Rating: 
Summary: Synners
Review: Synners by Pat Cadigan is a profoundly written book by any standards. It is considered a Cyberpunk book, but it can be enjoyed by anyone who likes a challenging mystery-type novel also. She uses many different, deep characters in so many different settings that it can tend to be confusing, but she also does an excellent job of tying them all together in the end. This novel requires a lot of thought and perception, but it grabs you from the very first page. Cadigan uses nameless characters and a unique setting to create an ambience of mystery around the entire book. Synners is set in the future and is mainly based on this close-knit group of hackers that use information sent to them by a friend to stop a big business from creating implants and inserting them into people of all types, including young children. This business, Diversifications, says it will be used to stop learning and mental problems but everyone is quite wry of this new development. The problem is that this big business wants to use music videos to promote them. This is a problem because then it would reach too many people, even people who had no need for them. Synners gives you a very person-friendly technological atmosphere and tons of action. Cadigan uses this plot to bring in an intriguing and very technology based theme. She also uses an element of mystery into the book to grab and keep the readers attention. Synners is a great read for anyone who is the least bit interested in technology and mystery. Cadigan does a great job of keeping the book interesting. If you do chose to read this book make sure you are ready for a confusing ride through the minds of many different characters and character-types.
Rating: 
Summary: Forget Gibson.
Review: Synners has got to be one of my top five favorite books of all time. I've read it several times just for the sheer pleasure. Her ability to weave together the lives of several characters is nothing short of amazing. Her understanding of the effects of technology on the mass populace is spot-on. Forget Gibson, I hold this book to be the shining example of 'cyberpunk'.
Rating:
Summary: A world not too far removed from present times
Review: The line between technology and humans is very slim in a future where an online hardcore of individuals who live in a virtual world invite individuals to change. Anticipate complexity, depth, and a world not too far removed from present times, where a future society becomes hooked on technology, even for its identity.
Rating: 
Summary: Descriptions of a drug trip instead of real science fiction.
Review: This a long, tedious novel written by a very amateur author who has no clue about her subject matter. It is obvious she knows nothing about computers, hackers, programmers, or systems. Instead of a plot, we get over four hundred pages of scenes that can only be described as a cross between a drug trip and a warped dream. And somehow, the characters in the novel use these drug trips to create music videos and fight computer viruses. The book has other problems as well, including one of time. You never know how much time has passed from one scene to the next. In the middle of the book everything gets so boring and pointless that even the author throws her hands in the air and presses fast-forward for a few months, as the discovery of brain socket technology turns into a popular business for music videos. In the first 300 pages of the book, the author tortures us by opening each chapter inside another character's mind, but you don't get to find out which mind until several pages have gone by, so you're not really sure who she's talking about. The end result is one long boring disaster.
Rating:
Summary: a 400+ page waste of time
Review: This book is awful. The writing is bad, the plot is thin, the characters are underdeveloped. Synners had potential, but ruined it with pages and pages of dream-type sequences and unexplained ramblings. There were so many characters that it was ridiculous to keep track of them all. Important events were skipped over and not explained at all, substituted with phrases resembling "a few days later...everything was fine." I do not recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: a 400+ page waste of time
Review: This book is awful. The writing is bad, the plot is thin, the characters are underdeveloped. Synners had potential, but ruined it with pages and pages of dream-type sequences and unexplained ramblings. There were so many characters that it was ridiculous to keep track of them all. Important events were skipped over and not explained at all, substituted with phrases resembling "a few days later...everything was fine." I do not recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Maybe it was just me...
Review: Well, it looks like I am a minority here. Yes, that's right, I really didn't enjoy this book. To be honest with you, I only got to the page 200. I consider myself a sci-fi fan. I've read (and loved) all Stephenson's books, Philip K. Dick, Nylund, Bruce Sterling, and many others. There are very few authors that I don't like, and thinking about it, that was my mistake. A lot of people compare Cadigan with Gibson, and Neuromancer was one book that I really couldn't get through. The problem with Synners in my opinion is that it tries to do too much at the same time. Timeline is confusing, the characters are introduced a dozen at a time, and after 200 pages there was a lot of descriptions about not so important situations and very little was told about the plot and how the different threads related to each other. Characters are very poorly developed. Visual Mark, who is supposed to be important, has no clear identity, and other characters that could be interesting, like the boy who could read and learnt Chinese, are just forgotten. There are a few cool ideas in this book. The brain sockets and the whole idea about hi-tech music industry are interesting concepts, but they are just not enough when compared to the silly ideas like the nonsense hit and run, the exaggerated drug apologies and things like that man with the 'graphic changing' cape, etc. Bottom line, I wouldn't recommend this book.
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