Proxies
Avatars Dance II
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Laura J. Mixon's 22nd century is a far cry from utopia; pollution and global warming have begun to ravage the planet and drive a cowering populace indoors. Gangs of violent, dispossessed children prowl city streets, fresh foods are hard to come by, and average temperatures reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit. But along with the bad side effects of technology come the good: scientist Carli D'Auber's stunning advancement in communications allows people to send their consciousness across vast distances and interact at the other end through a remote device called a waldo. Most people are familiar with the small, trash-can-like waldos... but in a secret crèche, children are being raised to pilot humanoid versions called proxies, and they're being instilled with a deadly serious ideology. Can Carli, hunted by a renegade proxy with incredible strength and a frighteningly simplistic agenda, stay alive long enough to figure out what's going on? Part mystery, part human drama, and part a fantastic blend of cybertechnology, cloning, and telepresence, Proxies will keep you on your toes till the end.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the 21st century, humanity's high-tech civilization is tottering from the impact of global warming at the same time it is about to launch the first interstellar expedition. Meanwhile, a secret project in which proxies (artificial human bodies) are controlled by the minds of people with major birth defects--people who have spent their whole lives in artificial environments (as "creche babies")--is about to be exposed. Scientists behind the project seek to rescue the creche babies by hijacking the starship. And so evolves an unusual combo of cyberpunk, hard-SF and techno-thriller that's distinguished by brisk pacing, creative world building and deft handling of characters. Mixon's new novel (after Greenwar, 1997) is demanding, and sometimes nearly inaccessible, due to the sheer number of characters and to lapses in their motivation as well as in the tone of the narrative. The application of technology has flaws as well: If anti-matter power plants are small enough to be used in proxies, why haven't they shown up elsewhere? This reads like a novel into which ideas were loaded a trifle faster than the author could organize them, resulting in a story that's as jumbled as it is absorbing.
