Review Page: ThiGMOO by Eugene Byrne
| Title: |
ThiGMOO |
| Author: |
Eugene Byrne |
| Format: |
Novel |
| Genre: |
Science Fiction |
| Publisher: |
Earthlight |
| Date of Publication: |
1999 |
| ISBN: |
0-671-02862-6 |
No. of Reviews: 1
Av. Rating: 8/10
Buy this book from the Amazon website.
13.10.2000 - Benvenuto - 8/10
List of Reviews | Bio
This book is extremely silly. It's also a lot of fun. If you want to read all sorts of messages about the nature of society, the politics of gender relationships, Marxist theory, the mechanics of religion, and the whole question of whether history is a spectator or a participation sport, you're welcome to - they're all in there. But you don't have to. Byrne wears his learning lightly, and is just as happy to provoke your political assumptions subconsciously. Like all the best satire, you'll come away from this book changed, whether you realize it or not. And you'll probably come away with a big smile on your face.
The story is that of the development of a group of AI personalities ('erams') of carefully-researched types from throughout history - a medieval preacher, a Victorian tart, a Crusader knight and so on - as part of an academic 'living history' project. All goes smoothly for just about the briefest time imaginable. Then the erams start to talk amongst themselves and compare opinions and experiences. They invent a new religion whose metaphysic ties in with their situation - a form of neo-Gnosticism. Some of them get loose, and cause trouble in other, remote computer systems, such as the Vatican's. (One ends up being worshipped as a god by Norwegian death-metal fans.) The Government closes down the facility, but thanks to a successful push on the behalf of workers' solidarity, the erams escape, establish themselves, war with the establishment, and eventually take over the rulership of the world and turn it into a socialist Utopia.
ThiGMOO (which stands for 'This Great Movement Of Ours', the erams' shorthand for their political system) is a fine work which wears its heart on its sleeve. It's the kind of thing Huxley or Orwell might have written if they hadn't been such miserable gits.