March 20, 2011

Review: Pink Noise - Leonid Korogodski



I should've written this review long ago, but due to zillions of issues, I haven't managed to do so. Let's make this right now!

Pink Noise is a sci fi novel, by Leonid Korogodski, and it is hardcore sci fi, by the way.
I was impressed by the narrative style, which reminds me so much of Isaac Asimov and yet, so different. Poetic, visual.
The book tells us the story of Nathi, a posthuman doctor, who gets the mission of repairing a little girl's brain and "migrate" it to a posthuman state. Here, I must stop and explain: posthumans are simply people whose brain got "uploaded" to a central system and then they can live anywhere - on any machine conected to the central system. The story is set on Mars.

The girl has a Wish Faerie, though, a being that is inside her mind and prevents her from being directly plugged into the system, and being controlled. 
I'm not going to tell much about the story since, well, it is only 120 pages long, so anything I tell may be everything.
What amazed me was the book itself. The images were incredibly beautiful and the cover, the paper, everything made me think that there are a few reasons why paper books top ebooks anytime - these special editions. Ebooks can replace paperbacks, but really, the experience on reading a book as well thought as this one, makes you think you have a major need for paper.
The Dancer (a character a bit along the book) is a perfect mix of the human and posthuman e also Pink Noise itself is a chronicle of what we could gain but, more than everything, what we could lose if we all stopped being human. Is immortality worth it?

If you think about it, look at Egypt, they TURNED THE INTERNET OFF! And if they got as much control, imagine if all of our minds were connected there... Who would be controlling the system? And who would watch them? (who watches the watchmen kind of thing)

While the story is about 120 pages long, the book has over 100 pages of references: it is so sci fi, that it explains the whole science behind the book, how everything would be possible. It describes perfectly (or at least to me, I could visualize perfectly) Mars' atmosphere, the buildings, how they manage to breathe there and such.
If you're not a sci-fi fan, I do not advise you to read it. You'll get lost, you'll get bored. But if you ARE  sci fi fan, then you should run and get it now. It's spectacular, poetic, passionate.
I promise to get a new post up soon with pictures of the images inside the book, I think they're worth a post on their own.

If you're already in love with it, you can buy it on The Book Depository or Amazon