Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those novels that delve deep into the lives of a richly imagined near-future that takes us on a trip to a dystopia that explores:

THE END OF THE INTERNET.

Honestly, I'm reminded quite a bit of William Gibson's style. It's a slow and careful build-up of situations and world-building that gives us a no man's land of internet outcasts, people who don't want to be spied on or tabulated for all kinds of data mining, the path that micro-society takes after ten years, and the world of a post-internet breakdown after that.

We get all the arguments and commentaries on our current lifestyles. We get the arguments for and against the business side, the surveillance state, and the desire to finally be free of it all. We spend more time with the last group and sympathize with them.

But honestly? This is a pretty pure dystopia that focuses the light not on single issues but spreading it all about among the deeply-drawn characters.

I can't express how much I was impressed by the quality of the details. Indeed, the title says it all.

However... I did not precisely fall in love with the basic story. It was okay, but the commentary was its master, spreading itself throughout all the cracks in the novel. That's not a bad thing. It's an impressive thing. I just didn't enjoy it as much as I feel I should have.

And really... despite our utter reliance on the internet today, would we really go that bonkers without it?

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