Book details of 'Wired'

Title	Wired
Author(s)	Robert L. Wise
ISBN	0446691631
Language	English
Published	March 2004
Publisher	Warner Faith

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The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Wired':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
Some books are good, and some books are bad. Some books are so unsatisfactory that you think that you could do better. Some books are so poorly written that you think *anyone* could have produced an improved tome. Generally, though, these idle thoughts are dismissed by recognition of the fact that writing a book is hard work. Why put in all that time and effort just to prove you could surpass what you are reading? Every once in a while, though, you come across a book that is *so* rotten you feel that the exertion might be justified if it meant that volumes like it didn't get published. You'd be doing the world a favour. It is difficult to even begin to note the failings of the writing. Characterization, of both individuals and whole societies, is inconsistent and unrealistic. Dialogue is stilted. Action is uneven and disjointed. Description, of both characters and settings, is contradictory and confusing. It's difficult to develop any empathy for the personae in the story, since, with constantly changing motivations and reactions, it is almost impossible to tell who they actually are. Wise is a Christian and this is a Christian story. (One assumes Wise is a Christian: even for a professional paranoid like myself it is difficult to seriously entertain the notion that maybe Wise *isn't* a Christian, and is, with this effort, trying to further debase the body of contemporary Christian fiction.) It attempts to posit a near- future occurrence of the Tribulation, one possible interpretation of sections of the Revelation of John (the final book in the Christian Bible). For anyone who has read Revelation (and some passages in the Gospels) the references are glaringly obvious: wars and rumours of wars, the moon as blood, earthquakes in unusual places, the opponent of Christian believers, the mark on the forehead, and so forth. (Wise rather misses a trick when he doesn't get into the inability to conduct business without the mark, and we haven't yet got to the miraculous head wound, but the book simply cries out "FIRST OF A SERIES!!!" so that'll probably be coming.) Speaking of paranoia, the book reeks of it. The feel is of the newly created Christian group as an embattled small band. They have identifiable and specific enemies, but, in addition, are constantly under a kind of passive attack by basically everyone else in the world. One has the impression of reading "The Dawn of the Morally Dead," with drooling lechers and drunkards shambling across the apocalyptic landscape. OK, enough editorial, let's talk tech. It's terrible, and has no particular relation to reality or logic. An object that looks like it might have an eye must be frightening. Machines resembling miniature hooks, missiles, or robots evidently have a potential for disaster. Computers that are very tiny have a brain but no conscience! (No room for a conscience?) Devices with internal structures the width of several atoms are monstrous! (Wise can be inadvertantly hilarious at times.) Objects measured on the atomic scale can be seen with an ordinary optical microscope. But objects the size of a human hair are invisibly tiny. (Heck, *I* can see hairs even with *my* tired old eyes!) Wise throws around miscellaneous technologies that have no relation to each other. Quantum computers can control photons. (So can the on- off switch on a flashlight, and, no, Wise isn't talking about optical fibre.) Sending photons, even when there is no line of sight, can cause nanoparticles to disappear! (I don't think Wise even knows what a photon *is*.) However, sending the *other* photons can cause the nanoparticles to attack! (I can never recall: am I the good photon, or the evil photon?) The major tech in the book is nanotechnology. Wise doesn't appear to know anything about it except that it involves little bitty things. The possibilities of object creation, medical uses, or information storage are unexplored. (Wise should read something on the topic: if he prefers fiction, perhaps "The Diamond Age" [cf. BKDAYLIP.RVW].) The questions of pollution, energy consumption, and heat dissipation are likewise ignored. Clusters of nanoparticles, the width of a hair in total extent, can somehow allow complete surveillance of the individual on whom they are placed. There is no attempt to discuss how this might take place. In the end, though, the technology that does have some bearing on the plot is rather pedestrian. The US Department of Homeland Security's Total Information Access plan, coupled with Echelon (which Wise doesn't name), and aided by a plain old-fashioned entrapment operation are the major plot devices. If this book is aimed only at entertaining Christians, it doesn't provide them with anything in the way of literary values or good story-telling. If this work is intended to be an apologia to the rest of the world it is an ignorant and insulting attempt. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2004
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