Amped by Daniel H. Wilson
Sep. 26th, 2013 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
What is in Owen Gray’s head … and who is trying to kill him for it?
Twenty-nine-year-old Owen Gray always believed the miraculous device in his brain had been implanted for purely medical reasons, as a way of controlling the debilitating seizures he suffered in his youth. But when the Supreme Court rules that ‘amplified’ humans like Owen are not protected by the same basic laws as pure humans, his world instantly fractures. As society begins to unravel and a new class war is ignited by fear, Owen’s father, a doctor who originally implanted the ‘amp’, confides something that will send him on a harrowing journey – and he is now in grave danger.
All roads lead to a dusty community in rural Oklahoma, where Owen must find the one man who can explain what is really in his head. There he also meets Lyle Crosby, a dangerous and unpredictable leader of the fast-growing ‘amp’ movement, someone whose stunning physical abilities and ruthless ideas show Owen how to harness his own startling gifts – but threaten to draw him into a world from which there may be no moral return.
It’s the near future and 500,000 people in America are ‘amps’ – people with brain implants to either counter medical conditions or augment existing abilities. Owen Grey’s amp was fitted by his surgeon father to counter his epilepsy but America’s increasingly hostile to amps thanks to Senator Joseph Vaughn and his Pure Human Citizen’s Council. Vaughn’s efforts to segregate amps from normal humans are succeeding as a series of Supreme Court judgements withdraw the amps’ rights to education, employment and even enter into contracts.
When Owen discovers that his amp’s more than a medical device, he goes to Eden, a trailer camp in Oklahoma that serves as a refuge for amps. But Owen’s search for answers will lead him to a highly classified military amp programme and Lyle Crosby, a cowboy who leads a movement for amps and who can show Owen how to use the dangerous technology in his head. The more Owen becomes involved with Lyle’s group though, the more he’s forced to question how far he will go in the name of amp rights …
Daniel H Wilson’s SF techno thriller is an unsophisticated, predictable read built around a dull main character who exists within an inconsistent and illogical world constructed solely to serve the meandering plot. None of the side characters rise above stock constructs and the villain is a cardboard cut out who left me rolling my eyes. I’ve read a number of Wilson’s books now and while the ideas are great, the execution tends to leave me cold and I doubt that I’ll check out his next work.
My main issue with this book was the way Wilson shows the legal judgments that shape the hostile environment for amps. There’s no subtlety in the legal analysis, which assumes that amps have chosen to be that way even though we’re told that many actually had the decision made by their parents. The lack of consideration of this left me irritated.
Owen is a bland character whose journey is largely determined by others. His romance with Lucy is limp and his face offs with Lyle lack tension because Lyle himself is two-dimensional while Vaughn is little more than a cartoon politician with the obligatory tragic backstory.
Ultimately I loved the idea for this book and wanted to enjoy it but the execution left me cold and I don’t think I’ll check out Wilson’s future work.
The Verdict:
Daniel H Wilson’s SF techno thriller is an unsophisticated, predictable read built around a dull main character who exists within an inconsistent and illogical world constructed solely to serve the meandering plot. None of the side characters rise above stock constructs and the villain is a cardboard cut out who left me rolling my eyes. I’ve read a number of Wilson’s books now and while the ideas are great, the execution tends to leave me cold and I doubt that I’ll check out his next work.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free copy of this book.
Twenty-nine-year-old Owen Gray always believed the miraculous device in his brain had been implanted for purely medical reasons, as a way of controlling the debilitating seizures he suffered in his youth. But when the Supreme Court rules that ‘amplified’ humans like Owen are not protected by the same basic laws as pure humans, his world instantly fractures. As society begins to unravel and a new class war is ignited by fear, Owen’s father, a doctor who originally implanted the ‘amp’, confides something that will send him on a harrowing journey – and he is now in grave danger.
All roads lead to a dusty community in rural Oklahoma, where Owen must find the one man who can explain what is really in his head. There he also meets Lyle Crosby, a dangerous and unpredictable leader of the fast-growing ‘amp’ movement, someone whose stunning physical abilities and ruthless ideas show Owen how to harness his own startling gifts – but threaten to draw him into a world from which there may be no moral return.
It’s the near future and 500,000 people in America are ‘amps’ – people with brain implants to either counter medical conditions or augment existing abilities. Owen Grey’s amp was fitted by his surgeon father to counter his epilepsy but America’s increasingly hostile to amps thanks to Senator Joseph Vaughn and his Pure Human Citizen’s Council. Vaughn’s efforts to segregate amps from normal humans are succeeding as a series of Supreme Court judgements withdraw the amps’ rights to education, employment and even enter into contracts.
When Owen discovers that his amp’s more than a medical device, he goes to Eden, a trailer camp in Oklahoma that serves as a refuge for amps. But Owen’s search for answers will lead him to a highly classified military amp programme and Lyle Crosby, a cowboy who leads a movement for amps and who can show Owen how to use the dangerous technology in his head. The more Owen becomes involved with Lyle’s group though, the more he’s forced to question how far he will go in the name of amp rights …
Daniel H Wilson’s SF techno thriller is an unsophisticated, predictable read built around a dull main character who exists within an inconsistent and illogical world constructed solely to serve the meandering plot. None of the side characters rise above stock constructs and the villain is a cardboard cut out who left me rolling my eyes. I’ve read a number of Wilson’s books now and while the ideas are great, the execution tends to leave me cold and I doubt that I’ll check out his next work.
My main issue with this book was the way Wilson shows the legal judgments that shape the hostile environment for amps. There’s no subtlety in the legal analysis, which assumes that amps have chosen to be that way even though we’re told that many actually had the decision made by their parents. The lack of consideration of this left me irritated.
Owen is a bland character whose journey is largely determined by others. His romance with Lucy is limp and his face offs with Lyle lack tension because Lyle himself is two-dimensional while Vaughn is little more than a cartoon politician with the obligatory tragic backstory.
Ultimately I loved the idea for this book and wanted to enjoy it but the execution left me cold and I don’t think I’ll check out Wilson’s future work.
The Verdict:
Daniel H Wilson’s SF techno thriller is an unsophisticated, predictable read built around a dull main character who exists within an inconsistent and illogical world constructed solely to serve the meandering plot. None of the side characters rise above stock constructs and the villain is a cardboard cut out who left me rolling my eyes. I’ve read a number of Wilson’s books now and while the ideas are great, the execution tends to leave me cold and I doubt that I’ll check out his next work.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free copy of this book.
