Turing's Delirium: A Cryptanalyst Hunts a Cyberhacktivist in Near-Future Bolivia and Questions His Innocence

by Edmundo Paz Soldán

The setting: Bolivia in the near future. Miguel “Turing” Saenz, a veteran cryptanalyst, is the most famous code-breaker in the employment of a secret government organization known as the Black Chamber. He is leading the pursuit of the Chamber’s latest target: Kandinsky, a “cyberhacktivist” leader who is staging a war against both the government and the country’s transnational corporations as part of an antiglobalization revolution. As Turing finds himself drawn into a web of murder, intrigue, and deception, he begins to suspect that his work is not as innocent as he once believed.

Genres: Fiction, Bolivia, Science Fiction, Thriller, Spanish Literature, 21st Century, Latin American

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 2004

Reviews

[August · Rating 1 out of 5]

What I learned from this book? My creative writing professors were right. They were right when they said not to write in present tense, they were correct when they stated that using a second person point of view was not the best way to go and they were dead on accurate when they rolled their eyes at the thought of a story written in first peson stream of consciousness. I thought my professors were simply trying to stunt my overwhelming creativity. Someone should have stunted this book. My goodness, this is a prime example of how not to write. Instead of professors telling you not to write this way they should just make you read this book. (show not tell -- heh,heh)

So of course, there were multiple points of view from different characters with all the before mentioned maneuvers. On top of that the plot was predictable and the insights of the characters were insipid and platitudinous. For instance, did you know that we are all simply codes trying to communicate with each other? And we can't. And this is tragic.

This book was supposed to be a cyber/thriller/government/revolution and was a let down. But, it was translated so perhaps the fault of the book can't rest on the author's shoulders alone.

[Serap Duman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dili, anlatımı oldukça basit,kurgusunu akıcılığını beğendiğim, 7 karakter ile hikayenin tamamlandığı, aynı zamanda ülke gerçeklerinin olay örgüsünde oldukça başarılı bir şekilde aktarımı ile beğendiğim bir kitap oldu
Yazarın Türkçeye daha fazla sayıda çevrilmiş kitabının olmasını dilerdim
Latin edebiyatının önemli romanlarından..

[Edward Wilsher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed bag. There were a few occasions and storylines that felt completely pointless and had no character progression or story arc. On the other hand, the twists at the end and the main storyline was intriguing with a satisfying ending. Not enough to bring it up higher than 3.5.

[Luis González Ricardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book by Paz Soldán is like a spider web, because it traps you. It has a clear influence of La muerte de Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes, because it is narrated in first, second and third person. It is not as good as Iris, but it has its own merits. It is remarkable the research done by Paz Soldán on the history of cryptography in order to write this novel. It is a social novel, but also a mystery novel, which is very enjoyable. Perhaps, the only "problem" of the book is its title, because I bought it thinking it was about Alan Turing....and it is not. Instead, I bought a very good novel by Edmundo Paz Soldán.

[Fernando Ferrone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tive alguns momento de tédio lendo o livro, porém, o final é bom.

[Daiana Barone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro sumamente interesante, en su contenido pero sobre todo en su estructura, en su construcción parcial, incompleta de las personajes y de los hechos. Como una gran hipertexto, la novela nos obliga a seguir, a dirigirnos al vínculo siguiente, a buscar más datos, a completar la información, a conocer a fondo, aunque de a partes.
La crisis (social, económica, política) de Río Fugitivo bien podría ser la crisis del neoliberalismo de los 90-2000s de toda Latinoamérica; por eso nos interpela como lectores. A diferencia de la Historia, en esta ficción hay una clara apuesta: la respuesta son los jóvenes.

[Büşra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ayyyy sonunda bitti :'(((

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

En general, el libro realiza la onda de William Gibson en Bolivia sugerida por la descripcion. Yo no lo llamaría brillante, ya que juega un poco como pastiche: un poco de Gibson, un poco de Borges, un poco de García Márquez , un poco de Phil Dick, etc. Además, no estoy convencido que todos los experimentos estilísticos y las diversas líneas argumentales se combinan efectivamente.

La mayoría de la acción desplega durante los últimos días de la administración Montenegro. El gobierno ha promulgado muchas de las reformas neoliberales, incluyendo la privatización de los servicios públicos. El crisis empieza porque la gente se harta con la multinacional que dirige la compañía eléctrica y comienzan a demostrar publicamente. Un grupo clandestino, dirigido por un hacker llamado Kandinsky, decide que esta sera la oportunidad perfecta para derrocar al presidente.

Oponiendolos es el servicio de seguridad del gobierno, incluido el departamento de criptografía que se denomina Cámara Negra, que es dirigido por un ex-empleado de la CIA con el nombre de Ramírez-Graham. Entre su personal es el veterano Sáenz, quien va por el apodo de Turing, y que es totalmente Old School. La esposa y la hija de Turing también están involucrados en la acción (a diferentes grados). Además, un ex magistrado ha estado investigando los crímenes cometidos por el gobierno de Montenegro cuando era una dictadura y ahora ve una oportunidad para obtener justicia.

Por alguna razón, Turing es el único personaje cuya narrativa se da en la segunda persona. El uso de narración en segunda persona no salo malo, pero no me parece que fue realmente necesario. Los otros personajes, salvo uno, se narran en tercera persona. Ese personaje, que es el ex-jefe de Turing, pasa la mayor parte del libro inconsciente en una cama de hospital, la víctima de algún trastorno neurológico degenerativo, los primeros síntomas de que consistían en halucinaciones en que él era inmortal y tenía anteriormente encarnado todos los criptógrafos de la historia. Este aspecto, junto con la atmosfera de paranoia, es donde el libro me recuerda a la obra de Phillip K. Dick.

Me pareció interesante como los temas del cyberpunk caben en el tercer mundo actual. En muchos aspectos, un pequeño país en desarrollo es más parecido al escenario de Neuromancer que los Estados Unidos contemporáneos. Es decir, se contará con la presencia de una cultura popular global, los gobiernos débiles y corruptos, las multinacionales sombra con mucho peso para repartir, yuxtaposiciones dramáticas de la riqueza y la pobreza (así como de alta y baja tecnología).

[Sofia B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fiel a su estilo, Paz Soldán entrega otro libro con una misma forma de narrar en otra historia policíaca, es interesante toda esta temática estilo deep web combinada con realidad virtual y la típica realidad boliviana, pero hasta ahí llega lo interesante, dada su forma de narrar en tiempo presente casi todo el libro, pierde mucho de la estética de los recuerdos y en el intento de confundir al lector solo sigue perdiendo oportunidades de crear escenas memorables para la trama. Es complicado distinguir a los personajes puesto a que no llega a desarrollar una distinción muy clara de todos ellos (no llegas a meterte en la realidad y visión del personaje), solo te das cuenta por el cambio de escenario en algunos casos, ademas de que el final termino por rematar la historia. Una trama prometedora que fue ejecutada por su narración.

[Vince · Rating 4 out of 5]

A techno-thriller combining cryptography, espionage, and high-tech. The story takes place partly in a cyber-space virtual reality akin to Second World. This novel provides interesting parallels to modern police states, including the dreadful administration that currently has a grip on the US. It also highlights the vulnernability to sabotage of our high-tech infrastructure.

Good character development, good pace to the story, interesting twists, and you definitely want to get to the end to see how it turns out.

A good read, if you can grok the high-tech.

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this up in my quest for Bolivian fiction in translation, and can't say it really holds together some 15+ years after its publication. The author has ambitiously tried to create a kind of commentary on modern Bolivian politics and neoliberalism using the scaffolding of the cyberpunk genre. However, it's all somewhat scattered, and the "cyber" aspects never felt particularly plausible or immersive.

At the center of the book is a cryptanalyst named Miguel Saenz (aka "Turing"), who's faithfully worked as a codebreaker in the "Black Chamber" (kind of a Bolivian NSA) for whatever government has been in charge. One day he received an encrypted email accusing him of being complicit in the crimes of the dictatorships he's served. Meanwhile, protests in the streets against the government's turning over the electrical grid to a French-American corporation are turning up pressure on the government, while Evo Morales gains popularity in the background.

Meanwhile, a cyberactivist group led by the mysterious "Kandinsky" are conducting online sabotage against the government and foreign corporations. There's also a judge and former government minister whose conscience is now leading him to seek revenge for the torture and murder of the cousin he loved. Saenz's daughter Flavia is a kind of online journalist covering the world of Bolivian hacking, and cyber-prodigy in her own right. And Saenz's mentor, a mysterious probable ex-Nazi lies in a near coma, hallucinating through fragmentary snippets of his past lives as a cryptographer. There are just a lot of characters and ideas, none of which are deep enough to ground the story.

There's also the whole construct of a digital world called "Playground" that the hackers organize in -- sort of a Second Life place with more rigorous rules. Among the many elements that are not really clear why any of the true hackers would actually use that pay-to-play space. It seems like the author was semi-interested in the whole concept of real vs. virtual worlds, but by the time this book came out, that had been done to death, and in much more interesting ways. I also felt like at a fundamental level, the author was not altogether clear on the distinction between cryptography and cybersecurity. On the whole, the book was a bit of a slog with no real narrative momentum, staggering to a relatively unsurprising conclusion.

[Scarlett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Turing's Delirium
Edmundo Paz Soldán
January, 2006

The book takes place in Bolivia and it’s about hackers and they form this group called the Black Chamber which is an organization that deciphers codes and messages. What the Black Chamber does is they try to overthrow the government, making hackers represent revolutionaries. This book was very interesting explaining revolutions in a way that would get teens and adults hooked and making it very intense.

In the beginning of the book it starts out introducing the characters and how they all became hackers. It was a little confusing and not that interesting in the first few chapters because it would explain in detail the background story of each character. But when I got farther in the book it became a lot more interesting and I started to really like the detail that was added in the book. The plot became a lot more clearer and so did the characters once you see what the problem is you start to see what the main idea is going to be. The book was also very intense seeing that the characters weren’t really working together since in the book they should, it makes the reader think that everyone is out to help themselves. In many ways I would have never expected the book to go into such detail about the characters and the setting making it be very intense.

My overall thought on this book was that it was very intense once you get further in the book and start to understand the plot. This book is different from other books I have read because they usually get straight to the point, instead the book takes it's time to actually explain what is going on. In the book you also have to pay very close attention because if you start skipping pages or spacing out then you tend to get very confused and wouldn't be interested.

[Ozcan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️
📌 Kader her zaman her şeyin sorumlusu değildir. Bazen tesadüflere güvenmemek gerekir.
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📚📝✒️
İlksöz: Şifreleri kırmak kolay, ya şifrelerin ardındaki sırlar ...

Derler ki İkinci Dünya Savaşı'nın dönüm noktalarından biri Almanların kullandığı şifreli mesajların Amerikan ve İngilizler tarafından çözülmesidir. Bu zamanda, bilgisayarlı bir dünyada bu olayı anlatmak zor. Ama denemeli. O zamanların şifreleri basitçe bir kelimedeki harflerin yerlerini belirli bir sıra/sayı/kelime vb kullanarak değiştirip yeniden yazılması. Yani telsizden mesajı alıyorsunuz ama hiçbir anlamı yok kelimenin.

İşte böyle bir dünyadan gelip, Bolivya''da terör örgütlerinin kendi aralarındaki şifreli mesajlarını çözen biri. Zamanın önemli kişisi ama artık devir dönüyor, bilgisayar devrede. Bilgisayar oyunlarının popülerliğinin başladığı yıllar. Bir sanal oyunun içinde gizlenen bir terör örgütü. Enigma'yı çözenler, zamanında teröristleri inlerinde elleri ile koymuş gibi bulanlar, sanal alemin içindeki bu teröristleri bulabilecek mi?

Yedi farklı anlatıcının sıra ile boy gösterdiği, her anlatıcıdan gelen bilgileri birbirine ekleyip sonuca ulaşmaya çalıştığımız bir eser Turing'in Hezeyanı. Konu olarak ilgi çekici ve sürükleyici. Ama iki büyük handikapı var. İlki kitap 2003'te yazılmasına rağmen bilgisayar/internet/iletişim diye dallandırabileceğimiz bilişim teknolojisindeki hızlı gelişim kitapta yaşanan bazı durumları anlamsız kılmakta. İkincisi ise yedi anlatıcı sıra ile bir şey anlatırken, onları, olayları ve arasındaki bağları kurmak vakit alıyor ve bu da kitaba hâkim olmayı zorlaştırıyor. Çünkü bölüm başlarında kimin anlattığı belli değil ve sekizinci bölümde ilk bölümdeki anlatıcı kaldığı yerden devam ediyor. Açıkçası her şeyin oturması ve okuyucunun olaya hâkim olması ancak yedi anlatıcının ikinci turu sonunda (ya da ortalarında) gerçekleşiyor ki kitabın ilk 115 sayfası.

Bu dezavantajlarına rağmen kitabı sonuna kadar merakla okuduğumu ve olayların çözülmesi için sayfaları istekle çevirdiğimi belirtmeliyim. Sabırlı ve 2000'lerin başını bilen okuyucular için farklı bir Latin Amerika Edebiyatı okuması olacaktır. #korsaniledünyaturu ile Bolivya'daydık. Sağlıcakla. Kitapla.
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Sonsöz:
📌 Kod için öldüren, kod için öldürülür.
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[Vijay Fafat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hacker-counter-hacker story set in Bolivia, where the newly resurrected president hires an NSA official to set up the country's counter-espionage / cyber-security unit ("Black Chamber"). The main thorn in the side is a computer terrorist named Kandinski. Black Chamber has on its side a cryptanalyst with decades of experiencing tackling various types of codes. And the game is on, with the inevitable mole inside Black Chamber, fevered dreams which feature the dreamer talking in first person as Charles Babbage, Turing, etc.

The book intersperses mathematical references throughout, including a long description of the Enigma machine, Fermat and Mersenne primes, etc. At one point, the Black Chamber director recalls how, as a child, he was taught number theory by his mother using the book, "The Man Who Counted."

[Kevin Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Está escrito de la punta de vista de muchas pesonajes. Baez, kandinsky, flavia, ramirez graham, albert, turing... y todos en estilos diferentes. Eso me gustaba porque fue en estilos diferentes y tenía que esforzarme entender. Pero... no creo que esos estilos diferentes servían añadir mucho. También había muchas partes de la trama que no servían para nada y nada me sorprendió mucho. Se trata de muchas cosas interesantes como Bolivia, la dictadura, hackers, y la tecnología. También me gustaba como se escritan las personajes entre ellos en los chateos porque todo fue shorthand como hay q intentntr como c dic las phrmas.. no me recuerdo exacto pero algo así.

"No importa cómo es; vale más cómo queda en nuestra mente, cómo ciertos procesos biológicos se las ingenian para construir nuestra memoria de las ruinas de lo real."

[Fernando Pestana da Costa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first came across the work of the Bolivian writer Paz Soldán by reading an excellent three page short story published (with the title "La Porte Fermée") in an anthology of new Latin American writers compiled in 2010 by the French publisher Gallimard. I was fascinated by that short story and decided to read some more of Paz Soldán's books (the anthology had a short bibliographical note, a quite useful guide to that purpose). This novel, crossing secret services, computer hackers, popular revolt, and the dark shadow of former dictatorships, is entertaining, but not exactly as gripping as I was expecting.

[Charissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A Bolivian cyberpunk, political story written in an alternative ‘near future’ Bolivia, back when Nokias were still a thing! Reading the novel, I enjoyed stepping into a different culture — it is a culture coming out of a dictatorship into a globalising world — but I wanted the story to get weirder and surprise me more. Throughout the book, there were hints that that might happen and that the plot would take off, but my lasting impression is of a story driving along with the brakes on. But that could actually be the point — that these characters did not have as much agency as they thought they did! Although, I would still have loved a big science fiction reveal.

[Julia Modde · Rating 2 out of 5]

This books wants to be so many stories, that is in the end no story. Even though I enjoyed the cyberpunk drive of the book and the political context of a Bolivia in motion, the whole book left me kind of uninterested. Half of the characters didn’t mattered to me - some of them had motives which were not quite understandable. And the whole story pointed in a net of coincidences and connections, which I found just too much for a story.

[Allan MacDonell · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far, living the avatar life within the Internet’s simulated realities really has not lived up to the plot-advancing virtual settings of novels such as Edmundo Paz Soldán’s 2002 Bolivian award winner Turing’s Delirium. Still, Soldán’s politically motivated masquerades, manipulations, and murders fictionalize an IRL Bolivia with a sanguinity that holds up like a present-day crisis newsfeed from just about any country you want to pop a pin into on your global map of stressed republics.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book brought me to my own delirium trying to decode the message. The book is broken down in three parts and at first is a rather slow read. After speaking to the author I realized what my own craziness I’m wanting to decipher the book was what the author wanted the audience to feel. This book gives readers a chance to open their own creative mind.

[Jennifer]

Written in 2007:

Another book that feeds my continual fascination with code breakers and hackers. Paz Soldan won the 2002 Bolivian National Book Award for his contribution to the genre. A Second Life foreshadowed environment called Playground plays a role in this story. Of course, all the virtual environment tales pay tribute to my favorite Neal Stephenson and his Metaverse.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book representing Bolivia in the "80 Books Around the World" Book Club. Some of the comments by GoodReads members were spot on. While I did not dislike the book, I would not necessarily recommend it.

[Ellen]

I was so excited to read a book by a Bolivian author but beyond place names and a potentially Goni-like character it had no colla-camba flavor. The mishmash of writing styles was frustrating and the plot slow.

[Carmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tu último pensaniento es que has dejado de pensar, en realidad nunca pensaste, siempre deliraste, el desconocido tenía razón, todos deliran, lo tuyo es un delirio, el pensamiento es una forma de delirio, sólo que hay delirios más inofensivos que otros.

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

a brilliant novel - cryptoanalysis in Bolivia. Set against a former dictator now duly elected president. involving Nazi and CIA structuring of Bolivian anti-opposition network. A little revolution. A reflection of each of us as code. What are we responsible for in our daily practice.

[Aleksandar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Felt like I was reading a Dan Brown novel that he wrote when he was 9. I kind of get what the storyline was supposed to be about, but man the plot was shallow as hell (not to mention the character development). Started out good, ended in a brain vomit of a novel.

[Tara Ragosta · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book took me over a year to read because I couldn’t get into it. Way too many types of voice, confusing and also wildly boring. I still don’t know what happened in this story.

[Rhys Howell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ended better than it started to.although took most of the book for the plot to kick in.

[Arnon Thalenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Médio

[excentric · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot could have been awesome but it just felt like the author tried to fit way too much into a single book.