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mburnamfink 's review for:
The Affinities
by Robert Charles Wilson
Robert Charles Wilson is probably the best contemporary genre writer I'm unfamiliar with. The only other book that I've read of his is The Chronoliths. I can see the tonal similarities, destiny, love, and a lot of loss. This book is smaller, much more personal, and hangs on the periphery of its Big Ideas.
In a world much like ours, the Affinities are a supercharged form of social networking, a set of neural tests where for a small fee, people with the right mindset can test into one of 22 cognitive groups (or none of the above). Adam Fisk is a young man at loose ends who finds himself in Tau, a group of liberal entrepreneurs that becomes a family in a way that his tightly wound upstate New York conservative biological family never did. For a time, it's perfect. A vast and expanding utopia of people who think just like you.
But there is trouble in the world of the Affinities. The neural tests are the proprietary data of a corporation which doesn't understand the new socialities, and threatens to destroy what it cannot control. The population at large is turning against the Affinities as a new Illuminati, and the major Affinities themselves cannot agree on a course of action, with hierarchical Het running covert operations against Tau. Adam becomes a diplomat, trying to line up allies for Tau and losing his lover to another major player in his Affinity. In the final act, the political becomes personal, as Adam plans to derail a Het-sponsored anti-Tau bill by blackmailing a Congressman (his brother) with evidence that he beats his wife (also Adam's high school sweet heart). This plan goes awry when Adam's stepbrother is kidnapped by Het as the India-Pakistan war goes hot and a massive cyberattack takes out the American power grid, and he has to improvise and lie to Tau to save the one member of his family that he actually likes.
In the end, it all comes to naught. The plan didn't need Adam. The Affinity doesn't need Adam, as he's drifted away, cognitively speaking, in the course of being a diplomat. He's alone in a world that's moved by. There's a really dark and sharp book in here about what it means to be among people who really *get* you, and about the rise of alternative forms of cooperation mediated by private technology, but that book is buried under generalities, and Adam's personal weaknesses.
In a world much like ours, the Affinities are a supercharged form of social networking, a set of neural tests where for a small fee, people with the right mindset can test into one of 22 cognitive groups (or none of the above). Adam Fisk is a young man at loose ends who finds himself in Tau, a group of liberal entrepreneurs that becomes a family in a way that his tightly wound upstate New York conservative biological family never did. For a time, it's perfect. A vast and expanding utopia of people who think just like you.
But there is trouble in the world of the Affinities. The neural tests are the proprietary data of a corporation which doesn't understand the new socialities, and threatens to destroy what it cannot control. The population at large is turning against the Affinities as a new Illuminati, and the major Affinities themselves cannot agree on a course of action, with hierarchical Het running covert operations against Tau. Adam becomes a diplomat, trying to line up allies for Tau and losing his lover to another major player in his Affinity. In the final act, the political becomes personal, as Adam plans to derail a Het-sponsored anti-Tau bill by blackmailing a Congressman (his brother) with evidence that he beats his wife (also Adam's high school sweet heart). This plan goes awry when Adam's stepbrother is kidnapped by Het as the India-Pakistan war goes hot and a massive cyberattack takes out the American power grid, and he has to improvise and lie to Tau to save the one member of his family that he actually likes.
In the end, it all comes to naught. The plan didn't need Adam. The Affinity doesn't need Adam, as he's drifted away, cognitively speaking, in the course of being a diplomat. He's alone in a world that's moved by. There's a really dark and sharp book in here about what it means to be among people who really *get* you, and about the rise of alternative forms of cooperation mediated by private technology, but that book is buried under generalities, and Adam's personal weaknesses.