Spin Control

by Chris Moriarty

Paperback, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

PS3613.O749 S67

Series

Spin Series (2)

Genres

Science Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Spectra (2006), 464 pages

Description

In this stunning follow-up to the critically acclaimed novel Spin State, Chris Moriarty depicts a grim future in which the final frontier may well be extinction. For as far-flung planets are terraformed and Earth's age-old conflicts are contracted out to AIs, humanity is losing the only war that counts: the war for survival. Call Arkady a clone with a conscience. Or call him a traitor. A member of the space-faring Syndicates, Arkady has defected to Israel with a hot commodity: a genetic weapon powerful enough to wipe out humanity. But Israel's not buying it. They're selling it--and Arkady--to the highest bidder. As the auction heats up, the Artificial Life Emancipation Front sends in Major Catherine Li. Already drummed out of the Peacekeepers for "war crimes," Li has now literally hooked up with an AI who has lived many lifetimes and shunted through many bodies. And while they each have their own definition of victory, together they have only one chance at survival. . . .… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member storyjunkie

Outside the plot, this is an amazing look at what people do with the information they have, the information they think they have, and with the information they know they don't have. Also, an amazing variety of definitions can be applied to the word "people" in that sentence - which is

delightful.

That we get this interaction along with dangers, and emotional entanglements, of all sorts just makes it that much more satisfying a read.

Show Less

4 more

LibraryThing member betula.alba

As in the prequel, the plot seems unnecessarily convoluted. I found myself thinking there has to be a quicker way to resolve the problems the characters were facing, and there was... but had to wait 200 pages till it happened. The relationship between Earth and the Ring seems alittle implausible.

Still, Catherine Li as well as Cohen are memorable characters... although you never really get to know Cohen as anything more than a melancholic dandy.

Show Less

LibraryThing member gregandlarry

While there was lots of interesting ideas in the book, the execution was a bit flat. Maybe I need to reread the first in the series to appreciate it more.

LibraryThing member iansales

This is a loose sequel to Spin State, features many of the same characters, but its plot doesn’t follow exactly on from the earlier plot. There are references to earlier events, but Spin Control can be read without having read Spin State. That, however, is the least of its problems. And, to be

fair, its major problem is hardly its fault, it’s something that recent events have made problematical. Because Spin Control is set mostly in Israel. And this is an Israel that’s back at war with the Palestinians. The treatment of the Palestinians is certainly sympathetic (if not overly lionised) – and the treatment of Americans, Moriarty’s nationality, certainly not – but there’s still that whiff of admiration for Israel that is endemic in US culture. Which is a shame, because there’s a pure science-fiction thread to the narrative that seems mostly wasted. On the one hand, you have a defector from the Syndicates (genetically-engineered sort of communist clones) who is taken to Jerusalem to sell his secrets to the highest bidder – Mossad, its Palestinian equivalent, or the Americans – and which drags in some of the surviving cast of Spin State. But it’s all a plot, of sorts, to uncover a Palestinian mole, called Absalom, within Mossad. On the other hand, told in flashback, there’s the story of that same defector as one of the survivors of a Syndicate survey mission to a terraformed world. But there’s something weird about what they find – not just the fact it has been terraformed, since most terraforming attempts by humanity have failed, but also because there are weird things happening in the DNA of the flora and fauna. And when the survey team all come down with a fever, they work out that it’s caused by a virus which is using biology as a “Turing soup”, a sort of computational engine seeking an optimal terraforming solution. However, there’s a side-effect to the fever… and when this is revealed… well, Absalom’s identity seems pretty trivial. The survey mission narrative is nicely done, even if first contact puzzle stories are a genre staple; and marrying it with a near-future spy thriller is a nice touch. The setting of the latter is handled well, and each side is treated sensitively, but time, and geopolitics, has imparted something of a whiff to the Israeli-set sections and it’s hard to read them in light of recent events, or indeed the reader’s existing sympathies in the situation. Moriarty has shown she’s not afraid of tackling difficult subjects, both sfnal and real-world, and she’s good at it. It’s a shame she’s not better known.

Show Less

LibraryThing member MarkLacy

I don't know why I stuck with this book till the end. It was very difficult reading, and I really wound up understanding very little of it. I thought I'd remembered that the author's "Spin State" was very good and very heavy on the advanced physics and technology. This didn't have as much physics

and technology to it. It did have too many people running around. And left too much unexplained along the way.

Show Less

Fewer