to terms appropriated and used by technology and its constructs, turned the book from something a latter day Jules Verne might have written to something from Hans Christian Andersen, charming but completely implausible. Which, as I said at the start, is a pity as the spiritual nonsense was wholly unnecessary.
And one final note - since when was Godzilla ever a giant ape?
However, and this is a rather big however, the use of new age mumbo jumbo, like energy meridians, kudalinis and other such mystical references as an actual functioning reality, as opposed to terms appropriated and used by technology and its constructs, turned the book from something a latter day Jules Verne might have written to something from Hans Christian Andersen, charming but completely implausible. Which, as I said at the start, is a pity as the spiritual nonsense was wholly unnecessary.
And one final note - since when was Godzilla ever a giant ape?
Read
April 6, 2016No, you know what? Fuck it, I'm not wasting my time on terrible books that I want to drop in the bathtub after 36 pages.
From my time with those 36 pages:
"36pp in, the only female characters we've met are young, voluptuous, sex nymph NPCs. The actual prose isn't so hot, either."
So, no, I'm not going to keep reading. I don't need to see what else this turnip has to say about this ridiculously set up virtual meta-reality cum spiritual clusterfuck. I'll up my yearly goal to make up for this nonsense. Frack this. Hashtag learninghowtoquitbooksbeforeitstoolate.
From my time with those 36 pages:
"36pp in, the only female characters we've met are young, voluptuous, sex nymph NPCs. The actual prose isn't so hot, either."
So, no, I'm not going to keep reading. I don't need to see what else this turnip has to say about this ridiculously set up virtual meta-reality cum spiritual clusterfuck. I'll up my yearly goal to make up for this nonsense. Frack this. Hashtag learninghowtoquitbooksbeforeitstoolate.
October 23, 2008
forgettable cyber-punk novel about tattoos & viruses ( I think)
books-with-go-references
December 22, 2020Brief reference to the game of Go on p. 171.
August 21, 2010
I couldn't make it thru this one. I just kept getting more and more confused and finally got tired of waiting foer a plot to start.
February 15, 2013
I had a lot of trouble getting through this book. It just seemed to drag on forever.
April 11, 2014
Not virtual reality. Virtual spirituality is more like it and I couldn't get into it. It's rare that I don't finish a book once started, but this one falls into that category.
August 25, 2017
Well, I had great expectations for 'Rim' after reading some positive reviews and considering it was an early novel supposed to be about some interests of mine, such as Asian cultures, Buddhism and virtual reality.
Unfortunately, I was thoroughly disappointed.
To begin with, no part of the story actually make any sense. This novel, almost an inappropriate word in this case, is just so nonsensical that I doubt even the writer knew what the story is about.
In reality, the whole book is nothing but a random hodgepodge of trite cliches about the orient, pseudo-scientific mambo-jumbo, and as many incomprehensible terms (never explained) from as many Asian languages as possible.
Like I said there is no story, only a confusing mixture of randomly collated ideas that a real writer could have turned into an entertaining novel, possibly, but that in Besher's hand just add more and more chaos to a poorly thought out and poorly written sequence of random vignettes that never really engage, only make you wish this guy had never found a publisher willing to indulge him in this waste of paper and ink.
Among other things all the characters are uninteresting cardboard cutouts (the main character a weird playboy/psychic detective/loser who, in minutes, goes from worrying about his lost child's safety to sleeping with as many Japanese women as humanly possible in such a short novel), none of the possible plot points ever coalesce into a real story (well, there is no story), and the list could go on and on. It's really hard for me to think of any novel even remotely as bad and poorly written as this one.
There are a few interesting turns of phrases here and there, but that's not enough to turn this distasteful soup of dated pulp fiction and Asian exotica into something actually worth reading.
Avoid his books like the plague.
By the way, as far as books set in Japan are concerned (although this one only takes place in an imaginary Japan that feels more like a collage of Western fantasies about it than anything real, very disappointing considering Besher lived in Asia most of his life), do yourself a favor and read:
"Number nine dream" by David Mitchell. There is no virtual reality, but, exaggerations for entertainment purposes aside, it's one book written by a western writer with a much, much better grasp of Modern Japan.
Unfortunately, I was thoroughly disappointed.
To begin with, no part of the story actually make any sense. This novel, almost an inappropriate word in this case, is just so nonsensical that I doubt even the writer knew what the story is about.
In reality, the whole book is nothing but a random hodgepodge of trite cliches about the orient, pseudo-scientific mambo-jumbo, and as many incomprehensible terms (never explained) from as many Asian languages as possible.
Like I said there is no story, only a confusing mixture of randomly collated ideas that a real writer could have turned into an entertaining novel, possibly, but that in Besher's hand just add more and more chaos to a poorly thought out and poorly written sequence of random vignettes that never really engage, only make you wish this guy had never found a publisher willing to indulge him in this waste of paper and ink.
Among other things all the characters are uninteresting cardboard cutouts (the main character a weird playboy/psychic detective/loser who, in minutes, goes from worrying about his lost child's safety to sleeping with as many Japanese women as humanly possible in such a short novel), none of the possible plot points ever coalesce into a real story (well, there is no story), and the list could go on and on. It's really hard for me to think of any novel even remotely as bad and poorly written as this one.
There are a few interesting turns of phrases here and there, but that's not enough to turn this distasteful soup of dated pulp fiction and Asian exotica into something actually worth reading.
Avoid his books like the plague.
By the way, as far as books set in Japan are concerned (although this one only takes place in an imaginary Japan that feels more like a collage of Western fantasies about it than anything real, very disappointing considering Besher lived in Asia most of his life), do yourself a favor and read:
"Number nine dream" by David Mitchell. There is no virtual reality, but, exaggerations for entertainment purposes aside, it's one book written by a western writer with a much, much better grasp of Modern Japan.
June 7, 2018
It's a novel about the internet, Buddhism, and spies. That said, I didn't enjoy it as much as that set-up suggests I should: for all the new-age and eastern philosophy and the clever AI and virtual reality stuff, it's a very traditional sci-fi novel in that it's all about how things happen and only a little bit about why, and even less about how people feel about that. The characters spend a lot of time talking about 3D virtual environments, while remaining rather two-dimensional themselves, and I think the women are particularly badly written. Almost all of them are either lesbians-for-display or sexually attracted to the hero, among other issues. There are some clever ideas here, and if that's what you read sci-fi for, you might like it. I shall move swiftly on.
September 27, 2018
Very strange book about virtual reality. I did enjoy the attention to spirituality within virtuality, I thought that was an interesting focus. I did not enjoy the main character, who the reader is expected to love and who has sex with ever single heterosexual woman that is introduced (including in reminisced memories).
Want to read
August 10, 2022Originally bought this is 1994. Since then I've started it 4 maybe 5 times and have yet to finish it. RIM has a great premise but I just could never get into it. But with how the world is sort of trending in way like RIM ( with the META verse ) maybe I'll try again.
April 6, 2019
Highly influential at the time. Should re read it maybe.
April 8, 2022
Started out good but the mixture of James Bond and Eastern philosophy turned very sour. The last 100 pages were a thing and a half that lost me.
August 30, 2022
Although the narration was terrible, I quite enjoyed the actual story and the in-depth references to different cultures and ancient peoples in a dystopian sense.
April 2, 2013
In the near future, virtual reality is a popular place to spend your leisure time, from the children's Gameworld, to Treking in the virtual mountains, or visting the Adult world. But a virus has escaped, or been set free, and parts of the virtual world are crashing, trapping the conciousness of those left inside, if you're lucky. PI Frank Gobi wants nothing to do with the problems created in the virtual realm, except his son is one of those trapped inside. Seemingly hired by two rival companies, he has to travel to New Nippon to sort it out, a town that disappears each evening. Has this mystery got anything to do with the crash and why has Frank been chosen?
The synopsis above probably doesn't truly explain this book, but then it is a rather complicated story to try to describe. It has a prologue and an introduction, before travelling back on its self to start again, finally catching up and continuing the story - not the easiest thing to keep track off. But once you get past all that and get into the tale, it is an ok read. Yes, the author seems to expect you to have a working knowledge of the Japenese language and culture and yes, there are a lot of references to spiritual religions and meditations that are hard to follow if you are not into that sort of thing, but as a sci-fi novel it works.
The synopsis above probably doesn't truly explain this book, but then it is a rather complicated story to try to describe. It has a prologue and an introduction, before travelling back on its self to start again, finally catching up and continuing the story - not the easiest thing to keep track off. But once you get past all that and get into the tale, it is an ok read. Yes, the author seems to expect you to have a working knowledge of the Japenese language and culture and yes, there are a lot of references to spiritual religions and meditations that are hard to follow if you are not into that sort of thing, but as a sci-fi novel it works.
August 21, 2015
The copy of Rim that I read did not have this atrocious cover (sorry, I'm a pro artist, not just an author and reader, so art is important to me——I wouldn't have read this book with the cover above. I wasn't in love with the other cover either, but it was way better than this one). If read with the right mindest (like when you read Douglas Adam's work), you can get into it more. It was a fun blending of genres, but the story was clunky at times, with some spiritual elements I could have done without and an ending that just didn't do it for me. But it wasn't bad. Not for what the author was trying to accomplish, IMO. I thought the story was pretty creative and fun (not meant to be taken terribly serious), though admittedly I read it a long time ago, so some details are fuzzy.
January 13, 2016
εχμ, μακρύ το ταξίδι...
Λοιπόν, δεν μου άρεσε που διάβαζα λέξεις και φράσεις ( είτε στην ιαπωνική, είτε στην αργκό που δεν καταλάβαινα και αναγκαζόμουν να ψάξω για να κατανοήσω πριν συνεχίσω το ταξίδι. Δεν μου άρεσε που κατανάλωσε τόσο χρόνο και ενέργεια για να αναλύσει το παρασκήνιο και όταν και εφόσον πέρασε στην πλοκή του πήρε μια λέξη για να την τελιωσει. ή τέλος πάντων έτσι μου φάνηκε.
Σίγουρα ιδιόρρυθμο βιβλίο... Δεν το καίω γιατί κάτι μέσα μου, γσργαλιστικε από οβ τρόπο γραφής και τις ευφάνταστες περιγραφές . Απλά ίσως και να μην είναι εντελώς του γούστου μου...
αυτός ου θα διαβάσει το οπισθόφυλλο και θα το βρει ενδιαφέρον θα το απολαύσει κιόλας , εγώ μαζί με του υπόλοιπους έ, χαίρομαι που το διάβασα και που τελείωσε και ,,,ας μέινουμε εκει
Λοιπόν, δεν μου άρεσε που διάβαζα λέξεις και φράσεις ( είτε στην ιαπωνική, είτε στην αργκό που δεν καταλάβαινα και αναγκαζόμουν να ψάξω για να κατανοήσω πριν συνεχίσω το ταξίδι. Δεν μου άρεσε που κατανάλωσε τόσο χρόνο και ενέργεια για να αναλύσει το παρασκήνιο και όταν και εφόσον πέρασε στην πλοκή του πήρε μια λέξη για να την τελιωσει. ή τέλος πάντων έτσι μου φάνηκε.
Σίγουρα ιδιόρρυθμο βιβλίο... Δεν το καίω γιατί κάτι μέσα μου, γσργαλιστικε από οβ τρόπο γραφής και τις ευφάνταστες περιγραφές . Απλά ίσως και να μην είναι εντελώς του γούστου μου...
αυτός ου θα διαβάσει το οπισθόφυλλο και θα το βρει ενδιαφέρον θα το απολαύσει κιόλας , εγώ μαζί με του υπόλοιπους έ, χαίρομαι που το διάβασα και που τελείωσε και ,,,ας μέινουμε εκει
April 22, 2013
3.5 I picked this up in 1994 and apparently got distracted for some 18 or so years. Even now with the lost context, I can see how this might have been considered a third successful foray into cyberdom, just on the heels of Stephenson's. In some ways perhaps the most ambitious, incorporating no small element of new age-y mysticism, which probably explains why it's pretty much faded from collective memory. Some really good stuff in here, including the plot itself, but I think he overreached - it just doesn't quite cohere.
decided-not-to-read
January 21, 2011I saw the sequel to this book on the clearance shelves at a secondhand bookstore. Didn't buy it, but thought it looked interesting. Requested this from the library but bounced off it. Didn't feel like the author merged the traditional Japanese culture/cyber-reality aspects very smoothly. It did give me the urge to re-read The Tale of Genji, though.
June 14, 2012
I really was enjoying this book until about the last 100 pages. It really just falls apart when you get to the ending. There were some great concepts here and an interesting virtual reality fused world but beyond that nothing else.
July 5, 2013
can't really say i was interested. the writing was inconsistent, especially in the characters' tone. it bothered me a little.
also, i didn't really care about the characters. this was just a sort of 'meh' book all around.
also, i didn't really care about the characters. this was just a sort of 'meh' book all around.
August 10, 2015
VR gone awry, a virus that changes people into zombies and Tokyo and all its inhabitants disappear at night. What's not to love? Published first in Japan to great acclaim, Rim is a weird, weird ride through cosmic karma.
August 22, 2012
At least it wasn't too long.
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