Synners

Synners by Pat Cadigan

I’m not quite sure where to start with this one. Synners is a big, somewhat purposefully messy story, that throws you into the deep end with a cyberpunk world full of strange jargon and even stranger characters. You probably won’t have a clue what’s going on for the first hundred pages plus (at least I didn’t) but ultimately, it’s a really great book.

It’s an experience as you start to pick up on what’s what, and who who’s. But, when things really click and the story becomes more clear and apparent, you realise what an incredibly dark turn everything has taken. The book suddenly switches from slightly confusing too massively engrossing and nightmarish.

Synners is about a future where entertainment has reached whole new levels as we’re plugged into videos and experiences. But, when we go a step further and literally start plugging the product directly into our brain through direct sockets, the question becomes whether the mad science has gone to far? And what are the consequences?

There’s so much madness in this book, and so many things that just feel all to real as well. The traffic A.I being a great example. The idea of computers and devices getting smaller and more undetectable (this book was published in 1991). The look at an A.I growing into itself on the net. The big companies all jostling for the top video’s and commercial space is social media long before social media.

Then there’s the truly dark stuff. The suicidal reboots that the book opens on is terrifying. Using yourself as essentially a battery is nasty. The Videodrome aspects. Then of course what turns into the main plot as the net becomes a more enticing place to spend all your time than ‘The Meat.’ There’s a lot of cynicism and darkness, that sadly has turned out to be largely right, although thankfully not quite to Synners extent… yet.

The writing is quick and snappy, but definitely jargon heavy. But, a lot of the words used are concepts and things that exist now, it’s just the book was written before the explosion of the internet, so the terms differ. The characters take a while to to find their uniqueness, but that’s probably because there are so many. For me, the one’s to pay attention to early on are Sam, Gabe, Gina and Mark. The rest will full in line as you go.

Structurally, it is a difficult book. There’s a lot of characters and it’s set in a futuristic dystopian world that has its own ways. It’s a book you will most likely get lost in, very similar to something like Neuromancer, but like the Willam Gibson classic it’s a story that rewards you for staying with the experience.

It’s a hard one to recommend because there’s a great story in Synners, and characters you’ll like and enjoy, but you have to stick with the book for a while in order to get that, and patience isn’t what it used to be. I think if you’re a big fan of the genre, and cyberpunk in particular, give it a go and try to stick with it. The last few hundred pages really are a great pay off, and the world building is unique.