Rating: 
Summary: Deserves(/Demands) a Second Read!
Review: I bought this book two years ago. Put it down. Came back to it and started re-reading from the beginning... This book is pure cyberpunk, and awesome! It twists your mind! Read it, and then read it again!
Rating:
Summary: Deserves(/Demands) a Second Read!
Review: I bought this book two years ago. Put it down. Came back to it and started re-reading from the beginning... This book is pure cyberpunk, and awesome! It twists your mind! Read it, and then read it again!
Rating: 
Summary: What a rip
Review: I don't understand all the hype for a book that is merely an embellishment on the authors short story "Death in the Promissed Land" published in 1995. Are sci-fi readers supposed to be endowed with short memories.
Rating: 
Summary: Hey. . . I liked it.
Review: I have to start off by saying that the cyberpunk genre is not my cup of tea (pun intended); however, due to a course I am taking in college, I have read a few books from this genre. Out of the books I have read, I would have to say that Pat Cadigan's Tea from an Empty Cup was by far my favorite. This story is centered on two female heroes, Yuki, a Japanese woman, and Konstantin, a homicide detective. These women are trying to uncover the answer to the mysterious death of a man found killed while locked in a virtual reality parlor. The tough part for the two women is that in the Artificial Reality everything everybody says is a lie, which makes it hard to find out the truth and solve the murder.
This book was very easy to understand even for someone just getting into cyberpunk novels. I found the book very entertaining and hard to put down. The ending was a bit confusing, but all in all the book was very good. Put this book on your cyberpunk bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: Hey. . . I liked it.
Review: I have to start off by saying that the cyberpunk genre is not my cup of tea (pun intended); however, due to a course I am taking in college, I have read a few books from this genre. Out of the books I have read, I would have to say that Pat Cadigan's Tea from an Empty Cup was by far my favorite. This story is centered on two female heroes, Yuki, a Japanese woman, and Konstantin, a homicide detective. These women are trying to uncover the answer to the mysterious death of a man found killed while locked in a virtual reality parlor. The tough part for the two women is that in the Artificial Reality everything everybody says is a lie, which makes it hard to find out the truth and solve the murder.
This book was very easy to understand even for someone just getting into cyberpunk novels. I found the book very entertaining and hard to put down. The ending was a bit confusing, but all in all the book was very good. Put this book on your cyberpunk bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: Please do not waste your time....
Review: I know what you're looking for... the atmosphere of a Gibson, the satire of a Stephenson, the dense prose of a Sterling.Well, you won't find it here. "Tea from an Empty Cup" by Pat Cadigan - boring, rambling, and, when any detail rises above the morass, derivative. Plot? The only way I could tell when it ended was that the throbbing in my temples stopped. I really regretted spending the time and money - rarely happens to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Ok, a little thin
Review: I like Cyberpunk, and books like Snow Crash. If I could have a hundred variations of Snow Crash, I'd buy them all. This book tried, but really didn't make it. It was entertaining, but not something I'm likely to read more than maybe twice. To contrast, I've re-read Snow Crash at least 25 times. You decide.
Rating:
Summary: Like AR itself -- entertaining, if insubstantial
Review: I read this book in one sitting -- yes, it's short, but it also had enough narrative drive to compel me to finish it right away. A good story, but I had the feeling the author was capable of more, and the customer comments seem to confirm that impression. (I'm pretty tired of the trend in "literary" science fiction where AR has to be married exclusively with things Japanese as well. What's the point of being in the future if we can't have a little innovation?) Still, it reads well, and isn't nearly as confusing as the plot summaries seem to indicate. Unfortunately, Cadigan's other novels appear to be out of print.
Rating: 
Summary: A Bad Dream
Review: I really hated this book. Usually when I dislike a book this much I just stop reading it, but I continued to expect that what I was reading was the set-up and that then the book would start. It has absolutely no character development. It consists almost entirely of dream-like disjointed, unconnected vignettes. So it doesn't have a story either! You couldn't like or dislike any of the characters because you learned absolutely nothing about them. I also thought that it was scientifically implausible, e.g. an 'artifical reality body suit' that could simulate the experience of breaking bones. It purports to be a detective story where the action takes place in "Artificial Reality" (AR), but I think that, at best, it was Artificial Lucid Dreaming (ALD). Or, perhaps it was mostly a full sensory electronic game and I certainly felt like I was reading a detailed description of someone's play of a video game - even more boring than watching someone play or playing a game yourself.
Rating:
Summary: The ending...
Review: I think I understood the ending. After spending the bulk of the novel exploring a Virtual Reality that is peopled by shallow holiday seekers defined by self-gratification, and that is only accessible through an incredibly intrusive and commercialized interface, we finally come to the ending. For the first time in the novel we meet characters who try to create something wholly new and original in the Virtual Reality. And they do it by sacrificing their egos, and their claim to individual gratification in favor of a communal creation.
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