The Manuscript

Quite simply one of the most simply satisfying books I have read in a long time. Growing up in fiction with the likes of Douglas Coupland and Neale Stephenson, this book met a void between modern fiction and cyberpunk unfilled in quite a while. And the individual, vivid moments resonate in the mind.

I love sleeping. I'm usually an out-cold-in-30-seconds guy, and very little comes between me and my pillow. After reading a good chunk of The Manuscript one day, I found I couldn't fall asleep. I actually *got out of bed* and snuck out of the bedroom to read a few more chapters. It's that good. If you're an action fan who enjoys an occasional discussion about the meaning of life, or a philosopher who enjoys a good shootout now and then, you will Love. This. Book. Buy it now... and rest up before it arrives.

This is a GREAT book - high octane thrills, a cast of bizarre characters a la "Pulp Fiction" and excellent use of the McGuffin - the use of the (almost obligatory) frenzied search for a lost and extremely valuable historical artifact as a vehicle for a plot is becoming a bit stale, but MSF keeps this book fresh and engaging to the very end. Superb!!

This excellent story revolves around the online search for a manuscript purported to have been written by the adventurer/traveller/all-round Renaissance man Sir Richard Burton which contains the secrets to life, the universe, and everything. The two main protagonists are a sysadmin (who has a penchant for handguns) and his grad student friend at a college in Virginia. The immense cast of well-developed characters expands early and rapidly to encompass a security expert, an undercover cop, an underground team of well-trained self-appointed cyber-vigilantes known as the Angry Young Taoists, a BOFH/drug kingpin, and many, many more. I won't give away any more of the plot. Anyway, the action builds up early in the story, and then relentlessly ploughs on for a very long time, with many twists and turns and loads of gun battles, Mexican standoffs, and geekspeak. And is very very cool. If Tarantino ever got a techie streak and decided to start writing novels, he would come up with something awfully close to this. The style is very cinematic, but unlike a film, the action gives you more than just two hours of entertainment. I look forward to future work from Mr. Fuchs...Good stuff.

While the cover of the book may make it appear so, The Manuscript is not your typical 'high-speed, action-packed thriller'. It is indeed 'high-speed', and incredibly 'action-packed', but it is smarter, funnier, more intricate, and surprisingly more inspiring than one might expect of the genre. Relating the race to recover a document that is storied to contain the final answers to The Big Questions about life, the universe, and everything, The Manuscript seamlessly incorporates ruminations on the nature of human existence into a plot filled with good guy versus bad guy, narrow escapes, technological tampering, and plenty of gunplay. One could compare it to the Da Vinci Code in its account of a modern-day perilous quest for a mystical artefact, except that the writing is more skilful, it doesn't incorporate any bad science, and it doesn't insult any world religions (well, at least not directly). Fuchs creates an impressively large cast of diverse and well-conceived characters, whose divergent story-lines come together at a measured, but absorbing, pace. This novel is not about 'wham, bham, thank-you mam' action, but rather offers little 'tastes' of action as it builds up to its climax slowly, enjoying 'the ungentle ride' along the way, like a literary version of tantric sex. While the snappy dialogue, profusion of hip, youthful characters, and in-depth descriptions of the ins and outs of the internet may appear to appeal only to a younger crowd, the novel's intelligent handling of everything from the history of philosophy to the rules of how to win a gunfight should appeal to anyone who enjoys what is, simply, a good read. The novel is certainly not for technophobes, but its savvy explanations of the inner workings of the internet do not require one to be a card-carrying computer geek to understand and enjoy the novel's technologically-embedded plot. And one cannot underestimate the enjoyment engendered by shameless philosophical and religious speculation. I read The Manuscript cover to cover, not being able to put it down throughout the long and unpleasant flight for which it was my chosen entertainment. Not only was I well-entertained, but also may have been, at least a little bit, enlightened.