Nostromo

The first big difference I noticed with this novel is how much it lacks typical sci-fi motifs.  There is no significant advancement of technology or any alien encounters.  The world is not in absolute disaster as people struggle to cope with how much the world has changed. There is especially a lack of weird sex as well as sexual themes that seems to dominate most of the books we have read.  That was definitely a nice change of pace since, according to some of the books we have read, sex in the future is either in a weird alien three way or with jacked in prostitutes or robot sex dolls. I don’t know about everyone else but if I don’t have to see an alien drawing with two veiny bastards in my face when discussing this book then that’s definitely a win. I would guess that that sci-fi part is the fact that Matt is a clone and that is the significant advancement in this novel. Well and also the fact that the clones are birthed from cows but they are not robot cows or any crazy shit like that but appear to be mostly normal cows. While human cloning is still a ways off in our world today, it is still possible since people have successfully cloned animals and such in our current time. So the idea of making a perfect human clone is not that much of stretch to modern day people.  The other books we have read have contained things such as actually jacking in to the internet or interstellar travel both of which are concepts that are still a long ways off from actually being possible.

The other significant thing I noticed and it may not be a big deal but still one I thought about was how this book eases the reader into the story.  Most of the recent novels we have read all have just dropped the reader into a situation with very little back ground or even explanation for what is happening in the novel.  Books such as “Neuromancer” and “Blindsight” just started the story off and seemed to tell us “hey here is the world now catch up” which can be very confusing and somewhat off putting at times.  This novel was a nice break from that style and allowed for an easier transition into the story.  While the previous books were still engaging, it is sometimes nice not to have to need constantly flip back and forth in the book trying to make sure you’re keeping up with what is going on in the story.  For me, sometimes it is refreshing to just sit back and not have to overload my brain with trying to process all the crazy jargon and technical speak that an author is throwing at me.