Web of Angels

This was a book I read very quickly on the first pass and felt moved enough that it needed and deserved a slower read than what I'd initially given it. It was worth it. Its about a young man, Grailer Diomede is what he's called, who has an incredible ability to manipulate a FTL communications network, The Web, that links a huge group of worlds. The Web is faster than the fastest ship - instantaneous and has its own dangers, ranging from the Black Knights of CIRCE - enforcers charged to kill to protect the integrity of that network. And with good reason - literacy on that network is the basis by which one can travel. If you can't use the Web, you can't travel - as simple as that. Its also a world of near immortals - one where someone can live 20 times their normal span (and be cursed to live forever as well) - with the changes that it means for humans. This is interesting in that it precedes a lot of the cyberpunk movement, but it is, well, more than that. Grailer's confidence, love, caution and then vengeance are worth reading and very much operatic. I like it and I hope others will seek this out and read it.

Amazing that John M. Ford wrote this in 1980! What an astonishing piece of imagination. If it's possible to predict the future (or at least the hip parts of it), Ford has done just that. Hackers as outlaws and criminals, what a concept. I don't know how anyone can read this book and not come away enthralled and awed. Memorable characters enmeshed in a plot that does not let down for a paragragh. A must-read for anyone with the slightest interest in sci-fi or future tech.

I am still amazed that noone else has ever given John Ford his due. This book is, as of now, the only title by him I have ever read. It is, however, one of the best SF books I've ever read (on a par with Dune), and certainly a far better construct of the wired far future that anything the CyberPunks were able to create. If you liked Steinbeck's "Tortilla Flat" better than Hemingway's "Snows of Kilamanjaro", you'll like "Web Of Angels" far more than "Mona Lisa Overdrive" or "Islands in the Stream". This book is what inspired Rucker, Sterling, and Gibson. And maybe Jean Michel Jarre as well