Interface

[lethargic_man]

Due to falling ill, I've got time for another book review.

Interface, by Stephen Bury Neal Stephenson and Frederick George is a story about the first brain prostheses -- biochips implanted into stroke victims to replicate the functionality of the brain tissue they have lost. I was first recommended this by ewx in about 1994, since when it has transmuted from science fiction to fact, only a few years after when it was set (1996).

I expected the story to run with the technology more than it actually did; in this respect it's more like Cryptonomicon than Snow Crash, a technothriller rather than science fiction, if you like. I found the book an enjoyable read, and was pleasantly surprised to discover it had a proper ending (not normally one of Stephenson's strong points).

I was astonished to discover a throwaway line in chapter 52 pointing to there being a world Jewish conspiracy. The context was a discussion of the five entities in the world capable of planning on a centuries' long timescale. Whilst it's true that the Catholic Church was included in the others (ObSF: A Canticle For Leibowitz), I'm surprised Stephenson portrayed there being a world Jewish conspiracy. This comes down to a point I've raised before (though not necessarily here), that authors have a moral responsibility to bear. This point is quite topical, with the furore surrounding Mel Gibson's recent film The Passion of the Christ^*. Half the world hates the Jews, and antisemitic incidents in Europe, and to a less extent the US, have shot up markedly since the start of the second intifada. The last thing we need is for novels to allege the existence of a global Jewish conspiracy. (Though admittedly this novel was written in another time, when the world seemed a safer place.)

Anyhow, returning to the novel... (Spoilers follow:) I wasn't sure I bought the premise of Cozzano's right brain developing a personality of its own. AIUI the separate brain hemispheres only develop separate personalities if they've been completely separated; and this was not the case here. Also, even given the above, it made no sense for Cozzano's left brain to have been so completely lost by what his right brain was doing in the scrabble game in Ch. 57. He's an intelligent man; he should have been able to figure it out.

Finally, I think Cy Ogle was hard-done by at the end; for all of what he'd done, he still didn't deserve to be locked up in a cell with Jeremiah Freel.

* "He's not the Messiah; he's a very naughty boy!" (In case you haven't heard, Monty Python's Life of Brian is going to be rereleased in US cinemas in the wake of Gibson's film. *boggle*