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Counting Heads
Counting Heads is David Marusek's extraordinary launch as an SF novelist: The year is 2134, and the Information Age has given rise to the Boutique Economy in which mass production and mass consumption are rendered obsolete. Life extension therapies have increased the human lifespan by centuries. Loyal mentars (artificial intelligence) and robots do most of society's work. The Boutique Economy has made redundant ninety-nine percent of the world's fifteen billion human inhabitants. The world would be a much better place if they all simply went away.
Eleanor K. Starke, one of the world's leading citizens is assassinated, and her daughter, Ellen, is mortally wounded. Only Ellen, the heir to her mother's financial empire, is capable of saving Earth from complete domination plotted by the cynical, selfish, immortal rich, if she, herself, survives. Her cryonically frozen head is in the hands of her family's enemies. A ragtag ensemble of unlikely heroes join forces to rescue Ellen's head, all for their own purposes.
Counting Heads arrives as a science fiction novel like a bolt of electricity, galvanizing readers with an entirely new vision of the future. It's the debut of the year in SF.
Eleanor K. Starke, one of the world's leading citizens is assassinated, and her daughter, Ellen, is mortally wounded. Only Ellen, the heir to her mother's financial empire, is capable of saving Earth from complete domination plotted by the cynical, selfish, immortal rich, if she, herself, survives. Her cryonically frozen head is in the hands of her family's enemies. A ragtag ensemble of unlikely heroes join forces to rescue Ellen's head, all for their own purposes.
Counting Heads arrives as a science fiction novel like a bolt of electricity, galvanizing readers with an entirely new vision of the future. It's the debut of the year in SF.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
44 people are currently reading
1356 people want to read
About the author
David Marusek
48books115followersAuthor David Marusek writes science fiction in a cabin in Fairbanks, Alaska. His work has appeared in Playboy, Nature, MIT Technology Review, Asimov’s, and other periodicals and anthologies and has been translated into ten languages. According to Publisher's Weekly, “Marusek's writing is ferociously smart, simultaneously horrific and funny, as he forces readers to stretch their imaginations and sympathies." His two novels and clutch of short stories have earned him numerous award nominations and have won the Theodore Sturgeon and Endeavour awards. �. . . Marusek could be the one sci-fi writer in a million with the potential to make an increasingly indifferent audience care about the genre again . . .”—New York Times Book Review. “Marusek is one of the relatively few contemporary sf writers who seems deeply responsive to the contemporary world”—Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. His current novel project, Camp Tribulation, is a tale of love, faith, and alien invasion set in the Alaskan bush.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 159 reviews
February 9, 2017
I was caught by the premise and what can I say? I love hi-tech future-Earth stories, especially when they don't automatically deform into the dissolution of society, but rather, they discuss important issues in sometimes humorous, sometimes disturbing, sometimes just plainly WTF.
This one is definitely all of the above.
The entire novel is extremely rich in wonderful world-building ideas in the grand, nearly overwhelming sense that it's all over the place, from nanotech everywhere, to domed cities to keep out the nasties (weaponized nanotech), AIs that haven't taken over the world, but instead cohabit with us, humans who have been augmented in both capacity and health that we're pretty much on the same playing field as the AIs, helpful clones everywhere, a grand colonizing expedition set up for a fairly distant star, and an interesting, not generic utopian society.
So where's the story?
Oh, of course things go wrong. In fact, tons of things go wrong for this large cast of characters, from complete disenfranchisement of all the joys this world has to offer, to losing one's head, to learning that the greatest adventure the world has to offer might be a con-job, to living in fear of the omnipresent surveillance.
This book, despite the very strong beginning and focus on poor Sam, isn't, unfortunately, about him. It's easy to get misled by the some of the hype. Instead, this is a book about all the people, and overpopulation, and the kinds of societies that we allow ourselves to create.
Of course, that's not to say that the characters aren't fascinating, even with such a large cast, because they are. But also don't expect a traditional thriller or plots that weave back together again in a grand fashion, because that's not what this novel is really about. Nor is it an easily defined and thematic novel, either.
Instead, it is an extremely rich exploration of imagination and life, full of loss, duty, loneliness, joy, and especially of hope, mostly transcending the base cares and proving that no matter how advanced we become, or how we might eradicate disease or old age, we're still human, for good or ill. And I'm not leaving out the clones.
Hell, even the AIs are only human.
Don't let me mislead you, though, because there's plenty of action and adventure here, too, as well as creepy images of slugs everywhere and babies with adult heads, but there's also some totally wonderful allusions mixed in with some extremely clever prose, too. And in any account, no one should ever discount extremely crisp writing.
If you're looking for futuristic SF in the vein of or , that focuses more on what the world of the future has to say, with lots of extras that paint as interesting a picture as the MCs, then you really can't go wrong with this gem of a novel.
This one is definitely all of the above.
The entire novel is extremely rich in wonderful world-building ideas in the grand, nearly overwhelming sense that it's all over the place, from nanotech everywhere, to domed cities to keep out the nasties (weaponized nanotech), AIs that haven't taken over the world, but instead cohabit with us, humans who have been augmented in both capacity and health that we're pretty much on the same playing field as the AIs, helpful clones everywhere, a grand colonizing expedition set up for a fairly distant star, and an interesting, not generic utopian society.
So where's the story?
Oh, of course things go wrong. In fact, tons of things go wrong for this large cast of characters, from complete disenfranchisement of all the joys this world has to offer, to losing one's head, to learning that the greatest adventure the world has to offer might be a con-job, to living in fear of the omnipresent surveillance.
This book, despite the very strong beginning and focus on poor Sam, isn't, unfortunately, about him. It's easy to get misled by the some of the hype. Instead, this is a book about all the people, and overpopulation, and the kinds of societies that we allow ourselves to create.
Of course, that's not to say that the characters aren't fascinating, even with such a large cast, because they are. But also don't expect a traditional thriller or plots that weave back together again in a grand fashion, because that's not what this novel is really about. Nor is it an easily defined and thematic novel, either.
Instead, it is an extremely rich exploration of imagination and life, full of loss, duty, loneliness, joy, and especially of hope, mostly transcending the base cares and proving that no matter how advanced we become, or how we might eradicate disease or old age, we're still human, for good or ill. And I'm not leaving out the clones.
Hell, even the AIs are only human.
Don't let me mislead you, though, because there's plenty of action and adventure here, too, as well as creepy images of slugs everywhere and babies with adult heads, but there's also some totally wonderful allusions mixed in with some extremely clever prose, too. And in any account, no one should ever discount extremely crisp writing.
If you're looking for futuristic SF in the vein of or , that focuses more on what the world of the future has to say, with lots of extras that paint as interesting a picture as the MCs, then you really can't go wrong with this gem of a novel.
September 16, 2011
enjoyable and perplexing in equal measures. despite the hyper-futuristic setting, warm humanistic values are carefully embodied by every major character - a welcome surprise for a novel with so many inventions and so much jargon flying at the reader willy-nilly. especially enjoyable are the clone couple, adorable in their basic clone personality templates but increasingly intriguing as they begin to push at the boundaries of their existence. the central character of the nearly-senile, curmudgeonly, wronged old man is happily free of sentiment. refreshing use of AI characters; although at times i was reminded of Iain M. Banks, this is never a bad thing. however the over-reliance on oblique acronyms and unexplained technologies blithely used at every turn does grow frustrating.
December 7, 2012
I’m not a connoisseur of Coen Brothers films, but there are two I love: Fargo and Burn After Reading. Both of these bleak-yet-comic films have in common their stellar ensemble casts and strong, interwoven stories. Neither has a single, clear protagonist following a simple, linear plot. That would be boring! Instead, each film presents a complicated set of narratives in which everyone is the protagonist of their own life even as they antagonize others.
Counting Heads is a bit like these Coen Brothers films, in that it doesn’t have a single protagonist or a single plot. The back cover copy on my edition is outstandingly, astonishingly, unabashedly misleading in this respect. It promises a thriller in which Sam Harger is on the run from the authorities while trying to retrieve his daughter’s cryogenically preserved head so he can resuscitate her. Instead, we have more than 300 pages of several slow-moving, dare I say smouldering embers of, plots, with more characters than I can comfortably include in any kind of stick-shaking.
I have nothing against ensemble casts in general, as evidenced by my movie preferences above. Unfortunately, David Marusek’s ensemble cast here isn’t � ensemble � enough. His choice to use a three-part structure doesn’t help either, because the first part (which was apparently its own novella originally) feels very different in tone from the subsequent parts. After getting used to the idea of Sam and Eleanor as the protagonists, fighting back against the corrupt rich who have manipulated their lives, suddenly Marusek has skipped decades into the future, and Sam is an old man who isn’t going anywhere. All of these new characters enter the narrative—and then they never leave.
This wouldn’t be so frustrating if the plots to which these characters cling all came together into some kind of climax of mutual annihilation. Although many of the plots are resolved, some are left dangling badly. For instance, in the first part of the novel, Eleanor and Sam posit that a single individual is behind their sudden social and political success (and Sam’s equally sudden and unjust pariah status). They call this person the Unknown Benefactor, and Eleanor bends all of her resources and paranoia towards finding that benefactor � or at least, that’s what she says. This plot never resurfaces later in the book, leaving us to wonder exactly who manipulated Eleanor and Sam into those circumstances, or why.
Marusek seems overwhelmed by the sprawling complexity of the world he has created. At first, I admit I was seduced by the setting of Counting Heads. From nanotechnology to artificial intelligence, Marusek envisions a fascinating future where life extension and other revolutionary medical treatments has made aging and death rare at the expense of further taxing Earth’s resources. The rich continue to get richer; the poor can’t afford such treatments and continue to die.
Indeed, there are a few aspects to this future that particularly intrigued me. For example, I enjoyed the doubt regarding whether mentars like Cabinet and Wee Hunk were compromised by their trip through probate. I loved the idea that their programming might have been altered without their knowledge. Alas, this is another plot point that Marusek never fully puts to use.
And as the story goes on the setting continues to unfold, it lacks a complexity comparable to the plot. So there’s nanotechnology and easy tissue regeneration and lines of clones bred for a dominant trait. North America is a surveillance society dominated by the super-rich, while the poor countries have remained poor. But how has living longer changed the way democracy works? With mentars practically running companies, why do people bother doing any work at all?
Counting Heads strikes me as a book that could be a thriller, or a social thought experiment, or both � yet it manages to be none of these things. It is so frenetic, so full of furious yet unfocused ideas and plots and characters and emotions, that, at least for me, it is just untenable. There were times when I just wanted to put it down and walk away; I soldiered on because, to be fair, the writing is not poor and the characters are, on their own, interesting people. It’s just when you take them altogether that they become a bit much.
I wish I could be more enthusiastic or positive, because Counting Heads started with plenty of potential. Unfortunately, it quickly loses altitude as it starts to go into a fatal tailspin, and there’s no one around to make an emergency landing. Marusek doesn’t quite manage to achieve the type of balance between social commentary and thriller that Neal Stephenson pulls off in something like . Instead, Counting Heads is little more than a way of killing time.
Counting Heads is a bit like these Coen Brothers films, in that it doesn’t have a single protagonist or a single plot. The back cover copy on my edition is outstandingly, astonishingly, unabashedly misleading in this respect. It promises a thriller in which Sam Harger is on the run from the authorities while trying to retrieve his daughter’s cryogenically preserved head so he can resuscitate her. Instead, we have more than 300 pages of several slow-moving, dare I say smouldering embers of, plots, with more characters than I can comfortably include in any kind of stick-shaking.
I have nothing against ensemble casts in general, as evidenced by my movie preferences above. Unfortunately, David Marusek’s ensemble cast here isn’t � ensemble � enough. His choice to use a three-part structure doesn’t help either, because the first part (which was apparently its own novella originally) feels very different in tone from the subsequent parts. After getting used to the idea of Sam and Eleanor as the protagonists, fighting back against the corrupt rich who have manipulated their lives, suddenly Marusek has skipped decades into the future, and Sam is an old man who isn’t going anywhere. All of these new characters enter the narrative—and then they never leave.
This wouldn’t be so frustrating if the plots to which these characters cling all came together into some kind of climax of mutual annihilation. Although many of the plots are resolved, some are left dangling badly. For instance, in the first part of the novel, Eleanor and Sam posit that a single individual is behind their sudden social and political success (and Sam’s equally sudden and unjust pariah status). They call this person the Unknown Benefactor, and Eleanor bends all of her resources and paranoia towards finding that benefactor � or at least, that’s what she says. This plot never resurfaces later in the book, leaving us to wonder exactly who manipulated Eleanor and Sam into those circumstances, or why.
Marusek seems overwhelmed by the sprawling complexity of the world he has created. At first, I admit I was seduced by the setting of Counting Heads. From nanotechnology to artificial intelligence, Marusek envisions a fascinating future where life extension and other revolutionary medical treatments has made aging and death rare at the expense of further taxing Earth’s resources. The rich continue to get richer; the poor can’t afford such treatments and continue to die.
Indeed, there are a few aspects to this future that particularly intrigued me. For example, I enjoyed the doubt regarding whether mentars like Cabinet and Wee Hunk were compromised by their trip through probate. I loved the idea that their programming might have been altered without their knowledge. Alas, this is another plot point that Marusek never fully puts to use.
And as the story goes on the setting continues to unfold, it lacks a complexity comparable to the plot. So there’s nanotechnology and easy tissue regeneration and lines of clones bred for a dominant trait. North America is a surveillance society dominated by the super-rich, while the poor countries have remained poor. But how has living longer changed the way democracy works? With mentars practically running companies, why do people bother doing any work at all?
Counting Heads strikes me as a book that could be a thriller, or a social thought experiment, or both � yet it manages to be none of these things. It is so frenetic, so full of furious yet unfocused ideas and plots and characters and emotions, that, at least for me, it is just untenable. There were times when I just wanted to put it down and walk away; I soldiered on because, to be fair, the writing is not poor and the characters are, on their own, interesting people. It’s just when you take them altogether that they become a bit much.
I wish I could be more enthusiastic or positive, because Counting Heads started with plenty of potential. Unfortunately, it quickly loses altitude as it starts to go into a fatal tailspin, and there’s no one around to make an emergency landing. Marusek doesn’t quite manage to achieve the type of balance between social commentary and thriller that Neal Stephenson pulls off in something like . Instead, Counting Heads is little more than a way of killing time.
May 31, 2015
What an interesting and intriguing book! Ideas about society are outlined in detail, but it's not boring or tiring to read. This is not a ponderous overweighted tome; instead, the Reader follows along with the personality of Samson Harger, (a person of about 140 according to pg 186, on pg 188, his years of life are noted as 1951-2092) through courtship, marriage, arranging for a child, all the usual relationship things.
Sam is a packaging artist .. his 'wrapping papers' will excite you -- both in interesting an disturbing ways. They definitely have practical applications though, in many theaters. Novelty all the way to life-saving. This Reader can see these imaginary products will become real within 50 yrs. If so, buy stocks in the companies!
But things go wrong for Sam. People are occasionally "sampled by HomCom slugs" their DNA checked for NASTIES. What happens when a person doesn't pass? Sam experiences that, personally. And his life, his career, his living conditions, his marriage, all his relationships, � ALL are changed, destroyed.
Thus begins Counting Heads. The second part begins 40 yrs later.
This is a future society in the year 2092 where everything is planned. The child for example, is picked from existing stock of discovered illegal pregnancies - very few children are allowed - The child is 'stopped in the womb', stored in a drawer as a "chassis", actually breakable - and though it has its own DNA and gender by then, ALL will be overwritten in order to become ACTUAL genetic progeny of the desired parents! Fascinating, in all the social and ethical implications, isn't it??!!
This novel is truly a NEW "Brave New World" of our Information Age society.
Through nano-technology, everyone (of status, called "affs") is the physical age they desire to be. Health is ubiquitous. Most, if not all, have a nano (AI) "assistant" that lives within their tissues, does all the things assistants do: calling others, make appointments, gather intel, reminding of events.
Cities have canopies that protect against the wild nanos out there in the world, called NASTIES, (nano tech assault engine) remnants of the past nano-wars.
There are robots and clones that do all the dirty work; the clones are of genetic lines named "reginalds" or "penelopes" and made by Applied People or McPeople and are certainly not treated like more than furniture. (Stratification of society is interesting. And "Nitwork" lol)
LOVE the writing style! Informative and easy to read, understand. We don't get straight explanations of the strange new technologies; instead we are allowed to absorb it through Sam's thoughts, actions, and interactions. This author is one of the better authors I've read in a while - and this is his first book!
There's always a lot of talk about World Building, something I rarely mention in reviews. But Marusek's is RICH. There is so much I could write about this author.
Sam is a packaging artist .. his 'wrapping papers' will excite you -- both in interesting an disturbing ways. They definitely have practical applications though, in many theaters. Novelty all the way to life-saving. This Reader can see these imaginary products will become real within 50 yrs. If so, buy stocks in the companies!
But things go wrong for Sam. People are occasionally "sampled by HomCom slugs" their DNA checked for NASTIES. What happens when a person doesn't pass? Sam experiences that, personally. And his life, his career, his living conditions, his marriage, all his relationships, � ALL are changed, destroyed.
Thus begins Counting Heads. The second part begins 40 yrs later.
This is a future society in the year 2092 where everything is planned. The child for example, is picked from existing stock of discovered illegal pregnancies - very few children are allowed - The child is 'stopped in the womb', stored in a drawer as a "chassis", actually breakable - and though it has its own DNA and gender by then, ALL will be overwritten in order to become ACTUAL genetic progeny of the desired parents! Fascinating, in all the social and ethical implications, isn't it??!!
This novel is truly a NEW "Brave New World" of our Information Age society.
Through nano-technology, everyone (of status, called "affs") is the physical age they desire to be. Health is ubiquitous. Most, if not all, have a nano (AI) "assistant" that lives within their tissues, does all the things assistants do: calling others, make appointments, gather intel, reminding of events.
Cities have canopies that protect against the wild nanos out there in the world, called NASTIES, (nano tech assault engine) remnants of the past nano-wars.
There are robots and clones that do all the dirty work; the clones are of genetic lines named "reginalds" or "penelopes" and made by Applied People or McPeople and are certainly not treated like more than furniture. (Stratification of society is interesting. And "Nitwork" lol)
LOVE the writing style! Informative and easy to read, understand. We don't get straight explanations of the strange new technologies; instead we are allowed to absorb it through Sam's thoughts, actions, and interactions. This author is one of the better authors I've read in a while - and this is his first book!
There's always a lot of talk about World Building, something I rarely mention in reviews. But Marusek's is RICH. There is so much I could write about this author.
October 24, 2010
Samson Paul Harger was born in 1951 and died in 2092. Unfortunately, he still has over 40 years left to live; watching his body deteriorate at a rate normal for that of a man living in the 20th Century is only going to prolong his sense of injustice. In Samson’s lifetime, mortality is more of a distant bother than a reality. Humanity has experienced a technological boom, neé—a renaissance of medicine, cloning, and that ever elusive font of youth: immortality.
Shortly after getting married to his second wife, Eleanor, a routine encounter with a slug designed to scan for disease wrongly flags him as a virus-ridden terrorist. He’s stripped of all cybernetic enhancements, loses his immortality and becomes a normal man returned to an apartment he no longer remembers. Uncertain about his identity, Samson lives in a perpetual fog of exclusion and impending death. An assassination attempt against his family reinvigorates Sam to action against a vague corporation eager to control the fate of humankind.
Counting Heads is an intricate and complex Science Fiction novel with a premise that could have been extrapolated from the headlines of today’s newspapers. The world is powered by solar energy; a killer outbreak of disease prompts entire cities to construct domed canopies that detect and destroy virulent bacteria and viruses before they penetrate the populace. People are sampled daily to the same end, taking the fear of disease a few steps in an extreme direction. Plastic surgery is a lapsed practice having long evolved into something more sophisticated. Rejuvenation clinics turn back the clock on cells and organs, ensuring a youthful existence and relative permanence for the newly middle-aged�150 or so—at the age of their choosing (Sam has chosen to live in his 30s). Quirky A.I.s are tuned to our every need and advertisements are a frequent and constant pest.
Aside from the gadgetry (and there is tech in abundance), Marusek has brought together issues of privacy, safety, community, immortality, and identity into a fascinating worldscape that examines the consequences of the advances that can allow an affluent lifestyle. If the “things� in this novel are plausible, the characters are just as vivid and engaging. Sam in particular becomes a curmudgeonly old man, bitter and wronged with just the right touch of senility to sustain Marusek’s wry sense of humor—something I don’t often see in Science Fiction preoccupied with such heavy ideas as population control, dehumanization, mortality, and a rigidly hierarchal society.
At a certain point in the novel, I began to feel it was too saturated with ideas and the minutiae of futuristic scenarios. The first section (Counting Heads is divided into three parts) was the most fascinating and the most accessible. In fact, the first paragraph was one of the best first paragraphs I’ve ever read—in any book. And there are some truly beautiful and thought-provoking passages when the socio-political elements are shown in sharp focus, such as when Fred begins to worry he is suffering from “clone fatigue.� His symptoms are nothing short of deviant for typical iterant (i.e. “clone�) behavior (clones are bred for reliable and preferred behavioral traits). Fred is exhibiting signs of individualism that question his role as a clone; the implications of this are intriguing and examined thoroughly. Clones in general were perhaps one of, if not the, strongest element propelling the narrative forward.
In the midst of a sometimes confusing and frustrating collection of oblique references and acronyms never quite explained, it was too easy to get lost. I found myself losing momentum after that first section. Frequently I set the book aside, especially toward the end when the narrative became sluggish and the actions of several characters, ineffective and repetitive. Marusek was too circuitous arriving at a conclusion I felt was ambiguous and without solid resolution. After Part One, there are multiple points of view lacking clear motivation with tangential asides springing forth from other tangents and an increasing sense of dissolution. At this point, it was difficult to tell how each of these characters and their disparate storylines were related. I wondered if they would ever coalesce into something more cohesive and less structurally frayed and disconnected from the tightly woven and promising narrative of the first section. While connections are made in the final chapters, the ending left me with more questions than answers.
Structurally, there was an unevenness to the story that remains incongruent with the bizarre, yet compelling characters who are attractive as personalities rather than out of any real investment in their personal conflicts. I knew more about the mechanical bee and wasps who never once spoke, but were clearly defined (in context, if not explicitly) with a purpose and motivation. And of Samson—the man I thought was the protagonist? An ending that was strangely complete for someone who lost everything except his life, but only after I’ve let the book settle for a few days.
Some things, like the clones and the seared (people like Sam who were stripped of medical and technological advancements) were handled very well. I loved the perpetual stench of humanity that followed Samson around, lingering long after he’d left the room. Metaphorically it’s bittersweet how much of an impact he (and other seared individuals) can still make, even if it’s a constant reminder of the ugly and unpleasant business of searing. Fred and Mary, the married clone couple, were sweet and became my favorite characters. Their subplot was more tangible than Samson’s, which dissolved with age and incompetence (his, not Marusek’s), only to be picked up and mishandled a few times by strangers along the way.
Counting Heads isn’t a book to read for an uncomplicated and easily comprehensible story. It seems like characters are introduced for the sake of introducing them and belatedly attaching them to discordant storylines supplemental to the one Marusek seemed to begin with. Maybe the large cast is supposed to make up for Sam’s internalized deficiencies, maybe Sam was never the sole protagonist, or maybe I’m missing something else altogether. Either way, I’m curious if the sequel, Mind Over Ship, improves on any of these issues. It almost feels like Counting Heads was entirely staged to set up the facts for its sequel, which I will be reading it to find out.
Shortly after getting married to his second wife, Eleanor, a routine encounter with a slug designed to scan for disease wrongly flags him as a virus-ridden terrorist. He’s stripped of all cybernetic enhancements, loses his immortality and becomes a normal man returned to an apartment he no longer remembers. Uncertain about his identity, Samson lives in a perpetual fog of exclusion and impending death. An assassination attempt against his family reinvigorates Sam to action against a vague corporation eager to control the fate of humankind.
Counting Heads is an intricate and complex Science Fiction novel with a premise that could have been extrapolated from the headlines of today’s newspapers. The world is powered by solar energy; a killer outbreak of disease prompts entire cities to construct domed canopies that detect and destroy virulent bacteria and viruses before they penetrate the populace. People are sampled daily to the same end, taking the fear of disease a few steps in an extreme direction. Plastic surgery is a lapsed practice having long evolved into something more sophisticated. Rejuvenation clinics turn back the clock on cells and organs, ensuring a youthful existence and relative permanence for the newly middle-aged�150 or so—at the age of their choosing (Sam has chosen to live in his 30s). Quirky A.I.s are tuned to our every need and advertisements are a frequent and constant pest.
Aside from the gadgetry (and there is tech in abundance), Marusek has brought together issues of privacy, safety, community, immortality, and identity into a fascinating worldscape that examines the consequences of the advances that can allow an affluent lifestyle. If the “things� in this novel are plausible, the characters are just as vivid and engaging. Sam in particular becomes a curmudgeonly old man, bitter and wronged with just the right touch of senility to sustain Marusek’s wry sense of humor—something I don’t often see in Science Fiction preoccupied with such heavy ideas as population control, dehumanization, mortality, and a rigidly hierarchal society.
At a certain point in the novel, I began to feel it was too saturated with ideas and the minutiae of futuristic scenarios. The first section (Counting Heads is divided into three parts) was the most fascinating and the most accessible. In fact, the first paragraph was one of the best first paragraphs I’ve ever read—in any book. And there are some truly beautiful and thought-provoking passages when the socio-political elements are shown in sharp focus, such as when Fred begins to worry he is suffering from “clone fatigue.� His symptoms are nothing short of deviant for typical iterant (i.e. “clone�) behavior (clones are bred for reliable and preferred behavioral traits). Fred is exhibiting signs of individualism that question his role as a clone; the implications of this are intriguing and examined thoroughly. Clones in general were perhaps one of, if not the, strongest element propelling the narrative forward.
In the midst of a sometimes confusing and frustrating collection of oblique references and acronyms never quite explained, it was too easy to get lost. I found myself losing momentum after that first section. Frequently I set the book aside, especially toward the end when the narrative became sluggish and the actions of several characters, ineffective and repetitive. Marusek was too circuitous arriving at a conclusion I felt was ambiguous and without solid resolution. After Part One, there are multiple points of view lacking clear motivation with tangential asides springing forth from other tangents and an increasing sense of dissolution. At this point, it was difficult to tell how each of these characters and their disparate storylines were related. I wondered if they would ever coalesce into something more cohesive and less structurally frayed and disconnected from the tightly woven and promising narrative of the first section. While connections are made in the final chapters, the ending left me with more questions than answers.
Structurally, there was an unevenness to the story that remains incongruent with the bizarre, yet compelling characters who are attractive as personalities rather than out of any real investment in their personal conflicts. I knew more about the mechanical bee and wasps who never once spoke, but were clearly defined (in context, if not explicitly) with a purpose and motivation. And of Samson—the man I thought was the protagonist? An ending that was strangely complete for someone who lost everything except his life, but only after I’ve let the book settle for a few days.
Some things, like the clones and the seared (people like Sam who were stripped of medical and technological advancements) were handled very well. I loved the perpetual stench of humanity that followed Samson around, lingering long after he’d left the room. Metaphorically it’s bittersweet how much of an impact he (and other seared individuals) can still make, even if it’s a constant reminder of the ugly and unpleasant business of searing. Fred and Mary, the married clone couple, were sweet and became my favorite characters. Their subplot was more tangible than Samson’s, which dissolved with age and incompetence (his, not Marusek’s), only to be picked up and mishandled a few times by strangers along the way.
Counting Heads isn’t a book to read for an uncomplicated and easily comprehensible story. It seems like characters are introduced for the sake of introducing them and belatedly attaching them to discordant storylines supplemental to the one Marusek seemed to begin with. Maybe the large cast is supposed to make up for Sam’s internalized deficiencies, maybe Sam was never the sole protagonist, or maybe I’m missing something else altogether. Either way, I’m curious if the sequel, Mind Over Ship, improves on any of these issues. It almost feels like Counting Heads was entirely staged to set up the facts for its sequel, which I will be reading it to find out.
October 22, 2013
Frederik Pohl once said, “A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.� David Marusek has taken this to heart with COUNTING HEADS, an incredible extrapolation of the future of human community and the joys and troubles that come with it.
The biggest fault with COUNTING HEADS is not the novel itself, but its billing. While the dust jacket sells the book as an adventure story, it’s really a throwback to the great social explorations of Robert Silverberg and Pohl, not a dystopian thriller in the vein of William Gibson or Neal Stephenson. The year is 2134, and once again, man’s technological sophistication has not jumped past the basest aspects of human nature. The effective leader of the developed world has been assassinated, and her former husband and his new family, a handful of clones, an outcast monk and an artificial intelligence must untangle a dense conspiracy to save her only daughter.
While this might be the plot in a nutshell, it isn’t the bulk of the book, really. COUNTING HEADS is not defined by its plot so much as by the time and themes it explores and the prose itself, which is elegant and sharp. Marusek has created a future world (Chicago especially) that is intricate, imaginative and dense with great ideas and inventions.
More:
The biggest fault with COUNTING HEADS is not the novel itself, but its billing. While the dust jacket sells the book as an adventure story, it’s really a throwback to the great social explorations of Robert Silverberg and Pohl, not a dystopian thriller in the vein of William Gibson or Neal Stephenson. The year is 2134, and once again, man’s technological sophistication has not jumped past the basest aspects of human nature. The effective leader of the developed world has been assassinated, and her former husband and his new family, a handful of clones, an outcast monk and an artificial intelligence must untangle a dense conspiracy to save her only daughter.
While this might be the plot in a nutshell, it isn’t the bulk of the book, really. COUNTING HEADS is not defined by its plot so much as by the time and themes it explores and the prose itself, which is elegant and sharp. Marusek has created a future world (Chicago especially) that is intricate, imaginative and dense with great ideas and inventions.
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December 20, 2021
There are times when you have a good idea and you execute said good idea and when its finished you sit back and look at it and think, "That came out how I wanted it" with a definite sense of satisfaction. Which is nice. We should all experience that emotion at some point in our lives.
But then there are those moments when you finish the thing and sit back and even though you're happy with it, think, "I could do more with this thing." And that's when things might take a bit of a turn.
When David Marusek's debut novel came out in 2005 it was slathered with enough praise that made it sound like some kind of epochal event, a new frontier in SF, something destined to make the grass greener and your secret high school crush to come back and profess an undying love for you. Not only do you have the usual over the top praise from other famous authors (Robert Silverberg! Nancy Kress! Cory Doctorow! and surprisingly, John Crowley) but even big name reviewers like The New York Times called it a book with the potential "to make an increasingly indifferent audience care about the genre again". Now its possible that mainstream press reviewers all assume that SF is Martians stealing women and super-mega-rayguns and so anything that clears that low bar is close to a masterpiece but even Locus called it "one of the best SF novels of the decade so far" and I assume they've read more than a few in the genre. One review even called it "The most exciting debut SF novel since 'Neuromancer'" That's high praise!
As you can probably figure from my rundown of all that, I'm not entirely sure, with a decade and a half gap between publication and now, that its even remotely worth all the praise it garnered back then. If you want to say its "good", I think that's a perfectly reasonable statement to make about the book, but to basically claim its going to part the waters of SF and restore the desert to its former verdant glory is a different deal altogether. I mean, its good, its decent. I didn't mind reading it. But I closed the book as much the same person who started reading it and didn't feel as if the ground had shifted beneath me.
I don't know. Maybe I'm hard to please. Maybe the reviewers were trying to be nice to a decent example in a normally reviled genre and got a little carried away. Maybe Marusek has a nice singing voice and makes great cookies and he's kind to animals. But as an author he hasn't been in the conversation much ever since, only publishing four novels in the last fifteen years, none of which I've heard of or even seen reviews for. So maybe there's a discussion in here on hyperbole and setting peoples' expectations, especially when you run the risk of turning potential readers off from a genre by promoting an okay novel as a depth charge being thrust into the heart of a genre. I'm cynical enough by now that I'm not really swayed by giddy praise but there's people who base reading decisions on this stuff, especially in a crowded marketplace with everything screaming for your attention. Or maybe it doesn't really matter. But I kind of hope it has to, a little bit.
In any event, Marusek did gain some acclaim for his novellas and short stories before he published his first novel and it’s a reworked version of that story that makes up the introductory core here. Sam Harger, a fairly famous packaging designer, lives in world where medical advances have made everyone pretty much immortal. He's been enjoying his very long life when he meets Eleanor Starke, an even more famous citizen, and falls in love with her and her what appear to be her formidable eyebrows. They're starting to build a nice life despite her being busy all the time helping to run the world or whatever when he's suddenly accused of being a potential terrorist. Its sort of cleared up a few minutes later in that short span of time he's stripped of everything that makes him immortal, plunging him back to roughly the age of his last rejuvenation with merely a human lifetime left to live. He's been, in a word, "seared" and while you might not think that's so bad because it'll lock in all the juices, it immediately sets him apart from everyone else, mostly because he stinks to high heaven, probably like something along the lines of the forever burning Pennsylvania town of Centralia, but intense enough to make people around him physically ill.
Needless to say, he's not thrilled about receiving an actual expiration date and becoming something along the lines of an eighth class citizen but there's not much he can do to investigate it. I suppose he could try, but he . . . kind of doesn't. In fact, as the story goes on its' not even clear what he's even doing in this story other than stinking up the joint, literally.
The revamped short story that provides the first portion of the novel, "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy" has an interesting premise and does its best in its relatively short space to introduce us to Marusek's future, which is mostly a pan-global kind of place where everyone lives forever, which seems to the big draw here. We don't get much of a sense of the societal impact of nobody ever dying ever and the story sort of flirts with being an thriller and a semi-fun examination of what this future would be like without really ever committing to either one. You sort of feel Harger's sense of loss at what was taken away from him but we don't get to spend enough time with him for the impact to really hit and soon enough the novel is moving onto what it actually wants to talk about . . . everything but the premise.
I mean, that's not exactly true but let's just say the novel doesn't go out of its way to be focused. After giving us a mystery in what caused Harger to get falsely labeled and then have his life ruined the plot sort of spreads like an oil slick, seeping on top of everything without ever soaking into the pages. We see his wife Eleanor and his daughter Ellen attacked, with Ellen nearly killed and subsequently missing. Meanwhile we follow the travails of a series of clones, another class of citizen where the genetic lines are derived from a handful of sources (sort of like the "Battlestar Galactica" reboot, although I'm sure they weren't the first to broach the concept) with each line having its own function and characteristics. One of them, Fred, is a kind of cop, that keeps getting drawn into the search for what's left of Ellen and the question of what happens when the clones starts getting a bit quirky.
There's also some characters caught up with the infighting of the remnants of Eleanor's company board, one of whom has to deal with the fact that someone appears to be subverting the AIs (or mentats) even as one of them is trying to get some generation ships off the ground. Meanwhile there's an extra bonus "meanwhile" as we follow a member of the House that old dying Sam has shacked up with and his attempts to help his housemates keep the place from going bankrupt.
So that's maybe four plot throughlines paralleling each other here? This will be the point where I note that book is about 330 pages long and ask the rhetorical question: is that too much plot for this book? The answer as you can probably guess, sadly, is a qualified "yes". It’s the kind of book that has so much plot that when the back cover asks the question, "how can one crippled man overcome a top secret cabal that seeks to control the future of the entire human race" the book basically says, "That's a great question!" and proceeds to blow off even trying to answer it. Which means that stuff happens but not necessarily the stuff you want to happen or that you might be interested in seeing happen.
Like that crippled man trying to overcome the top secret cabal? Harger spends most of the book doing what a dying old person does, which is sleeping intermittently and inconveniently, taking unexpected trips down memory lane without checking if everyone is along for the ride and telling rambling stories to strangers before essentially vanishing from the book for a large chunk of it and having very little impact on the finale, such as it is. And the book is supposed to be about him!
Fortunately, in Marusek's defense, the other portions of the book give us glimpses of his world building and there's actually a fairly interesting world buried all the plot dodging. The notion of society structured around Houses and the dynamics involved in that was actually something I wished he'd spent more time in, instead of randomly dipping in and of the scenario as I think it gives us more insight into how the rest of this future works than any of the rest of the running around, since it not only encompasses working for a living and what jobs are available but the effect of people not dying and the costs of keeping your age frozen. There's just a lot of internal societal politics involved that would have made it fairly interesting to explore.
Instead we spend quite a bit of time with Clone Cop Fred and his equally cloned spouse and their friends, with Fred getting dragged into the main plot sideways as he gets recruited to help search for the missing Ellen. And again, the glimpses we get into the internal dynamics of the clone society and how it interacts with everyone else on the outside and what happens when tensions start to rise is interesting but by the same token parts of it just feel like a pale imitation of what CJ Cherryh was doing with the azi in "Cyteen", only without the intense queasiness that came with the latter concept. It feels like Marusek has some interesting roads he wants to go down with it but there just isn't enough space with everything else going on.
That plot crowding means that everything gets short shrift but then it hardly seems like Marusek even cares about resolving his own plot anyway, with the book kind of ambling along like its going to conclude and then only resolving the bare minimum required for the last chapter to function like something resembling an ending. There are definitely times when it has its moments . . . his future is detailed enough that its worth the tour at times and he's on the right track giving his views from different levels of society. But it focuses so much on the immediate goal (getting Ellen back) that it seems to forget the bigger picture that we're promised and when its over acts like this was what the book was about the whole time.
There are moments when you can sense the book straining at its own limitations and groaning to come to life but it never really sparks fire . . . you can see the society he's constructing but you don't ever really get a sense of what its like to live there. Contrast that with "Neuromancer", which also didn't have a mind-blowing plot but was able to capably articulate the texture of the world Gibson had created (plus Gibson's skill as a prose stylist overcome any deficiencies that the plot might have had . . . Marusek's prose is good but nowhere near that level). Even the base concept of a suddenly mortal man in an immortal world was something that Frederik Pohl handled in "Outnumbering the Dead" with a bit more sense of melancholy and impending loss. Here, we get some anecdotes but its just more window dressing, new murals added for local color.
Don't get me wrong, the stuff that works, works well. Some of the clones spontaneously learning new skills, a brutal attack practically done in slow motion, hints of a canopy and the reasons for it, the secret language meant to challenge someone . . . Marusek is pouring over with ideas. Its just that he can't seem to craft a compelling story around it. Even worse, things appear to spill over into a sequel, which may explain why they aren't fully resolved here. I find that kind of thing irritating (at least warn us if you're not going to finish the book in the book I'm holding!) but that irritation could be alleviated by giving me a complete story, with the promise of more to come. Instead we get the start of everyone's story all at once and then get to watch them streak away past the horizon while we remain stuck on the ground, wondering if they'll come back for us. Maybe if the characters were stronger, maybe if Marusek had more distinctive prose, maybe if the curtain got pulled back a little more on the world (at one point everyone starts destroying these little slugs that keep testing people and . . . nothing happens with that) then maybe it'd be a bit more memorable. Its just weird that a book this aggressively okay got hyped so much as the next iteration of science-fiction in the first place. If you asked those reviewers about it now, would they even remember what they found so amazing?
But then there are those moments when you finish the thing and sit back and even though you're happy with it, think, "I could do more with this thing." And that's when things might take a bit of a turn.
When David Marusek's debut novel came out in 2005 it was slathered with enough praise that made it sound like some kind of epochal event, a new frontier in SF, something destined to make the grass greener and your secret high school crush to come back and profess an undying love for you. Not only do you have the usual over the top praise from other famous authors (Robert Silverberg! Nancy Kress! Cory Doctorow! and surprisingly, John Crowley) but even big name reviewers like The New York Times called it a book with the potential "to make an increasingly indifferent audience care about the genre again". Now its possible that mainstream press reviewers all assume that SF is Martians stealing women and super-mega-rayguns and so anything that clears that low bar is close to a masterpiece but even Locus called it "one of the best SF novels of the decade so far" and I assume they've read more than a few in the genre. One review even called it "The most exciting debut SF novel since 'Neuromancer'" That's high praise!
As you can probably figure from my rundown of all that, I'm not entirely sure, with a decade and a half gap between publication and now, that its even remotely worth all the praise it garnered back then. If you want to say its "good", I think that's a perfectly reasonable statement to make about the book, but to basically claim its going to part the waters of SF and restore the desert to its former verdant glory is a different deal altogether. I mean, its good, its decent. I didn't mind reading it. But I closed the book as much the same person who started reading it and didn't feel as if the ground had shifted beneath me.
I don't know. Maybe I'm hard to please. Maybe the reviewers were trying to be nice to a decent example in a normally reviled genre and got a little carried away. Maybe Marusek has a nice singing voice and makes great cookies and he's kind to animals. But as an author he hasn't been in the conversation much ever since, only publishing four novels in the last fifteen years, none of which I've heard of or even seen reviews for. So maybe there's a discussion in here on hyperbole and setting peoples' expectations, especially when you run the risk of turning potential readers off from a genre by promoting an okay novel as a depth charge being thrust into the heart of a genre. I'm cynical enough by now that I'm not really swayed by giddy praise but there's people who base reading decisions on this stuff, especially in a crowded marketplace with everything screaming for your attention. Or maybe it doesn't really matter. But I kind of hope it has to, a little bit.
In any event, Marusek did gain some acclaim for his novellas and short stories before he published his first novel and it’s a reworked version of that story that makes up the introductory core here. Sam Harger, a fairly famous packaging designer, lives in world where medical advances have made everyone pretty much immortal. He's been enjoying his very long life when he meets Eleanor Starke, an even more famous citizen, and falls in love with her and her what appear to be her formidable eyebrows. They're starting to build a nice life despite her being busy all the time helping to run the world or whatever when he's suddenly accused of being a potential terrorist. Its sort of cleared up a few minutes later in that short span of time he's stripped of everything that makes him immortal, plunging him back to roughly the age of his last rejuvenation with merely a human lifetime left to live. He's been, in a word, "seared" and while you might not think that's so bad because it'll lock in all the juices, it immediately sets him apart from everyone else, mostly because he stinks to high heaven, probably like something along the lines of the forever burning Pennsylvania town of Centralia, but intense enough to make people around him physically ill.
Needless to say, he's not thrilled about receiving an actual expiration date and becoming something along the lines of an eighth class citizen but there's not much he can do to investigate it. I suppose he could try, but he . . . kind of doesn't. In fact, as the story goes on its' not even clear what he's even doing in this story other than stinking up the joint, literally.
The revamped short story that provides the first portion of the novel, "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy" has an interesting premise and does its best in its relatively short space to introduce us to Marusek's future, which is mostly a pan-global kind of place where everyone lives forever, which seems to the big draw here. We don't get much of a sense of the societal impact of nobody ever dying ever and the story sort of flirts with being an thriller and a semi-fun examination of what this future would be like without really ever committing to either one. You sort of feel Harger's sense of loss at what was taken away from him but we don't get to spend enough time with him for the impact to really hit and soon enough the novel is moving onto what it actually wants to talk about . . . everything but the premise.
I mean, that's not exactly true but let's just say the novel doesn't go out of its way to be focused. After giving us a mystery in what caused Harger to get falsely labeled and then have his life ruined the plot sort of spreads like an oil slick, seeping on top of everything without ever soaking into the pages. We see his wife Eleanor and his daughter Ellen attacked, with Ellen nearly killed and subsequently missing. Meanwhile we follow the travails of a series of clones, another class of citizen where the genetic lines are derived from a handful of sources (sort of like the "Battlestar Galactica" reboot, although I'm sure they weren't the first to broach the concept) with each line having its own function and characteristics. One of them, Fred, is a kind of cop, that keeps getting drawn into the search for what's left of Ellen and the question of what happens when the clones starts getting a bit quirky.
There's also some characters caught up with the infighting of the remnants of Eleanor's company board, one of whom has to deal with the fact that someone appears to be subverting the AIs (or mentats) even as one of them is trying to get some generation ships off the ground. Meanwhile there's an extra bonus "meanwhile" as we follow a member of the House that old dying Sam has shacked up with and his attempts to help his housemates keep the place from going bankrupt.
So that's maybe four plot throughlines paralleling each other here? This will be the point where I note that book is about 330 pages long and ask the rhetorical question: is that too much plot for this book? The answer as you can probably guess, sadly, is a qualified "yes". It’s the kind of book that has so much plot that when the back cover asks the question, "how can one crippled man overcome a top secret cabal that seeks to control the future of the entire human race" the book basically says, "That's a great question!" and proceeds to blow off even trying to answer it. Which means that stuff happens but not necessarily the stuff you want to happen or that you might be interested in seeing happen.
Like that crippled man trying to overcome the top secret cabal? Harger spends most of the book doing what a dying old person does, which is sleeping intermittently and inconveniently, taking unexpected trips down memory lane without checking if everyone is along for the ride and telling rambling stories to strangers before essentially vanishing from the book for a large chunk of it and having very little impact on the finale, such as it is. And the book is supposed to be about him!
Fortunately, in Marusek's defense, the other portions of the book give us glimpses of his world building and there's actually a fairly interesting world buried all the plot dodging. The notion of society structured around Houses and the dynamics involved in that was actually something I wished he'd spent more time in, instead of randomly dipping in and of the scenario as I think it gives us more insight into how the rest of this future works than any of the rest of the running around, since it not only encompasses working for a living and what jobs are available but the effect of people not dying and the costs of keeping your age frozen. There's just a lot of internal societal politics involved that would have made it fairly interesting to explore.
Instead we spend quite a bit of time with Clone Cop Fred and his equally cloned spouse and their friends, with Fred getting dragged into the main plot sideways as he gets recruited to help search for the missing Ellen. And again, the glimpses we get into the internal dynamics of the clone society and how it interacts with everyone else on the outside and what happens when tensions start to rise is interesting but by the same token parts of it just feel like a pale imitation of what CJ Cherryh was doing with the azi in "Cyteen", only without the intense queasiness that came with the latter concept. It feels like Marusek has some interesting roads he wants to go down with it but there just isn't enough space with everything else going on.
That plot crowding means that everything gets short shrift but then it hardly seems like Marusek even cares about resolving his own plot anyway, with the book kind of ambling along like its going to conclude and then only resolving the bare minimum required for the last chapter to function like something resembling an ending. There are definitely times when it has its moments . . . his future is detailed enough that its worth the tour at times and he's on the right track giving his views from different levels of society. But it focuses so much on the immediate goal (getting Ellen back) that it seems to forget the bigger picture that we're promised and when its over acts like this was what the book was about the whole time.
There are moments when you can sense the book straining at its own limitations and groaning to come to life but it never really sparks fire . . . you can see the society he's constructing but you don't ever really get a sense of what its like to live there. Contrast that with "Neuromancer", which also didn't have a mind-blowing plot but was able to capably articulate the texture of the world Gibson had created (plus Gibson's skill as a prose stylist overcome any deficiencies that the plot might have had . . . Marusek's prose is good but nowhere near that level). Even the base concept of a suddenly mortal man in an immortal world was something that Frederik Pohl handled in "Outnumbering the Dead" with a bit more sense of melancholy and impending loss. Here, we get some anecdotes but its just more window dressing, new murals added for local color.
Don't get me wrong, the stuff that works, works well. Some of the clones spontaneously learning new skills, a brutal attack practically done in slow motion, hints of a canopy and the reasons for it, the secret language meant to challenge someone . . . Marusek is pouring over with ideas. Its just that he can't seem to craft a compelling story around it. Even worse, things appear to spill over into a sequel, which may explain why they aren't fully resolved here. I find that kind of thing irritating (at least warn us if you're not going to finish the book in the book I'm holding!) but that irritation could be alleviated by giving me a complete story, with the promise of more to come. Instead we get the start of everyone's story all at once and then get to watch them streak away past the horizon while we remain stuck on the ground, wondering if they'll come back for us. Maybe if the characters were stronger, maybe if Marusek had more distinctive prose, maybe if the curtain got pulled back a little more on the world (at one point everyone starts destroying these little slugs that keep testing people and . . . nothing happens with that) then maybe it'd be a bit more memorable. Its just weird that a book this aggressively okay got hyped so much as the next iteration of science-fiction in the first place. If you asked those reviewers about it now, would they even remember what they found so amazing?
June 20, 2012
How do we tell good science fiction from bad? By the rhapsody of language and scientific ideas. Counting Heads flickers us into the 22nd century in a fast-paced narrative of cascading tech-extrapolations that actually drive the story. It’s exhilarating! This is arch science fiction flexible as music. Keenly imagined future-science is the eerily beautiful femme fatale of this noir portrayal of our mercantile culture as a murder mystery � where the victim is the human soul. A masterful work.
August 11, 2012
I simply loved this book--and loved exploring the politics, ethics and economics of Marusek's remarkably plausible century-from-now world. The only thing keeping me from giving it a full 5 stars is that the book in the end is remarkably unfinished in terms of plot, and while the plot remains the least compelling thing about the book there is likely to be some frustration for readers in the sudden pulling of the plug here. Fortunately the sequel, MIND OVER SHIP, is there to keep you going. -- j
dnf
February 3, 202330% in and so far just a massive "uuuuu look at what I can come up with" type of a masturbatory ego trip.
August 26, 2012
I gave up on this book halfway through. I almost never give up on books like that... but in this case, the book never connected with me.
The story, to the extent that there is one, is set on a future Earth that has been devastated by nano- and biological weapons. People live in cities, which serve as enclaves to protect them from remnants of past wars. We have a massive class divide, with cloned humans serving as virtual slaves and affluents who rule the world, all living in a police state set up in response to these weapons. Most people have AI assistants, who sadly aren't very intelligent. The affluents can live a long time, but happiness seems to elude them. Actually, pretty much everyone we see in the book seems unhappy, whether due to poverty, boredom, or something else. The author puts a great deal of energy into inventing and describing this future. However, the future we see is, well, rather depressing. To the extent that the book is primarily about this possible future, the book ends up being rather depressing, itself.
Or perhaps that's not the problem. Perhaps the problem is that the characters are, themselves, depressed and depressing. There is no character in here who I wanted to spend more time with; they are unsympathetic, shallow, empty-shelled, and unable or unwilling to do anything about it. There's no hero, no character to identify with and root for, no one to look up to. No one seems to have any particular passion or drive. Everyone is entirely too passive -- things happen to them, for no particular reason, and they don't or can't do anything about it. The characters are not subjects; they don't act upon the world; instead, they are the objects who are acted upon. They're like a rock who is stepped upon, eroded by time, gathered up and displayed for all to see by a collector, crushed by a mining operation into pieces... stuff happens, but it's not because of any of the characters. Actually, the characters with the most sense of personality are the AIs, but even they don't seem to have an independent drive of their own; they merely live to serve their masters. No one seems to have a sense of humor, and they all seem to be alone in the world. Sure, there are couples, but you don't see much love between them; folks have friends, but you don't see much of a bond or affection between them; you don't see them receiving emotional strength or support others. They're all on their own. When you add all of this up, it gets to be a real downer. Not what I'm looking for, for my entertainment.
The strong point of the book is the vividly imagined future. It's carefully thought out, credible, and well integrated into the book. But, well, I guess I need something more. Maybe a personality who makes me laugh or who I enjoy spending time with; maybe a plot that makes me turn the pages; something. This book lacks that... something. Oh well, maybe the author's next novel will be better!
The story, to the extent that there is one, is set on a future Earth that has been devastated by nano- and biological weapons. People live in cities, which serve as enclaves to protect them from remnants of past wars. We have a massive class divide, with cloned humans serving as virtual slaves and affluents who rule the world, all living in a police state set up in response to these weapons. Most people have AI assistants, who sadly aren't very intelligent. The affluents can live a long time, but happiness seems to elude them. Actually, pretty much everyone we see in the book seems unhappy, whether due to poverty, boredom, or something else. The author puts a great deal of energy into inventing and describing this future. However, the future we see is, well, rather depressing. To the extent that the book is primarily about this possible future, the book ends up being rather depressing, itself.
Or perhaps that's not the problem. Perhaps the problem is that the characters are, themselves, depressed and depressing. There is no character in here who I wanted to spend more time with; they are unsympathetic, shallow, empty-shelled, and unable or unwilling to do anything about it. There's no hero, no character to identify with and root for, no one to look up to. No one seems to have any particular passion or drive. Everyone is entirely too passive -- things happen to them, for no particular reason, and they don't or can't do anything about it. The characters are not subjects; they don't act upon the world; instead, they are the objects who are acted upon. They're like a rock who is stepped upon, eroded by time, gathered up and displayed for all to see by a collector, crushed by a mining operation into pieces... stuff happens, but it's not because of any of the characters. Actually, the characters with the most sense of personality are the AIs, but even they don't seem to have an independent drive of their own; they merely live to serve their masters. No one seems to have a sense of humor, and they all seem to be alone in the world. Sure, there are couples, but you don't see much love between them; folks have friends, but you don't see much of a bond or affection between them; you don't see them receiving emotional strength or support others. They're all on their own. When you add all of this up, it gets to be a real downer. Not what I'm looking for, for my entertainment.
The strong point of the book is the vividly imagined future. It's carefully thought out, credible, and well integrated into the book. But, well, I guess I need something more. Maybe a personality who makes me laugh or who I enjoy spending time with; maybe a plot that makes me turn the pages; something. This book lacks that... something. Oh well, maybe the author's next novel will be better!
July 7, 2011
Marusek’s debut novel is set in a futuristic Earth of nanotechnology and cloning. Society is divided up roughly into four groups. Affs are the very rich, practically immortal beings who seem to spend their time spinning webs of power. Free Rangers are the middle class, living often in Charters, a sort of communes. The lower class is made up of clones, everything from Russes to Evangelines to Jennys, bred for their dominant traits. Jennys are nurturing and often work in healthcare, Russes are loyal and work as security and bodyguards, and so forth. These are real human beings, not robots, with feelings and aspirations, albeit somewhat restricted by their genetic heritage. Finally, ;entars are cybernetic beings. The story, such as it is, revolves around the death of a very powerful Aff, and the fallout from that. The journey takes us from the lofty Aff life to the day to day work of clones.
Marusek’s world is a masterpiece of imagination. Detailed and cleverly internally consistent, it sucks the reader in. Most of the characters are three dimensional and interesting, their flaws and motivations laid out in fascinating expositions.
Unfortunately, the novel has three big flaws, beginning with the rather weak first section. It serves as a very long introduction and is jarringly different in style and content from the rest of the book. The two main characters are unlikeable, and while that’s fine, they are also a bit dull after a while, like inhabitants of a bad reality show. The second flaw is the paper thin plot. The whole book feels a bit like a documentary. And while it is a very good documentary, the lack of a concrete thrust to the story made me almost give up after eighty pages or so. The third flaw is the author’s often excessive attempts at cleverness. A character may be introduced and go about its business without any explanation about how it fits in the grand scheme of things for another thirty or a hundred pages. While this is fine in itself, it is somewhat annoying to see it used as a plot device. Yes, Mr. Marusek, I did understand that all these characters are related, and you did explain it in the end, but complexity is not a means unto itself.
In conclusion, this is a very promising debut, but the style and world are presented too blatantly. The author seems to be saying “look at this cool thing I made� all the time. Contrast this with the rawness Gibson’s Neuromancer, where the world is just “there�, and fascinating concepts are barely touched upon unless the characters themselves explore them more deeply. I really wanted to like this book, but the flaws annoyed almost to the point of disgust. Having said that, I would still recommend it if you like futuristic world building.
Marusek’s world is a masterpiece of imagination. Detailed and cleverly internally consistent, it sucks the reader in. Most of the characters are three dimensional and interesting, their flaws and motivations laid out in fascinating expositions.
Unfortunately, the novel has three big flaws, beginning with the rather weak first section. It serves as a very long introduction and is jarringly different in style and content from the rest of the book. The two main characters are unlikeable, and while that’s fine, they are also a bit dull after a while, like inhabitants of a bad reality show. The second flaw is the paper thin plot. The whole book feels a bit like a documentary. And while it is a very good documentary, the lack of a concrete thrust to the story made me almost give up after eighty pages or so. The third flaw is the author’s often excessive attempts at cleverness. A character may be introduced and go about its business without any explanation about how it fits in the grand scheme of things for another thirty or a hundred pages. While this is fine in itself, it is somewhat annoying to see it used as a plot device. Yes, Mr. Marusek, I did understand that all these characters are related, and you did explain it in the end, but complexity is not a means unto itself.
In conclusion, this is a very promising debut, but the style and world are presented too blatantly. The author seems to be saying “look at this cool thing I made� all the time. Contrast this with the rawness Gibson’s Neuromancer, where the world is just “there�, and fascinating concepts are barely touched upon unless the characters themselves explore them more deeply. I really wanted to like this book, but the flaws annoyed almost to the point of disgust. Having said that, I would still recommend it if you like futuristic world building.
January 12, 2010
Best book I've read in a while; it's a massively complex story being told through at least half a dozen different perspectives that don't really coalesce until the very end in a spectacular way.
It's the future. Disease is mostly gone, except for virulent nanomaterials that salted the Earth in the last war. Civilization is ordered, and humanity is experiencing a marvelous renaissance through technological salvation. Except when it doesn't. Murder, corruption, manipulation, pull back the curtain and feudalism is alive and well. When the blood starts flying, the book gets a little crazy, but the characters are three dimensional and vivid enough to make this a page turner.
Really complicated book, in sort of a Nero Wolfe way.
It's the future. Disease is mostly gone, except for virulent nanomaterials that salted the Earth in the last war. Civilization is ordered, and humanity is experiencing a marvelous renaissance through technological salvation. Except when it doesn't. Murder, corruption, manipulation, pull back the curtain and feudalism is alive and well. When the blood starts flying, the book gets a little crazy, but the characters are three dimensional and vivid enough to make this a page turner.
Really complicated book, in sort of a Nero Wolfe way.
November 5, 2024
An obscure and ambitious pseudo-cyberpunk sci fi.
This book is set i a far flung future where medicine has cured most deaths� if you can pay. There are rampant nanotechnologies, inefficient government melded with hypercapitalist corperations, a dystopian lack of privacy, a murder mystery and corperate espionage.
The first 1/8 of book follows the whirlwind and severely messed up romance between Sam and Eleanor Starke thru her rise to mayoral power and the plot to dismantle their marriage and ultimately her life. This leaves only the cryogenically severed head of her daughter, Ellen, as her only heir. This first section was originally a novella and merged here to start his novel, but it does feel very jarring going into the next parts of the book with the fated “years later…� label.
The rest of the book follows the political and corporate struggles to find and control the heir. The overly frequent changes POVs, inconsistent tone and choice of only unlikable selfish and overly political characters severely limited this book’s memorability to me. Some good ideas but not enough to save the story to me� sadly.
This book is set i a far flung future where medicine has cured most deaths� if you can pay. There are rampant nanotechnologies, inefficient government melded with hypercapitalist corperations, a dystopian lack of privacy, a murder mystery and corperate espionage.
The first 1/8 of book follows the whirlwind and severely messed up romance between Sam and Eleanor Starke thru her rise to mayoral power and the plot to dismantle their marriage and ultimately her life. This leaves only the cryogenically severed head of her daughter, Ellen, as her only heir. This first section was originally a novella and merged here to start his novel, but it does feel very jarring going into the next parts of the book with the fated “years later…� label.
The rest of the book follows the political and corporate struggles to find and control the heir. The overly frequent changes POVs, inconsistent tone and choice of only unlikable selfish and overly political characters severely limited this book’s memorability to me. Some good ideas but not enough to save the story to me� sadly.
January 26, 2017
“Counting Heads� (“Vanatoarea de capete�) vine sa completeze si sa dezvolte mai mult o veche povestire a scriitorului David Marusek, ”We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy� (1995). De altfel, aceasta este si incorporata in primul capitol al romanului, cu adaugiri si corecturi minore, si este cea care a si atras atentia publicului.
In 1999 romanul sau, “The Wedding Album�, a fost rasplatit cu Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award si a fost nominalizat la Nebula Award, categoria cel mai bun roman. “Counting Heads� a fost publicata pentru prima oara in 2005 la editura Tor Books, beneficiind si de o continuare, “Mind Over Ship� (2009), la aceeasi Tor Books .
Romanul ne introduce intr-un viitor dominat de progresele nanotehnologiei, dar si ale stiintelor in general. Oamenii isi pot prelungi viata prin mijloace medicale si alte metode de reintinerire specifice, la zeci, poate chiar sute de ani, existand chiar si posibilitatea de-a-si suprima cresterea, ramanand la stadiul de copil, desi cu o minte de adult cu zeci de ani de viata.
Umanitatea a ajuns sa depinda, intr-o proportie covarsitoare, de actiunile unor valeti computerizati, un fel de insotitori robotici personali, dispunand insa de constiinta proprie si de o inteligenta cultivata in urma numeroaselor interactionari cu mediul, dar si cu stapanul lor.
O alta trasatura specifica societatii viitoare imaginate de scriitor ar fi prezenta clonelor umane repartizate pe categorii de munca. Avem clone russ, cu un simt ridicat al datoriei, specializate in protectia oamenilor cu bani, clonele pike, cu un temperament violent, extrem, folosite mai ales ca trupe de soc, sau interventii, clone evangeline, fiinte delicate si sensibile, create pentru a oferi asistenta si companie, clone jerry, jenny, john, si lista continua.
Exploatand la maxim boom-ul tehnologic, omenirea s-a retras in domuri uriase, unde securitatea este foarte stricta. De altfel, politia obisnuita a fost inlocuita cu o serie de masini specializate, limacsii, roboti autonomi ce umbla liberi prin orase si se ataseaza de fiecare locuitor din cand in cand, doar pentru a sonda integritatea organismului.
Din fericire pentru noi, scriitorul nu se opreste aici, si creioneaza o lume a viitorului in care cibernetica si tehnologia primeaza, in care sunt posibile convorbirile si socializarile de la distanta, fara a mai necesita prezenta reala a corpului, in care robotica a atins unele dintre varfurile sale, sistemele valet ale oamenilor fiind doar unul dintre ele.
Insa exista si reversul medaliei, slujbele sunt din ce in ce mai greu de gasit si, pentru a face fata mai usor traiului din aceste timpuri si pentru a reusi sa stranga banii necesari reintinerii, oamenii s-au unit in cartele. O atentie deosebita i se acorda si “Proiectului Gradina Pamant�, initiat de o serie de personaje influente si urmarindu-se o asa-zisa colonizare spatiala.
Dupa cate se poate constata avem o societate a viitorului urmarita in cele mai mici detalii, oferindu-se amanunte si observatii folositoare, si care, pentru mine, au constituit sarea si piperul cartii. De altfel, cred ca tocmai aceasta bogatie a imaginatiei si a personajelor m-a tinut conectat la atmosfera romanului. Pentru ca exista anumite scapari peste care, unii, poate nu vor trece asa usor.
Romanul este impartit in trei segmente, corespunzatoare unor schimbari de directie in evolutia actiunii. Impresia mea a fost ca scriitorul a fost si el asa de prins de lumea pe care si-a imaginat-o, incat a uitat sa mai exploateze si chiar sa mai explice anumite momente cheie din actiune.
De exemplu, eu am asteptat cu sufletul la gura explicatia pentru deznodamantul din primul fragment, sperand intr-un scenariu mai complex, insa ma declar complet dezamagit de explicatia, cam puerila si neasteptata, pe care o alege scriitorul.
De asemenea, dupa ce 80% din volum asistam la o conspiratie al carei unic scop este eliminarea mostenitoarei lui Eleanor Starke, finalul nu este deloc explicit, si pur si simplu mie nu mi-a oferit nicio explicatie satisfacatoare. Si in plus deseori se mai scot din scena personaje, si chiar si atunci cind este vorba de un valet robotic, cred ca am merita macar o explicatie sau o detaliere mai atenta a motivelor pentru care a fost indepartat. Aceasta lipsa a unui personaj sau grup de personaje care sa atraga antipatia cititorului si pe care sa-l identificam in mod clar ca fiind eminenta cenusie ascunsa in spatele evenimentelor cantareste hotarator in formularea impresiei finale. Nu prea reusita, mai ales in ceea ce priveste pastrarea unei coerente logice la nivelul intrigii.
Totusi, in ciuda stagnarii evidente si a lipsei acute de inspiratie cind vine vorba de dezvoltarea intamplarilor, puteti avea placerea sa descoperi o carte deosebita, cel putin la nivelul lumiii construite.
La final, va transmit ca eu m-am indragostit de lumea “colorata� si moderna a lui Marusek, si chiar daca a lungit-o mai mult decat a fost cazul, a fost o lectura pe care o voi tine minte, in mod sigur, foarte mult mult timp, de acum incolo.
Si as mai mentiona ca pe Sf Site, in viziunea lui Greg L. Johnson, aparitia in 2005 a romanului “Counting Heads� a primit o mentiune de onoare, alaturi de “Cowl� de Neal Asher, pe care am gasit-o si eu in librarii (editura Lucman, 2005).
In 1999 romanul sau, “The Wedding Album�, a fost rasplatit cu Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award si a fost nominalizat la Nebula Award, categoria cel mai bun roman. “Counting Heads� a fost publicata pentru prima oara in 2005 la editura Tor Books, beneficiind si de o continuare, “Mind Over Ship� (2009), la aceeasi Tor Books .
Romanul ne introduce intr-un viitor dominat de progresele nanotehnologiei, dar si ale stiintelor in general. Oamenii isi pot prelungi viata prin mijloace medicale si alte metode de reintinerire specifice, la zeci, poate chiar sute de ani, existand chiar si posibilitatea de-a-si suprima cresterea, ramanand la stadiul de copil, desi cu o minte de adult cu zeci de ani de viata.
Umanitatea a ajuns sa depinda, intr-o proportie covarsitoare, de actiunile unor valeti computerizati, un fel de insotitori robotici personali, dispunand insa de constiinta proprie si de o inteligenta cultivata in urma numeroaselor interactionari cu mediul, dar si cu stapanul lor.
O alta trasatura specifica societatii viitoare imaginate de scriitor ar fi prezenta clonelor umane repartizate pe categorii de munca. Avem clone russ, cu un simt ridicat al datoriei, specializate in protectia oamenilor cu bani, clonele pike, cu un temperament violent, extrem, folosite mai ales ca trupe de soc, sau interventii, clone evangeline, fiinte delicate si sensibile, create pentru a oferi asistenta si companie, clone jerry, jenny, john, si lista continua.
Exploatand la maxim boom-ul tehnologic, omenirea s-a retras in domuri uriase, unde securitatea este foarte stricta. De altfel, politia obisnuita a fost inlocuita cu o serie de masini specializate, limacsii, roboti autonomi ce umbla liberi prin orase si se ataseaza de fiecare locuitor din cand in cand, doar pentru a sonda integritatea organismului.
Din fericire pentru noi, scriitorul nu se opreste aici, si creioneaza o lume a viitorului in care cibernetica si tehnologia primeaza, in care sunt posibile convorbirile si socializarile de la distanta, fara a mai necesita prezenta reala a corpului, in care robotica a atins unele dintre varfurile sale, sistemele valet ale oamenilor fiind doar unul dintre ele.
Insa exista si reversul medaliei, slujbele sunt din ce in ce mai greu de gasit si, pentru a face fata mai usor traiului din aceste timpuri si pentru a reusi sa stranga banii necesari reintinerii, oamenii s-au unit in cartele. O atentie deosebita i se acorda si “Proiectului Gradina Pamant�, initiat de o serie de personaje influente si urmarindu-se o asa-zisa colonizare spatiala.
Dupa cate se poate constata avem o societate a viitorului urmarita in cele mai mici detalii, oferindu-se amanunte si observatii folositoare, si care, pentru mine, au constituit sarea si piperul cartii. De altfel, cred ca tocmai aceasta bogatie a imaginatiei si a personajelor m-a tinut conectat la atmosfera romanului. Pentru ca exista anumite scapari peste care, unii, poate nu vor trece asa usor.
Romanul este impartit in trei segmente, corespunzatoare unor schimbari de directie in evolutia actiunii. Impresia mea a fost ca scriitorul a fost si el asa de prins de lumea pe care si-a imaginat-o, incat a uitat sa mai exploateze si chiar sa mai explice anumite momente cheie din actiune.
De exemplu, eu am asteptat cu sufletul la gura explicatia pentru deznodamantul din primul fragment, sperand intr-un scenariu mai complex, insa ma declar complet dezamagit de explicatia, cam puerila si neasteptata, pe care o alege scriitorul.
De asemenea, dupa ce 80% din volum asistam la o conspiratie al carei unic scop este eliminarea mostenitoarei lui Eleanor Starke, finalul nu este deloc explicit, si pur si simplu mie nu mi-a oferit nicio explicatie satisfacatoare. Si in plus deseori se mai scot din scena personaje, si chiar si atunci cind este vorba de un valet robotic, cred ca am merita macar o explicatie sau o detaliere mai atenta a motivelor pentru care a fost indepartat. Aceasta lipsa a unui personaj sau grup de personaje care sa atraga antipatia cititorului si pe care sa-l identificam in mod clar ca fiind eminenta cenusie ascunsa in spatele evenimentelor cantareste hotarator in formularea impresiei finale. Nu prea reusita, mai ales in ceea ce priveste pastrarea unei coerente logice la nivelul intrigii.
Totusi, in ciuda stagnarii evidente si a lipsei acute de inspiratie cind vine vorba de dezvoltarea intamplarilor, puteti avea placerea sa descoperi o carte deosebita, cel putin la nivelul lumiii construite.
La final, va transmit ca eu m-am indragostit de lumea “colorata� si moderna a lui Marusek, si chiar daca a lungit-o mai mult decat a fost cazul, a fost o lectura pe care o voi tine minte, in mod sigur, foarte mult mult timp, de acum incolo.
Si as mai mentiona ca pe Sf Site, in viziunea lui Greg L. Johnson, aparitia in 2005 a romanului “Counting Heads� a primit o mentiune de onoare, alaturi de “Cowl� de Neal Asher, pe care am gasit-o si eu in librarii (editura Lucman, 2005).
August 9, 2020
I enjoyed the first part of this (which was also published separately as a novella, I believe). The second part felt massively over-extended, and I found it really tedious. Third part was better, but didn't leave me feeling Counting Heads was worth a third star.
January 1, 2019
I got more than a third of the way into this book and just couldn't go any further. Couldn't keep the characters much less the story plot straight. It was just too confusing to me. Of course, it could have a lot to do with the fact that I'm not a is-fi enthusiast.
January 11, 2018
Part one (originally a short story) was excellent. It went downhill from there.
January 22, 2008
"On March 30, 2092, the Department of Health and Human Services issues Eleanor and me a permit...There was a baby in a drawer in Jersey with our names on it. We were out of our minds with joy."
The first paragraph of this book may go in my top ten all time opening paragraphs, it's so good.
I haven't read a good sci-fi book in a long time, so this was really, really satisfying. I'm finding myself sort of at a loss to describe it, even though I enjoyed it so much. It's almost more exciting, I think, to pick up this book without having any clue what you're getting yourself into. It reminds me a little bit of Bunny Modern, by David Bowman, only less trippy. There are definitely strains of William Gibson, but I think that David Marusek has more of a sense of humor than Gibson does. Marusek's world is delightfully complete; filled with nanotechnology, clones, and biological advancements that seem weirdly possible. Marusek gives readers the benefit of the doubt, and doesn't belabor his speculations with the boring descriptive asides that hamstring lesser sci-fi, which makes the books fly by breezily. Despite asking his readers to process so many possible futures all at once, the book still reads briskly and entertainingly, and it has an honest-to-god pageturner of a climax.
Supposedly, Marusek has a book of short stories that got a keen review in The Believer, but I can't seem to find it anywhere...maybe it was only published in the UK or something? If anyone has it to lend or give, e-mail me, I am so curious.
The first paragraph of this book may go in my top ten all time opening paragraphs, it's so good.
I haven't read a good sci-fi book in a long time, so this was really, really satisfying. I'm finding myself sort of at a loss to describe it, even though I enjoyed it so much. It's almost more exciting, I think, to pick up this book without having any clue what you're getting yourself into. It reminds me a little bit of Bunny Modern, by David Bowman, only less trippy. There are definitely strains of William Gibson, but I think that David Marusek has more of a sense of humor than Gibson does. Marusek's world is delightfully complete; filled with nanotechnology, clones, and biological advancements that seem weirdly possible. Marusek gives readers the benefit of the doubt, and doesn't belabor his speculations with the boring descriptive asides that hamstring lesser sci-fi, which makes the books fly by breezily. Despite asking his readers to process so many possible futures all at once, the book still reads briskly and entertainingly, and it has an honest-to-god pageturner of a climax.
Supposedly, Marusek has a book of short stories that got a keen review in The Believer, but I can't seem to find it anywhere...maybe it was only published in the UK or something? If anyone has it to lend or give, e-mail me, I am so curious.
December 16, 2009
This is one of those science fiction novels that is full of plausible descriptions of customs and gadgets and governments that really make you think about where the future is headed. For example, people live hundreds of years due to life enhancement technologies, and they have loyal “mentars� � essentially personal concierge/nano-robots � that are implanted into their bodies and speak to them inside their heads. It’s worth reading just for the vivid imagination of the author, but be prepared to struggle somewhat with the characters and plot lines. The characters are all so strange you can’t make up your mind how you feel about them. The varying plot lines seem to twist off in every direction. But I did finally get into this book and enjoyed thinking about whether life in 2134 could really be as weird as the author portrays
Teton County Library Call No: SF MARUSEK
Review written by: Dawn Marousek
Teton County Library Call No: SF MARUSEK
Review written by: Dawn Marousek
June 28, 2012
Marusek starts with a catchy hook and fascinating speculative scifi. But the story quickly degenerates into almost uncountable plot threads. It seems as if Marusek had a beginning and an ending in mind, and then invented a myriad of ideas and characters to get from A to B. Unfortunately, many of those ideas and characters, which seem like they will be important, never amount to anything, and remain unresolved at the end. I've heard that Marusek started as a short story writer, and after reading Counting Heads, I'm not surprised: it's more like 17 concurrent short stories forced to be linked, as opposed to a complete novel. So many of his ideas have great promise, but he fails to deliver by the conclusion. A good editor could have turned this into a great scifi. In the meantime, if you want to read a complicated yarn that ends in a more satisfactory manner, try Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga instead.
February 18, 2009
As a 'first novel' I found this book to be less than satisfying. While it's densely packed with all sorts of futuristic scenarios and interesting technological 'stuff', the plot is hard to parse. Partly due to a glaring lack of clear delineation of terminology he uses in the book. Perhaps if one has followed his other writings in various anthologies and such some of it would be more clear, but if you're looking for an introduction to Marusek's writing this isn't the one to start with.
The plot structure was hard to follow and I kept losing interest in the progress of the story due to confusion about who was who and what exactly the motivations of the multitudinous characters were. By the end of the book I still wasn't sure I got what was going on. I finished it without having gained any clear sense of there being a real 'ending'.
October 3, 2011
I was underwhelmed. I've had this on my to-read list for a long time, influenced by many positive reviews, and was excited to finally find it in e-book form. But while I finished the book, I found it really hard to "lose" myself in like I do with almost any book I enjoy. The best science fiction books are often initially difficult initially, and take a while to accept the author's fictional world / premise / characters - but then you are caught up and immersed in their stange and wonderful creations, and to me this is the special joy of science fiction. I never really got past the inital difficlties with Marusek's world, finding the world-set interesting but the characters and people unsympathetic / unengaging.
June 18, 2011
This is the best "post-singularity" novel I have read to date. This author combines a tremendous imagination for his future setting with believable and admirable characters. This is an emotionally warmer book that the other "post-singularity" works I have read by other authors and I am looking forward to reading the second novel in the series, "Mind Over Ship." Not since reading Donald Kingsbury's "Psychohistorical Crisis" have I been so entertained by a SF novel. Some aspects of the universe of "Counting Heads" are disturbing, but the author never stoops to excessive horror in his scenes nor unnecessary angst in his characters. I found this story very compelling and recommend it to people looking for "post-singularity" SF novels with lots of heart as well as towering ideas.
January 11, 2009
This is a novel I bought on publication four years or so ago, and tried to read many times and stopping after the brilliant novella introduction told by Sam, when it just degenerates in cold jargon that meant nothing to me.
Since I got an arc of book 2, I decided to get over once and for all with this book, so I fast read the second, larger part and it's such a waste of a great setup.
I hope book 2, Mind Over Ship will fulfill the promise of the brilliant 46 pages of Counting Heads, followed by 300 pages of mostly unreadable jargon.
January 7, 2023
I was really looking forward to this one, so I'm sorry to report that Counting Heads falls into the "interesting failure" class. The novel as a whole, well, fails to cohere. Worse, I kept falling asleep reading it.
I've been very impressed with Marusek's short fiction, such as his astonishing "The Wedding Album" (1999), and "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy" (95), reworked as the opening section of this book.
I've been very impressed with Marusek's short fiction, such as his astonishing "The Wedding Album" (1999), and "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy" (95), reworked as the opening section of this book.
February 20, 2008
This book was both horrible and good at the same time, I’m not sure how that is possible, but hey I guess it is. Great concept, poor execution. Then the ending, I will not even call it an ending. It didn’t end it just stops.
December 22, 2015
An engrossing view of the future where the fascinating technological wonders that Mr. Marusek created drive the story forward but don't detract from the complex relationships between the clones, humans and sentient machines that populate this well-imagined world.
August 10, 2007
Far future, mind fuck (thats a good things) gives way to a plodding story.
December 31, 2010
A glum dystopia that isn't even fun to visit.
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