هالو

by Tom Maddox, محمد فتحي خضر (Translator), هاني فتحي سليمان (Editor)

تقدِّم هذه الرواية مزيجًا من الواقع الافتراضي والذكاء الاصطناعي والفلسفة الروحانية؛ حيث يرسم المؤلِّف خريطةً لتطوُّرِ حاسوبٍ ذكي بفضل اكتسابه الوعيَ الذاتي، فينقلنا إلى عالَم نشهد فيه رؤًى مستقبليةً شديدةَ الإثارة تتمخَّض عنها التكنولوجيا الحاسوبيةُ والهندسة الحيوية، عبر حَبْكة روائية مُتقَنة تتخلَّلها من آنٍ لآخر ومضاتٌ فلسفية.

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Ebooks, Virtual Reality, Reference, Science Fiction Fantasy

201 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

In the 1990's, Maddox was a professor of literary studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

Reviews

[ريهام يوسف · Rating 3 out of 5]

الرواية عن عالم بحاله اتصنع من الذكاء الصناعي، القصة سطحية والشخصيات سطحية بس الاسلوب معقد ومش مناسب معاها، فيه تفاصيل و وصف كبير لأشياء مش مهمة ومش بتدعم الحبكة، هى متعبة في القراءة بس
فلسفتها مش قوية خالص، وضعيفة جدا، مناسبة لآلة بتحاول تعرف ذاتها الي هى شيء بيقوم بالانتاج فقط برده

على الرغم من حبي للعلوم بمختلف مجالاتها، وعلى الرغم من دور التكنولوجيا والكمبيوتر والذكاء الصناعي الي انجز شوط كبير في التقدم العلمي وسرّع من وتيرة الاكتشافات والاختراعات وسهل في حياتنا كتير من ابسط شيء لأعقد شيء، إلا أني هفضل اكره التطور في الذكاء الصناعي وهفضل رافضة وجوده، او انه يقف لحد نقطة معينة ع الاقل، بس طبعا مفيش حاجة بتقف، ف بلاشه من احسن ..

مش فكرة خوف من تحكم الآلات بالبشر، بس خلق كائنات بلا روح بلا مشاعر بلا حياة، كائنات عايشة بالمنطق بالانتاج بالتعريفات والحدود لكل كلمة، والي هو اما حيوان ينقرض مثلا نصنع زيه آلة، يييي، جسمي بيقشعر والله من التخيل

[Dana Jerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here’s what I like with my sci-fi: Sex.
There’s a modicum of clumsy softcore here, and I respect the effort.
Could there have been more? Sure.
But I get it. It’s sci-fi, not porn.

Meanwhile, some scene structure presents itself as a bit redundant, though cinematic.
However I can get down with anything on the “wetter” side of sci-fi which means more messy and human and sexy, even if unnecessarily verbal at times.

[ياسر]

لم تُعجبني، أو كانت أقل من توقعاتي
حمّل الكاتب الأحداث تعقيدًا بما لا تحتمل.
«ألِف»، ذكاء اصطناعي يحكم المدينة الفضائية «هالو»، تقع بعض الأحداث المُرتبطة بوعي ألِف واستكشافه.
الكاتب هنا يعرض لمفاهيم الذكاء الاصطناعي والوعي والإدراك من وجهة نظر علمية، وفيها بعض الروحية والفلسفة.

[Jay Kawasaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

About as much Zen as American Ninja, but significantly less entertaining. Corpo computer guy almost gets blowed up, becomes friends with his computer, does drugs, is in the same room with a mystical Japanese man and joins some Zero Cool hackers types to save Lawnmower man.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The curse of the missing half star strikes again. Calling this book a three would be a disservice, but it's not quite entertaining enough to be a full four.

A Creative Commons novel freely available at Manybooks.net as well as the authour's own site and traditional formats, it's a trippy examination of what it is to be human. Sci-Fi in the truest sense - exploratory, and mind expanding.

It's difficult to review this novel after only reading it once - For me there was both lots to like and lots to dislike. The presentation especially fell into the latter category, mainly sticking to one viewpoint but wandering away from it almost at random to other characters, and slipping from story to sermon and back. Pieces of it (the cat for instance) just never quite clicked for me. Other pieces resonated strongly.

Somehow in the end if fell short of awesome, but you should read it anyway.

[izawoodsman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished it which means I didn't hate it. It pretty much was a good idea that wasn't allowed to develop. It would have benefited from some better world building, maybe more back story on the characters to give me something to care about, a little less details in other areas to keep the plot moving. I felt like the author was trying to shove a lot of good ideas into too little space. The net result was that none were given enough attention to develop fully, nor to engage me as a reader.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good writing, another meditation on the future after the singularity -- what to do when being conscious might mean living in silicon, and might not mean being of human origin. The characters were great, the plot was interesting and engaging -- perfect beach reading.

[Corvid · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like bad 80s-90s sci fi. I like good 80s-90s sci fi.

I did not like this.

This is extremely mediocre and has the specific flavor of a "deep" novel written by a white guy who took some sort of psychedelics and had a religious experience of a culture that he wasn't born into, knew nothing about, and had no connection to the psychedelics he actually took. I can see what he was trying to do, sort of, but it's difficult to connect to it around the details--the unexpected rape flashback, the romantic subplots, whatever was going on with Myanmar in the beginning of the book. The little author blurb on the back called Maddox a "sci fi critic" and the book feels a lot like the work of someone who's writing sci fi because he thinks he can do better than the authors he's been reading. It wasn't even infuriating in a fun way, just a long and disappointing slog of a book to get through.

[A.M. Steiner · Rating 2 out of 5]

A competently executed but soul-less pastiche of early Gibson cyberpunk.

I came to Halo because of the William Gibson recommendation plastered boldly on its cover. Why the Godfather of cyberpunk gave this one the nod is a bit of a mystery, given that Halo is so shamelessly derivative of his earlier work (unless that is in fact the reason?).
Shamelessly derivative cyberpunk can still be fun, Altered Carbon being an obvious recent case in point. Unfortunately, while Madox's prose is neat and effective, he lacks Gibson (or Morgan's) ability to draw three dimensional (or even interesting) characters. So what you're left with is a generic cyberpunk thriller with competent descriptive prose populated by cardboard cut-out archetypes who talk in cliche.

Impossible to care about.

[Mark Everglade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat book! The descriptions and imagery are very immersive, and I couldn't stop reading it. The section with Aleph the A.I. and the idea of fractal-based compression of self into a sentence was absolutely phenomenal, and worth the read in and of itself. The book loses one star for a lack of an urgent narrative drive, and characters which are only mildly interesting. It gains points for its originality in depicting an AI that is struggling with its identity without resorting to it having the typical malicious intentions. Aleph as a character makes up for the humans being lackluster.

[Lord Humungus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this book when it was new, when I was riding high on all things cyberpunk. I got his book on the strength of the short stories (again mostly cyberpunk) that I'd read by the author. Although this book was right in the pocket with respect to its cyberpunk elements, like many books at the time, it used those elements to cover up weak storytelling and character development. I was so sorely disappointed with this book I never went back.

[Mauro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting meditations on machine intelligence. I liked the prose style so much that I reread it immediately after finishing it the first time (well, it's short). Seems to be the author's only novel, unfortunately.

[Kiki · Rating 2 out of 5]

All about the aesthetic, which was cool, but at the expense of plot. This is the kind of book where the main character blunders through a bunch of crisp, cinematic scenes, but it's not clear why exactly things are happening or why we should care.

[Bill Yancey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1991. You can see “The Matrix” and William Gibson’s novels in embryonic form in this novel. Gibson tells better stories, however.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concept, but the writing is clunky, the sex is irrelevant and lame, and the author fails to properly convey the Buddhist aspects of the story and its relation to A.I and M.I.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good enough to keep me happy through most of the book but it fizzled a bit at the end. The "universe" was quite nicely imagined. I had a big gripe with the protagonist though; Gonzales was one of those passive actors you sometimes find who doesn't actually do anything - things just happen around him. I think the author was more interested in describing the science of his universe than he was in developing an interesting leading character.

I found this with another book I read recently, Blindsight by Peter Watts. Maybe this is a trend. If it is, I don't like it.

On the other hand, this was a free ebook and it was good enough for me to give it 3 stars.

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and short, but more cyberprog than cyberpunk with its flowery descriptions, magic mushrooms and Buddhism. Enjoyable, though.

[Robert Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of reading Halo while taking an english class by the author himself at The Evergreen State College.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little AI story.

[Oudge · Rating 2 out of 5]

started ok, but then started introducing a lot a characters in quick succession, rapidly introducing their thoughts - it was a bit disconcerting - maybe it was meant to be.

[Keith Dickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book started with a lot on intrigue but this was not sustained to the end.
generally not a memorable book. Ended flat.

[Kendall Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book. Very detailed but not too much. great story. Good job and i hope you continue to make more books in the same fashion.

[Katariina]

Rekisteröin kirjan BookCrossing.com-sivustolla!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12781629

[Jeff Youngstrom]

My review from December 12, 1996

[Ehirgelt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting ideas involving self. Deserves a reread soon