Strong play on the ideas that when we look back on our childhood we are a different person but unable to dissociate ourselves from our previous actions, and that we might in future be re-programmed to alleviate the harm but yet do more damage in the process.
The text focuses entirely on the neurology; it would be nice if it explored the different perceptions of a child and an adult: the child seeing their friend as a scruffy knock-about, the adult seeing a beautiful woman blossoming into a sexual object, with her own independent ideologies maturing.
But as it is, it is a short and intense dissection of a childhood-tormented mind, and an exploration of what might go right and wrong with future technology developed to interfere with our natural state. Leaves the reader with many thoughtful questions... a great read!
Alternative ending to the ridiculous story of Icarus, equally ludicrous. Icarusʼ maiden flight was successful, and he uses the new-found technology to launch an army of winged naked ladies against the gorping forces of King Minos, only to be thwarted by a cunning plan of Minosʼ Archimedes.
The story starts with a homely though largely irrelevant tale of the relationship between Icarus and his ailing father Daedalus, and then the fable picks up its pace somewhat after the two of them escape from their imprisonment in Minosʼ tower, and becomes more of a narrative than a deep exploration of character and meaning.
While the writing is exemplary and, especially in the first half, artisanally crafted, the change of pace is jarring. It is interesting to speculate what the world might look like if Icarus was successful, and the motivation for an army of soaring nude femmes is very well reasoned. The final climactic scene can only be imagined as an erotic but beautiful and artfully done old oil painting!
Wildly imaginative extrapolation of lots of things wrong with the world of today, dressed up as futuristic Gothic horror and presented with some dreamlike incongruity.
There is some surreal reference to licking the lip of a dustbin, though given that ‘licking’ involves connecting a ‘USB’ (see the title!) cable between the tongue and said bin, it proves convenient to download thoughts from the sentience within, and to interact with it. However, ‘I tasted static and tried again, this time with the cable the other way up.’ It is hilarious in many places.
The ending is short and swift, and cannot be predicted. But given the wild ride provided by this story, that in itself is the only predictable thing.
Brilliant!
A story of retaliation against the overzealous surveillance state we live in today, where all politicians and policemen are subject to round-the-clock, in-your-face surveillance whose data are broadcast freely to everyone thanks to the efforts of a super-active data freedom movement. The data go down to individual heartbeats, pupil dilations and sweat rates: the people know when politicians are lying, making the processes of the Houses of Parliament impossible.
The result is wholesale embarrassment of the government, and the forced resignation of a Prime Minister (who faked a heart attack in the Commons!)
The evolution of the underground movement is very realistic and believable, from simple beginnings to a cultish following, and echoes the development of smaller-scale movements that exist today--the difference being that in the real world there are far fewer people who actually care about the technology which surrounds them.
It is a very near-term future story, probably anti-prophetic in its effect; there would be greater upheaval at the outset of these hostilities before things reach the stage they have in this story--although, the way this world is changing at the moment, you never know. Still it is great to think about what might happen if we are not careful.