Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Crosstalk: A Novel by Connie Willis (Del Rey)

Crosstalk: A Novel by [Willis, Connie]

I think it can be agreed that Connie Willis has pretty much "been there, done that" in the science fiction field over her long and storied career: 11 Hugos, 7 Nebulas, 4 Locus Awards, a John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and a boatload more nominations for works that didn't win. She was named a Damon Knight Grandmaster of the field. Just about everything she's written has turned to gold.

Her previous work, BLACKOUT/ALL CLEAR, a novel in two parts that won the Hugo in 2011, was large in scope and even larger in word count. The story was so huge that it was broken into two books, which were both released in the same year. ALL CLEAR picked up right where BLACKOUT left off, with no "the story so far" kind of lead in, letting the world know that "no, this was intended to be one book but it was two big, so we made it into two". CROSSTALK suffers from, in my opinion, needing an editor, and as a result I don't think the book is as good as it could be.

Briddey Flannigan and her boyfriend Trent work for a communications corporation named Commspan. The folks at Commspan are worried about Apple's next iPhone release, which is probably going to revolutionize communication (never mind that Apple hasn't come out with a revolutionizing version of the iPhone since the early days, but I digress). That's not the big news, though. Briddey and Trent are going to get EEDs. An EED is a device which allows two strongly emotionally bonded people to know each other's emotions without even having to talk about them. That is, there will no longer be any doubt as to whether your loved one is really your loved one.

Commspan is a center of gossip, a place where communication has gone wild. People know about things that happen long before they should. As an example, we all know someone who, if we want to spread some salacious gossip, we tell first. The word will spread like wildfire. At Commspan, that would be Suki Parker. But she's not the only one, just the best. All the employees we meet during the novel seem to be one big interconnected information network - except for C.B. Schwartz. C.B. is the nerd that works in the basement and stays away from everyone. His hair and clothes are a mess, he has no friends, and everyone thinks he's weird and creepy. No one wants to go down to his basement office to talk to him.

Trent and Briddey are able to get their EED operations moved up on the doctor's busy schedule. They are trying to get this done in secret because Briddey has a meddling family and Trent has his reasons (which I will not spoil here). Trent and Briddey are perfect subjects for an EED - their compatibility scores are off the charts. Briddey has her operation first. She wakes up after the surgery, and not long after she begins to not feel Trent's emotions, but to hear someone speaking to her - and it's not Trent.

No comments:

Post a Comment