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"Let me just love you as you are, in real life," he said as they lay together one evening on his couch in Adams Morgan.
"You don't want me for who I really am," she said, pulling away from him.
"I do," he said. "The only you that exists in the world is the one I'm touching right now." With that he reached a hand up the back of her blouse...
Ellen wrestled free. She argued angrily that the real Ellen was the avatar. But this line, with its inherent contradiction, was hard to defend.
What makes the Terminator franchise so great is that it's either A) incredibly stupid or B) way too before its time for us to process. The extreme adversarial way it's been presenting technology reflects in nothing the way we've been interacting with it. I've been jonesing for a pertinent, contemporary techno-thriller, to tell you the truth, but these things are not easily found. THE BOOST, by author Stephen Baker, doesn't bite on that man vs technology simplistic representation. It's a novel with a fascinating premise that mirrors a world of interesting possibilities, but that ultimately doesn't deliver on any of its promises. THE BOOST is a great idea that was executed in a questionable manner. It highlighted more than ever the need to have a pertinent contemporary techno-thriller though. So there's that.
In a not so distant future, The Boost has transformed the way human beings think and ushered the species into another era. People now live with a chip implanted in their brain that does more or less the job of a smart phone OS: it answers questions, gives directions, researches people, etc. Ralf is a software prodigy working on The Boost for the U.S government. A couple days before an upgrade, he notices an irregularity with the process: a surveillance gate has been left open and every boosted citizen in the country is now vulnerable to the Chinese (who have invented The Boost in the first place). When Ralf attempts to investigate and sort the issue out by himself though, nothing goes as he planned and his life take a turn he would've never expected in a million years.
What makes the premise of THE BOOST fascinating is that it's never really been discussed in pop culture before: what if technology wasn't an obvious enemy, but a false friend? I said it earlier, The Boost is pretty much a heightened, futuristic version of a smart phone OS, except that it's always with you. It's actually a part of you. It shapes and processes your own thoughts in accordance to best interest instead of your own. In THE BOOST (not a spoiler, it's written on the back cover blurb), Ralf has his boost ripped out because he discovered the loophole in the surveillance gate, so it actually offers the perspective of someone who just freed himself from this golden technological prison. All the pieces are there for THE BOOST to be a memorable thriller and yet...
...and yet..
It doesn't work. It doesn't work because THE BOOST doesn't really takes that engaging premise anywhere in particular. It's just an airport thriller with too many characters and a plot that's loosely based on the logic of technology that already exists (that last fact is cool, though). I mean, there are scenes where the characters face their condition (I quoted one on top of this review), but there are too little of these and they are not a very important part of the plot. It's disappointing because the premise is why I picked up the book in the first place. THE BOOST is a competent airport thriller at best, but it is frustratingly swerving around its own ideas and delivers a techno-thriller with cyberpunk influences that really is beside the point. I guess THE BOOST is entertaining, but it has different ambitions that what it claims on the back cover. Ambitions that are far less interesting to me.
The legacy of THE BOOST will ultimately be its premise: introducing in fiction the idea that technology is something you surrender control over your life to. Michael Crichton had already broke the idea of ''technology as a false friend'' with novels like TIMELINE and SPHERE but Stephen Baker's brilliance is to have reintroduced it in a time where it actually has become a pertinent discussion in our society. Despite its storytelling flaws, THE BOOST accomplishes its purpose of reintroducing an important idea in fiction, which is where it reaches masses of people in a democratic, understandable format. It's just not that novel that's going to raise red flags in people's minds about technology. It's not nearly confrontational enough, but the door is open now for someone else (maybe even Stephen Baker) to write it. Once the idea is out there, it can only get better under someone knocks it out of the park.
In a not so distant future, The Boost has transformed the way human beings think and ushered the species into another era. People now live with a chip implanted in their brain that does more or less the job of a smart phone OS: it answers questions, gives directions, researches people, etc. Ralf is a software prodigy working on The Boost for the U.S government. A couple days before an upgrade, he notices an irregularity with the process: a surveillance gate has been left open and every boosted citizen in the country is now vulnerable to the Chinese (who have invented The Boost in the first place). When Ralf attempts to investigate and sort the issue out by himself though, nothing goes as he planned and his life take a turn he would've never expected in a million years.
What makes the premise of THE BOOST fascinating is that it's never really been discussed in pop culture before: what if technology wasn't an obvious enemy, but a false friend? I said it earlier, The Boost is pretty much a heightened, futuristic version of a smart phone OS, except that it's always with you. It's actually a part of you. It shapes and processes your own thoughts in accordance to best interest instead of your own. In THE BOOST (not a spoiler, it's written on the back cover blurb), Ralf has his boost ripped out because he discovered the loophole in the surveillance gate, so it actually offers the perspective of someone who just freed himself from this golden technological prison. All the pieces are there for THE BOOST to be a memorable thriller and yet...
...and yet..
It doesn't work. It doesn't work because THE BOOST doesn't really takes that engaging premise anywhere in particular. It's just an airport thriller with too many characters and a plot that's loosely based on the logic of technology that already exists (that last fact is cool, though). I mean, there are scenes where the characters face their condition (I quoted one on top of this review), but there are too little of these and they are not a very important part of the plot. It's disappointing because the premise is why I picked up the book in the first place. THE BOOST is a competent airport thriller at best, but it is frustratingly swerving around its own ideas and delivers a techno-thriller with cyberpunk influences that really is beside the point. I guess THE BOOST is entertaining, but it has different ambitions that what it claims on the back cover. Ambitions that are far less interesting to me.
The legacy of THE BOOST will ultimately be its premise: introducing in fiction the idea that technology is something you surrender control over your life to. Michael Crichton had already broke the idea of ''technology as a false friend'' with novels like TIMELINE and SPHERE but Stephen Baker's brilliance is to have reintroduced it in a time where it actually has become a pertinent discussion in our society. Despite its storytelling flaws, THE BOOST accomplishes its purpose of reintroducing an important idea in fiction, which is where it reaches masses of people in a democratic, understandable format. It's just not that novel that's going to raise red flags in people's minds about technology. It's not nearly confrontational enough, but the door is open now for someone else (maybe even Stephen Baker) to write it. Once the idea is out there, it can only get better under someone knocks it out of the park.