Tea from an Empty Cup

Artificial Reality Division #1

by Pat Cadigan

"How can you drink tea from an empty cup?"

That ancient Zen riddle holds the key to a baffling a young man found with his throat slashed while locked alone in a virtual reality parlor.

The secret of this enigmatic death lies in an apocalyptic cyberspace shadow-world where nothing is certain, and even one's own identity can change in an instant.

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy, Virtual Reality, Speculative Fiction

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 7, 1998

About the author

Pat Cadigan is an American-born science fiction author, who broke through as a major writer as part of the cyberpunk movement. Her early novels and stories all shared a common theme, exploring the relationship between the human mind and technology.

Her first novel, Mindplayers, introduced what became a common theme to all her works. Her stories blurred the line between reality and perception by making the human mind a real and explorable place. Her second novel, Synners, expanded upon the same theme, and featured a future where direct access to the mind via technology was in fact possible.

She has won a number of awards, including the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award twice,in 1992, and 1995 for her novels Synners and Fools.

She currently lives in London, England with her family.

Reviews

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read Trouble and Her Friends, I was forcibly reminded of what Helen Merrick says about it in The Secret Feminist Cabal (while thinking for a moment that it was my own brilliant insight), something along the lines that women made cyberpunk very much about bodies (sorry, Helen, for badly paraphrasing). Cadigan does a similar thing here. The focus is almost entirely on the issue of bodies: who inhabits them and how much physical reality is in artificial reality and to what extent bodies - artificial and physical - are our identities... and all sorts of fun things.

The story revolves around two very different women who go into Artificial Reality looking for answers: one to find someone gone missing, the other to find clues (she hopes) about a murder. Neither is experienced in AR, but other than that they are quite different. We learn very little about Yuki - not her job, not her overall circumstances in the world, just that she is "full Japanese" and that she values Tom Iguchi highly enough to seek out the probably dangerous person who might be able to point her towards him. Konstantin, on the other hand, is a slightly more open book. She has recently broken up with her partner; she's a cop; and she possesses a remarkable bloody-minded determination that will either see her crack cases or get her skull cracked for her. Having the two main characters as women is (was), it occurs to me, probably not that common in cyberpunk literature - and having the two be so different, with quite different aims, worked nicely. Of course, in AR one's physical gender, and body, and identity, are quite irrelevant - something that the protagonists have a bit of trouble with but that others are at pains to point out. Out there is not in here and can have little or no bearing depending on each individual's preferences. And, much like Doctor Who and House are both at pains to point out, people lie. In AR, it's quite likely that everyone is lying all the time. And when you're trying to find a person or trying to find clues, that's not particularly useful.

The AR that both Konstantin and Yuki interact with is a... simulation, I guess, of post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty (yes really).* Interacting with it and other AR users requires a complex understanding of mores and manners, and it's very easy to be shown up as a virgin and either mocked or turned into prey. It's not a very nice place, as experienced by Yuki and Konstantin, and certainly suggests that Cadigan imagines AR being used for the sort of entertainments and identity-experimentation that would be frowned on, considered morally dubious, or actually legislated against in reality. It's hinted that AR has other uses in this world, but they're not fleshed out in the slightest. It is therefore quite an unpleasant little world Cadigan introduces the reader to, and suggests that she is pessimistic about the uses humanity would put AR to. Given the amount of porn on the internet, perhaps she has a point.

Finally, any novel that manages to get away with having an avatar called Body Sativa is pretty awesome as far as I'm concerned.


* Interestingly, the novel is so utterly concentrated about the experiences within AR that although maybe a quarter of the novel takes place in real-reality, I have no idea in which city (I'm presuming America thanks to references to DC); I also have little idea what is going on in the rest of the world, with the exception of something terribly having overcome Japan. I have a much clearer understanding of how life, or society, works in the Sitty than in Konstantin's actual city. (And frequent ARers would undoubtedly dispute most of the adjectives in that society.)

[Aliette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this ten years ago, and it hasn't lost its power. It's short and punchy--a double tale of a murder investigation in an immersive artificial reality and a woman looking for her friend and getting caught in some shady dealings involving stolen virtual artefacts, and access to a special level in said artificial reality). I loved the world building (in a dystopic future where Japan has disappeared and the survivors struggle to find a sense of national identity, something that really resonated to me as a second-gen whose maternal country was lost to war for a while); and the artificial reality is amazing--I'm sceptical of SF's ability to predict the future, but Pat Cadigan was square on, on both the saturation of the AR by ads, and the gaming culture that develops around it, with its accompanied mysticism, its prizing of avatars and things found online and its search for hacks, new levels and new sensations (which reminded me of MMORPGs and Second Life). And it's also wonderful that the grizzled, hardcore cop is a woman (Yuki has a more "standard" role as damsel in distress, though she has a few tricks up her sleeves), and the narrative features a bunch of memorable women characters.

(a few minor quibbles: I wasn't quite sold on the idea of racial memory--or on the idea you could tell someone's racial mark-up just by looking at them--though the elevated mysticism and mythology that develops around the lost land of Japan feels like a very real phenomenon to me. And sometimes the world building rang a little hollow--I wasn't sure what Yuki did for a living or how she was able to drop everything to follow Joy Flower. But that's very much a function of this being a short and to-the-point novel. And obviously I'm not Japanese, so I can't comment on how well done this aspect of the novel was).

It's a seminal novel in cyberpunk, and you can easily see why. Recommended.

[Akiva ꙮ · Rating 1 out of 5]

WTF.

I finally (FINALLY) finished this slim little paperback last night. I struggled with it due to an inability to give a shit about any of the characters or about the details of Post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty. Especially with the scenes in PANYS. I think the reader is supposed to find the vision of virtual reality compelling or interesting? It definitely wasn't either of those things.

The characters just have no motivations that make sense. Yuki risks her life and liberty to find Tom... because she sort of has a crush on him that she knows is one-sided? OK, if you insist. The hint-hint-nudge-nudge-possibly-not-straight police detective Konstantin in the space of a few hours goes from never having set foot in VR to plunging into it headfirst not once but twice despite having no idea what she's going to do when she gets there, or if it'll advance her investigation, or be allowed evidence in court? And then she proceeds to blunder around and answer approximately zero of her questions both times? What the fuck. Tom sold the drug and the suit to Ash in order to then sell his body/death to a wealthy thrillseeker? WHY?? Is he suddenly in league with Joy Flower, or is he trying to compete with her business? Never explained.

The two viewpoints characters are female, as are the main villain(s? I have zero idea what we're supposed to think of Body Sativa's actions), and a majority of the other characters with speaking parts. That's pretty cool. There's also some gender bending, which is mostly irrelevant, although I think the book was trying to make some kind of point about gender and embodiment in AR. (It failed.) Konstantin and Tom are interpretable as queer if you squint really hard, but Konstantin's ex is never given a pronoun and I'm not sure if we're supposed to make something of the fact that the Tom's avatar is an androgyne and that he's not into Yuki.

If I gave a shit, I could probably read the entire book again and the ending might make more sense. Unfortunately, I really, really don't.

Not that it's badly written. I didn't hate it. I'm just incredibly unimpressed. This book set out to explore some really complicated ideas and it failed to do justice to any of them.

[Mercurybard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love cyberpunk, so I was expecting great things from this.

It was ok. The two female protagonists were virtually indistinguishable (one was of Japanese descent, one was not, but they both had the same sneering dislike of Artificial Reality and the people who frequented it).

Cadigan establishes this wonderfully rich alternate reality world and then spends then entire book going on and on about how pointless it is.

Short, brutal, and not nearly as entertaining as I hoped.

[Fantasy boy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tea From an Empty Cup by Pat Cadigan is a cyberpunk Science fiction; the setting mostly is set In post Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty (New York City), mixing with Japan cultures ( I was curious are most Cyberpunk books were influenced by William Gibson’s Neuromancer at the time) the post apocalyptic, dilapidated and surreal world is like any cyberpunk world. The Japan cultures are not quite vivid, like many cyberpunk science fictions that add the exotic element to the VR world. Although, Pat Cadigan combines the japan’s mythologies and the vanishing old Japan to the story, those Japaneses who are seeking for the land of already lost. In the world where true crimes don’t exist in the AR world, players were being immortality and anonymity in the artificial world where their identities aren’t transparent to each others. Those players pursue more violent , sexual, rapturous experiences that aren’t exit in reality. As the protagonist, Konstantin investigate the crime further into the AR, she will explore more repulsive truths beneath the artificial reality. I didn’t read any books by Pat Cadigan before and thus I didn’t know any things about the author. Just found out the book on the top books of the Cyberpunk list. I think this book Indeed gave me some similar feeling from reading by other books, but also had some distinct feeling of something quite unique than the other cyberpunk books. But I couldn’t tell what exactly it is.

The story follows the detective chef, Konstantin was investigating the crime about the boy was cut throat, and she think the best way to track down the murder which is entering AR world. Then she put on the hotsuit and used the boy’s billable time to play the game. Yuki is a Japanese girl, she wanted to find Body Sativa who can help her to find the boy she was looking for. The both POVs has distinct narrative of the story, give the readers two different experiences of exploring the AR world. Yuki the girl who also realized that her pursuing involved the reviving of the ancient Japan. In the book, Tea from an empty cup, Japan was destroyed by multiple earthquakes in the history, since then, the old Japan no longer existed. By AR those original Japaneses had the opportunity to recreate the old Japan. This part for me is interesting but not fully be developed. From Komstantin’s POV, I can see trace crimes in the World where identities always are beneath disguises which are hard to recognize. So her investigation was easily stagnant when she was looking the info in AR.

In summary, I quite like some of the concepts in the story and the Japan mythologies. Japanese characters aren’t likely to be actual Japaneses. The setting of the AR world would easily to be found of plot holes. It’s adequate not perfect In cyberpunk genre.

[Иван Величков · Rating 3 out of 5]

Пат Кадиган се е гмурнала в дебрите на киберпънка от ден първи на този така любим ми поджанр. И от този ден първи в основата на произведенията и лежи взаимодействието между компютърната среда и човешкия мозък. Може би трябваше да започна запознанството си снея с първия ѝ роман "Mindplayers", но за добро или лошо попаднах на "Чай от празна чаша." Книгата е писана 1998 година, когато вече имахме глобална мрежа, а първите батълнети и масови мултиплеяри се бяха появили, както и, спомням си добре, първите виртуални каски от които повръщахме след пет минути игра на Куейк. Все пак, самата тема на литературните изследвания и допуски на автора прави прогностичната част доста точна. Е, не е предвидила масовата видиотизация по социалните мрежи, но няма как да искаме от един достатъчно чувствителен та да почне да пише фантастика, човек да предположи, че хората няма да искат фантастични реалности, а нашата си шитава реалност, в която да могат да се изкарат ПО - по-умни, по-красиви, по-успели (пример е как в момента се правя на много проницателен тук).
Както и да е, за книгата.
Чудесен кибрпънк криминален роман, който извежда класическото убийство в затворена стая на едно доста по-високо технологично ниво. Сюжетните линии са две. Имаме Юки, която в опит да открие бившото си почти гадже се забърква в едни интриги с една виртуална сводница и лейтенант Константин, която разследва редица убийства/самоубийства случващи се пред компютъра. Остава да разберем внимателен убиец, голяма конспирация или физическа стигмата породена от виртуален шок е причината за убийствата, а и какво общо има приятелят на Юки с тях. Двете линии се преплитат доволно много, сплитат се още от втора глава, но развръската все пак идва поотделно, което беше приятна изненада.
Светът извън изкуствената реалност е доста леко щрихован, разбираме, че доволно прилича на нашия (от деведесетте) с няколко катаклизма (земетресенията най-после са успели да гътнат Япония). Героите също са доста двуизмерни, до толкова, че двете водещи героини на моменти са неразличими една от друга. Изкуствената реалност е по-добре изобразена, но е много далеч от лилава проза, развита е колкото да покаже възможностите на компютъризираната вселена. Основните сили са хвърлени във вече споменатото взаимодействие човек-машина и е направено доста добре (а може би така трябва, за да не се получават епигонства на Гибсън, Стивънсън, Уилсън и прочие...), до толкова, че на моменти читателят изживява един шемет, чувствайки заедно с героите как границите на жиртуалното и реалното се размиват. И ако беше задържала този шемет до финала щях да дам пет звезди, но накрая даде малко назад (или казано по-нагло - аз не бих я завършил така тази книга).

[S.C. Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

How refreshing to read an older cyberpunk novel with real, fleshed-out female characters at its core! Sorry, William Gibson, but Pat Cadigan will always been my cyberpunk idol.

Pat Cadigan is a well-known name in cyberpunk. She’s edited a number of anthologies her short stories appear in any collection worth its salt. Yet until I stumbled upon this strange little novel, I’d never read any of her longer works.

TEA FROM AN EMPTY CUP is a weird, wonderful post-cyberpunk detective story that features two female protagonists investigating two separate but connected crimes.

Dore Konstantin is a homicide detective tasked with figuring out how an IRL murder is related to the VR simulation the victim was using at the time of his death.

Yuki, a young Japanese woman displaced by a horrendous natural disaster that wiped out her country, searches for her missing friend, Tom, believing that he has been enslaved or killed by a formidable madame named Joy Flower, who is known for using and abusing handsome young men in her club.

Both women’s investigations take them into the strange, virtual post-apocalyptic wasteland of New Yawk Sitty where their lack of experience with AR/VR renders them vulnerable to an eerie shift within the AR/VR landscape wherein it seems some players have found a way to escape the confines of the system and manipulate the real world via their online avatars.

If you enjoy books with lots of puzzles, clues, and symbolism you will have fun picking apart this mystery and trying to figure out how all the pieces fit. But in true literary style, you will not receive a neat and tidy ending explanation in the end. Cadigan weaves all the bits of the mystery together, and in the end I was about 98% sure I knew what had happened, but she never outright says it the way a lot of detective novels today do. Also, there remains a symbolic mystery that could be taken a few different ways in the end. I keep thinking about it, weeks after I’ve finished the book.

What I liked best about this cyberpunk deep-cuts gem is Cadigan’s use of female characters, and her exploration of how technology changes our relationship with our physical bodies. This is one of my favourite themes in cyberpunk, the dissociation between the digital and physical self, and one which I think is sometimes overlooked in the face of flashier cybernetic enhancements. Cadigan uses this theme to push the boundaries of sex and gender, and questions some of the things we attribute as male/female in our society.

It’s perhaps a bit out of date, being writing in 1998, but is leaps and bounds ahead of George Alec Effinger’s treatment of the same subject matter in WHEN GRAVITY FAILS (1983). For the record, I also loved that book, but for very different reasons.

Overall, I’d give this book a 🦾🦾🦾 rating. I think the mystery aspect of the story is interesting and engaging enough to hold most readers, regardless of how experienced they are in the cyberpunk genre, and cyberpunk fans will find even greater satisfaction in Cadigan’s unique take on some common cyberpunk themes.

Reviews on this title are very divided, so proceed with caution. But I think most dissatisfied reviewers wanted a bit more spoonfeeding than Cadigan gave us, so if you don't like to have to think too much when you're reading, you might want to skip it. It's also not a fast-paced, action-packed thriller, so I'd recommend it for when you're in the mood for something a bit slower with a dash of philosophical pondering.

[R.B. Harkess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first Pat Cadigan book, and although I know its a teeneager now (first published 1998) I enjoyed it so much I felt I had to say something.

It felt 'old school', and in the best way possible. Even the physical book, which is quite slim, made me nostalgic for the days when books didn't all come in trilogies and you could hold them in one hand without flirting with tennis elbow.

Conceptually, the book was right up there with the best of Gibson's cyberpunk, but - perhaps in keeping with the Japanese theme - some of the more philosophical discussion in the book reminded me of Masamune Shirow's 'Ghost in the Shell'

With the basic outline of the story involving two individual but linked investigations inside a virtual environment, there was an option for the virtuality to be either ridigly policed or anarchic, and I'm glad to say Pat chose the anarchy, and the 'Alice Down the Rabbit Hole' mutable logic and reason of the place comes over really vividly.

Nice to see more of Pat's eariler works seem to be about to re-release, and I will be looking out for 'Synners' eagerly

[Joel J. Molder · Rating 2 out of 5]

All flavor, little substance.

Tea from an Empty Cup is a cyberpunk dive into VR—a place where no one is who they seem, gender and appearance are fluid, and escapism is the default setting.

So when a man dies while logged in—part of a string of virtual murders—it’s up to two unlikely leads to figure out what happened: his lovesick friend and a slightly clueless, old-school detective.

The biggest issue is that Cadigan leans too hard into the absurdity of VR. There are no rules. And because both protagonists are unfamiliar with the virtual world, you’d think we’d learn with them. But instead, we just as adrift as they are. Nothing makes sense, and for most of the book, neither character does anything that feels like progress.

That said, Cadigan’s prose is smooth and her dialogue’s solid. It’s what kept me reading, even as the story wandered in circles.

I kept hoping it would all come together at the end.

It didn’t.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 1 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in March 2003.

Tea From an Empty Cup takes advantage of the establishment of the cyberpunk subgenre to concentrate on one aspect found in many of its stories, leaving most of the standard ideas lightly sketched in. It is a novel about the way that people might interface with computers in the future, and is in fact almost entirely concerned with virtual reality multi-player games.

When police officer Valentin is called to an artificial reality (AR) arcade to investigate a murder, she doesn't expect to become involved in murky dealings connected with some of the most popular online scenarios (things like "post apocalypse New York"). She enters the particular scenario being accessed by the victim when he died, even though deaths due to being killed in AR are mainly an urban myth (and suggestion in his mind didn't cut his throat), as does Yuki, who is (independently) looking for her missing lover. Both these characters are AR novices, showing the contempt for it that non-gamers already tend to feel for those obsessed with computer games.

The purpose of these two characters is rather too clearly to allow Cadigan to describe her ideas about AR. Two novice users is overkill, and this combines with the fairly unimaginative ideas about how things might develop from today's technology to make the novel sometimes feel like a journalist's article about the MUDs, MOOs and the like. It is a severe problem with Cadigan's writing here that Tea From an Empty Cup frequently reads as though it is a poor copy of one of these articles. I have rarely read a science fiction novel whose extrapolation of future trends is so unimaginative.

Most cyberpunk novels take a selection of ideas from the genre and put them together, a technique which can provide depth to the story. But the concentration of Tea From an Empty Cup on just one means that it seems shallow compared with the religious ideas in Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive or the cultural satire of Stephenson's Snow Crashh. The shallowness in Cadigan's writing is exposed even in the subject she concentrates on by the fact that it seems dated already in comparison with Neuromancer, a novel written the best part of two decades earlier.

William Gibson may think that Cadigan is "a major talent" (as quoted on the cover, this is what persuaded me to try the novel, along with the interest of the idea of a criminal investigation pursued jointly in AR and reality). If Gibson is right, little evidence for it comes across in this novel.

[Sean Newgent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I generally have a difficult time with science fiction, unable to comprehend the concepts and never entertained by space ships and so forth. I’ve always had a fascination with the cyberpunk subgenre though; combining high concept philosophical questions of the near future with computer technology and noir themes.

The problem with cyberpunk and the reason it isn’t a huge subgenre any more is that it has been played out. Virtual reality as an escape from reality, multiple levels of reality, what is real and what is not when pulling the consciousness into other places, switching bodies…The genre’s main theme has been hammered home. Tea from an Empty Cup is, in essence, this very thing: a generic cyberpunk novel gleaning themes from every other example of the genre and set in a seedy noir world. But despite the fact it is fairly same-y when looked at in the context of the whole subgenre, it’s still a pretty fantastic read.

A mere 250 pages, Tea from an Empty Cup manages to do the job of introducing interesting characters, a good premise, and tie everything up in a mind-bendingly satisfying way without missing a beat. The book focuses a lot of the sexual aspects of AR and explores many unsavory aspects of that, but the main focus is on the idea that no one in AR is who they say they are and you can change your name, jump into another skin, or create an entirely new skin. There’s a mystery of levels, of drugs, and what Old Japan is; a lot of angles for our two protagonists to explore.

What propelled me to finish this book in pretty much a day was the crisp writing that perfectly captured the spirit of weirdness in description and great dialogue with a flair for what I’ll call “future speak”. The book isn’t heavy in the action department at all but the writing makes the slow unravelling of the mystery worth savoring. That said, the editing of the book could use some work. I can look past it because Cadigan’s quality is obviously there…I just wish someone had given the book some TLC.

There’s not much I can say about this book without spoiling it. I liked the ending for the most part, I felt like it went exactly where I figured it would while still managing to be open-ended enough to be up to interpretation. I think that the book will endear itself to a certain very specific crowd but it definitely does not have wide appeal. It’s a weird little story with an interesting, if derivative, plot and some very distinct and memorable imagery.

If cyberpunk is a genre you enjoy, I’d say give Tea from an Empty Cup a shot.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like cyberpunk, how networks change the interactions of humans who contend with two worlds, not just one. I picked up this book as a view into what was being thought about 20 years ago in terms of virtual worlds (here called Atrificial Reality).

The premise of this short book was interesting. Someone killed inside the game at the same time they are killed outside the game. (A locked room mystery) How to find the killer within a world where everything is supposed to go?

But everything is fuzzy. The real world is just hinted at. Some bits are prescient, like people being drones at office jobs and act more like gypsies. Or that the online world is so addictive the players will do anything to return. We see both today. But the world the characters inhabit doesn’t seem real. The author only describes just enough to anchor where they live, but not how or why. Usually the descriptions have to do with other places far away.

The online world is more detailed, but still limited. It is a good attempt at describing an online world, centered around a game where anything goes. But how the online world is conveyed to the reader is stilted. Both of the main characters are interchangeable, in that they both are neophyte online users. Both despise it, so their shock to the experience and fumbling around are nearly the same. Both are looking for the same person. But I didn’t care about that. I ended up finishing it to learn if there was really an Old Japan and if the murder was every solved. The ending was rushed, as if a page limit was run up against.

I’m not discounting the age of the book, as I wanted to see how such books hold up 20 years hence. In the late 1990’s it wasn’t common to think you’d have super high bandwidth access to the internet at home. So the use of a video parlor. The archiver is similar to a tablet, though it needs to be connected to the phone to move information into the network. The pervasiveness of the network isn’t seen within the fabric of society, just the online game. But it is the fuzzy characters and world that made the book one that I wanted to skim through to learn the two items from above.

[Justin Howe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even the boring bits of this were neat because they so accurately described our world before the fact. While I did struggle with some questions (like who's programming all these AR worlds), the bits of insight and prescient moments made it an enjoyable read.

[Del Belcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truth is impossible. Hyperreality is reality. What does your body mean and who does it exists for. What actually matters when everything is always actual. Clever, quick, fun. Good read. Not top shelf cyber-punk, but that's ok. We can't all be Snow Crash.

[Stijn · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's so great about her stories is that it always feels like one of her stories. Yes, cyberpunk/sci-fi, but also a mix with the weird. A Philip K Dick and Lewis Carroll combination. Surreal at times with hip fast-talk dialogue. Maybe not her best, but definitely with her style.

[Riversue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. If you like police procedurals and Neuromancer then you'll love this beautifully written science fictional world where gamers in an artifical reality are dying in the real world.

[Literary Portals · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Made Me Read It They had me at a locked room mystery death in a virtual world setting with a strong Japanese theme.

The Good "Tea from an empty cup" is a mix of cyberpunk and mystery noir short novel, with a focus on Japanese culture, traditions and philosophical symbolism. Told from the alternating points of view of the two main characters, each chapter is named after its respective plot - Yuki's search for her missing friend titled "Empty Cup" and Konstantin's murder case "Death in the promised land". The two plots start out seemingly independent from one another but are weaved together throughout the story, connecting by the end of the book.

The novel focus on the way people interact with computers and virtual reality and how technology affects our perception of personal, social and cultural identity. Although written in the late 90s, the author has a spot on understanding of the nature of the internet and online community, predicting a grim future where technology is used for morally dubious entertainment purposes, profit oriented with saturated ads and product placements, and so addictive internauts keep returning to experience new levels of sensation.

We don't get a sense of what the real world is like, other than mere references of a dystopian future where the Japanese nation has been destroyed due to natural catastrophes and the survivor's struggle to find and retain a sense of national identity. The world building is focused mainly on the virtual world and gaming community of "Post-apocalyptic Noo Yaw Sitty". The plot can be confusing at times, specially if you're not a gamer - secret levels, avatars, icons... all the technical aspects and vocabulary of the gaming community can be difficult to grasp. But the story is about the alternate realities of a VR world  so, for me, the fact that it doesn't always make sense fits my expectations - after all, anything is possible in this reality, "it's all in what you perceive".

Read the full review on: https://literaryportals.blogspot.com/...

Final Rating 4 of 5 stars "Tea from an empty cup" is a mix of sci-fi and noir murder mystery novel, set in a dystopian future and focused on the gaming community of a virtual reality. Recommended for those who enjoy the cyberpunk subgenre, gaming and Japanese philosophy and culture.

[Costin Manda · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was difficult for me to finish the book. While it was a rather classic cyberpunk novel, which I usually enjoy, I felt it was obsolete in a way that could not be fixed. You know, like when designers or artists try to imagine how computers will be in the future. Only after reading it I realized it was written in 1998, so it was normal for that time and age to misunderstand how humans behave in networked environments, but still... even if the subject was a bit interesting, I actually had to make an effort to go through with it. I think the reason for why I didn't like the book was that the characters were paper thin. Concerned to describe a chaotic virtual reality world in which anything is possible and nothing is regulated (although everything is billed), Cadigan forgot to make us feel anything for the protagonists. And considering that this is a story about how technology is affecting our perception of identity, it made the book unpalatable.

Imagine a Matrix in which people enter voluntarily because the real world is boring by comparison. They create their own intricate fantasies that go well beyond the basic human needs like food or sex and focus on social cues that the participants struggle to constantly redefine and grab for themselves. In this, Pat Cadigan was spot on. However, other than this simple idea that nowadays is ubiquitous on the Internet via the various social networks, the book is nothing but a boring detective story, complete with the "normal" policeman character that enters this virtual world as a complete noob and somehow solves the case. The action is very inconsistent and the feeling I got from the flow of the plot was one of a dream sequence where stuff is cool just by merely being defined as such. At no time while reading the book I was enticed by the scenes in the story.

The concepts inside the book are interesting, but explored very little. The author seems to be under the impression that by merely listing them, the story will somehow become interesting by association, an ironic parallel with the characters in the book. Just think that this book was published at the same time The Matrix movie was released. The difference in quality between the two stories is just too big.

[Mikko Saari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pat Cadigan aloitti uransa 1990-luvulla kyberpunkin huippuaikoihin. Zen-arvoitukselta nimensä lainannut Tea from an Empty Cup on Cadiganin paluu useamman vuoden odotuksen jälkeen. Kyberpunk on edelleen homman nimi: kirjassa tutkitaan kummallista murhaa, jossa yksin suljetussa huoneessa virtuaalitodellisuudessa matkailleen nuoren miehen kurkku on viilletty auki – niin virtuaalitodellisuudessa kuin oikeastikin.

Mitään varsinaista suljetun huoneen murhamysteeriä tästä ei lähdetä kehitte­lemään, vaan Cadigan ohjastaa päähenkilönsä etsivä Dora Konstantinin samaiseen virtuaalitodellisuuteen tutkimaan Post-Apokalyptisen Noo Yawk Sittyn hämmästyttäviä maisemia. Kirja onkin kenties parhaim­millaan maalaillessaan kummallista virtuaalitodellisuutta ja sen asiakkaita.

Kirjassa on toinenkin juoni, joka liittyy samoihin kuvioihin eri näkökulmasta. Juonet yhdistyvät loppua kohden, kunnes kohtaavat. Lukijalle jää matkan varrella paljon arvailtavaa ja hämmästeltävää, sillä läheskään kaikkea ei lukijalle kerrota. Kansien ylisanojen perusteella tyyli miellyttää joitakuita, mutta itse olisin kaivannut ehkä hitusen konkreettisempaa otetta. Loppukin jätti kenties pienen pettymyksen.

Lopusta huolimatta Tea from an Empty Cup oli mielenkiintoinen lukukokemus ja erityisesti kirjan kuvaama virtuaalitodellisuus oli kiehtova. (4.11.2008)

[Humbledaisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A complicated, somewhat existential mystery set in a post appocalyptic-style Earth. I couldn't tell if the setting was truly post "some kind of event" or if that expression was just how characters expressed the bleakness of their society.

One half of the story has Yuki, searching for the meaning behind the death/disappearance of her lover, and the other half is bit of hard-boiled crime investigation involving detective Konstantin. He's investigating deaths occurring in Virtual Reality. Eventually, these two trains run into one another in a very surprising fashion.

The more I read Pat Cadigan's works (okay, so far, only three), the more I feel she has two writing styles - regular and overdrive. This is an overdrive novel, crammed so full of characters and situations and philosophies that you have a bit of a queasy stomach by the end. This isn't bad - it's just the way it is. There is plenty to think about but I felt the reader had to peel out the true inner story, string by string. Like gutting a fish or peeling potatoes, there are some parts of this story that you don't want and some you don't need but all of them are part of the process and you can't have the novel (or the fish or the potato) without them.

[Fraser Simons · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You people, you lost your souls a long time ago, you sold them for a good parking space.”

Published in 1998, Tea from an Empty Cup is one of the later cyberpunk books from Pat Cadigan. Revolving around a mystery in which a person is killed, perhaps murdered, while in a virtual reality rig that just so happens to be located in a locked room, the book appears more straight forward than it actually is. This death is a catalyst for two people to enter the same program in cyberspace that eventually intersect. One is a detective attempting to solve the mysterious death, the other set to find a someone who’s suddenly gone missing.

Embodiment is put into focus and takes on a different shape, so to speak, than previous Pat Cadigan books. People put on a suit of varying quality derived by the number of contact points on the body in the suit, which allows for a more “real” experience. Previous books generally explore memories and mind-to-mind technologies, so this is quite different than other books. An entirely different focus.
“Doesn’t mean Japan is dead. It just means everyone’s left the geographical coordinates that once marked the location of the country that was called Japan. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a Japan. Somewhere”

In this world, earthquakes destroyed Japan and one of the most trafficked simulated environments, and where the majority of the story takes place, is New Yawk Sitty. The novel weaves in a theme of fetishization of Japanese people; a problem that first wave cyberpunk novels were academically criticized for. Whereas most of first wave novels were xenophobic and technophobic due to the anxiety surrounding Japan possibly becoming a technological superpower that would consume the west, this novel flips that notion on its head, showing that the culture that ended up being consumed was Japan by the west.

In this future, there remaining Japanese people are seemingly struggling to hold onto their identity and given a certain amount of social credit if they are “full Japanese.” I’ll note here that whether or not the handling of the cultural aspects of the plot and setting are handled well, I really couldn’t say, as I’m not educated in it enough to talk intelligently about it. But it did feel like a prevalent theme given proper weight.

The grit present in cyberpunk is certainly present online, but some of the navigation of cyberspace is a bit dated reading it today. Avatars and cultural touchstones have shifted nowadays, but where it shines is in displaying how people behave when afforded anonymity. It is prescient. This ability for people to customize their presentation and construct an alternate world, as well as what that would reflects in the real world proper, are all compelling and seem more progressive than previous novels by the author. Or perhaps are just more overtly so? Though, some of the original power of the text is most likely diminished because much of the technical aspects have already played out, whereas here it is supposition and exploration.

“No age given; under sex it said, Any; all; why do you care?”

As it is now, the mystery itself is interesting and drives the story reasonably well, and the commentary and exploration on the fetishization of marginalized groups and the seemingly inevitable recreation of violent colonialism playing out in the new digital frontier are the most compelling aspects in this relatively short and fast-paced story.

“A.R is humanity’s true destiny. In A.R, everyone is immortal.
If you don’t mind existing solely in reruns.”

[Robin Duncan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I never felt invested in the characters; I never really cared about the stakes. It's all very well to send a character on a mission to find a killer or a missing person, but if the reader doesn't have any feeling for either victim, what is there to retain the reader's interest? The setting. Well, AR really is largely underwhelming, perhaps being outdated by representations of other (virtual) worlds in popular fiction. Nothing about the setting 'pops' and I felt very little if any sense of wonder. Lines like "she was beginning to understand why Ash and Tom spent so much time in AR" simply are not earned by any sort of dazzle in the description of the virtual setting. Telling the reader that AR is vivid does not make it so, quite the opposite, in fact. I'm tempted to go '1' star; one-and-a-half is probably about right.

[Samuelthunder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Synners was a standout for me last year: a true cyberpunk classic (very punk rock, very cyberspace, very cool). This one unfortunately is significantly less cool. The plot is a who-dunnit of a few deaths tied to an artificial reality online game ("Post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty"). (Japan is also featured as a bit of a questionable plot device.) The main problem, for me, is that any story that gets too involved with virtual reality or computer games, or dream sequences for that matter, is just not very interesting. Very tedious. And that's the bulk of this book: descriptions of AR game mechanics and new changing environments and characters etc etc. While at times I get a touch of the quality prose and dialogue that made Synners so great, the overall result is just not that engrossing. It's not a long book, but seems it would have worked better as a short story.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that is slightly confusing, though if intention or not it plays well into the book. You follow to women one a detective one just wrapped up looking for her missing friend. Yuki is looking for her friend Tom and she gets mixed up in artificial reality in a body not her own trying to figure out the reason of just why. While Konstantin a detective is diving into a murder of a man in an AR facility that leads her confused down the rabbit hole of AR world and multiple other murders. Though both characters are fairly new to the technology based on their stance in life and jobs. They somehow both have to figure out the answers to the two separate yet connected questions... Though the book does leave it open for interpretation. Suppose that's why there's a second book.

[Joel Hacker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good cyberpunk by and about women, which is a refreshing change of perspective from a very male dominated sub-genre.
Fair warning to crunchy cyberpunk fans, this deals almost exclusively with artificial reality and the nature of our perception of reality self, to the detriment if not outright exclusion of many of the genre's other tropes. I would say a good three quarters of this novel takes place within various 'layers' of artificial reality. A concept treated in an interesting, almost spiritual, sense.
Good enough of a read that I'll pick up the sequel.

[Tom]

Maybe cyberpunk just ain't my thing, but she seemed to put an awful lot of effort into creating a world that was barely comprehensible to the protagonists or the reader. And a VR where you can do anything and be anything but most people choose to spend their time in a gritty and violent post apocalyptic nyc seems rather poor. As for the plot, in the whodunnit bit the cop makes literally no progress for 7/8 of the book then suddenly gets the answer handed to her on a plate; the other plot strand was incomprehensible.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a weird ass book. I'm honestly not really sure what happened. It was all super confusing, and most of the time you couldn't actually tell what was real or not (although that's perhaps the point) and more importantly you couldn't tell what was happening. So if there was a plot, it mostly consisted of a couple characters going into Virtual Reality and having strange interactions.

[Cindie Usevich · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't finish it. I will stop trying. I know it's not for me. My brain doesn't understand abstract worlds, and the author's writing didn't help. The author writes very vaguely, with a lot of 'they' and 'them' and not in the gender fluid way. The backstories build with such bland anonymity, it's hard to connect to the characters.

[Andi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this, I really did. I enjoy cyberpunk as a genre and was surprised this slipped under my radar for so long. Unfortunately, I was annoyed by the characters and their poor decisions more than anything, and although "Japanese" cultural heritage was crucial to the story, it's merely a shallow window-dressing with no depth and comes across as ignorant and kinda racist now.

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A detective story wearing cyberpunk drag.

The plot of the detective story was pretty tight, but I never really cared about the characters, their motivations, or what they were trying to figure out. Even the cyberpunk angle was fairly dull; nothing really new there.