Rating: 
Summary: Intense
Review: This is one of the first books where I really wanted the "heroes" (Dufresne, Jane, etc.) to die. I was not amused by any of their antics, and really wanted them to fail. Really strange feeling...but it's a good read. Only 3 stars though....
Rating: 
Summary: Readable
Review: Hey Matt, did you go to Stuyvesant High School? And did you have Mr. McCourt as an English teacher? Let me know, dude.
Rating:
Summary: Ruff is an excellent writer but a poor philosopher.
Review: Matt Ruff was obviously shaken from his eco-socialistic foundations upon reading Atlas Shrugged and decided (as so many people do) to defend his views against Ayn Rand's. He failed to do this effectively, succeeding only in pointing out the little inconsistencies and imperfections in the woman and her views. A better thinker would have met her with different arguments and I thought this was such a waste because the idea of the Rand Genie was brilliant. This is why I give the book three stars. Having said that, I must say that Ruff is an awesome writer. He has tremendous skill with words and an uncanny talent for plot imagination, especially from a comedic standpoint. [SPOILERS:] The guy's response to Meisterbrau's fin in the swimming pool and the scene where the world falls back onto Atlas' shoulders had me rolling on the floor with laughter. Worth a read just for the humor, but don't expect deep philosophical thought just because Ayn Rand's name appears on the back cover.
Rating: 
Summary: Richard Condon meets Kurt Vonnegut
Review: At the risk of expressing a monority opinion, I laughed out loud a lot of times reading this novel--one of the funniest things I've ever read. It's dense plot-wise, a la Condon, with characters reminiscent of his earlier stuff. But it's also torque-y a la Vonnegut. Somehow, Ruff "sees" people at their most primitive levels and describes them to a tee. Situations arise that I'd love to have been able to think up myself. No wait a minute--I ~did~ while I was in college. *That's* why I liked this so much! Ah--understanding from writing reviews. I knew they were useful for something.
Rating:
Summary: It's not your father's psuedo-SF social satire eco-comedy.
Review: Well, let's see. How can you possibly describe a book featuring a 181 year-old female U.S. Civil War veteran, a book gleefully unwilling to explain how such a person could end up still alive in the year 2023? A book detailing an extremely selective plague, wiping out the world's black population, only to be replaced by jive-talking Amos and Andy robotic equivilents? A book following the exploits of a submarine-based eco-terrorist team, floating through the world's oceans in a home-brewed high-tech submersible, hunted by the world's nicest billionaire industrialist? A book featuring the arch-conservative musings of author Ayn Rand's holographic likeness in a jar? Wait a minute, I just did. At any rate, think of this book as a demented Neal Stephenson on acid. On top of a bedrock of solid characterizations and a fully coalesced storyline, Ruff constructs some of the strangest situations, oddest segues and wackiest future forcasts in recent memory. It may get a bit confusing at times, and Ayn does tend to grate on about the glories of U.S. mass consumption, but trust me...it's a G.A.S.
Rating:
Summary: Some of The Sum of Its Parts
Review: (Spoilers, beware!) Matt Ruff spins an almost Dickensonian texture in his futuristic views of New York, in his eccentric people, his monstrous superskyscrapers, his evil computer genius and henchmen. In fact, the book*s richness is its downfall, ideas are raised only to be lost in the byzantine plots. Two major plot lines twist around each other without quite connecting--Philo Dufresne, one of the last black men on earth, commands a pink-and-green sub, setting out to rescue the last ring-tailed lemurs on earth; and Harry Gant, who builds the mile-high buildings as well as Electric Negro servants, becomes the focus of a Disney computer*s hostile plans. The focus is ever shifting, somewhat disorienting. Odd details resonate like the elavator shafts of the monstrous buildings; plot points, such as a 181-year old woman, or a mutating shark who lives in Manhattan*s sewers, are left conviently unexplained. In truth I found the double plot confusing, even needless, despite the intriguing nature of the subs crew and mission, its non-violent terrorism. One major focus is the fact that the Black race has been wiped out by an unknown plague, but not an accidental one. This loss, of an entire people, is never fully plumbed, is offset by the creation of the Electric Negro, an android who is the perfect subservient, but proves to be far more insidious. Only the computer program the Eye of Africa gives any real sense of such a loss. The plot lines themselves wander, shift, jump, remininsce; more than once I had to backtrack to keep things straight. Worse, this book has the failing of an ambiguous ending of too many of its people. It is basically a *happy* ending, but is it wrong to ask what happened to the protagonists? In truth, the ideas could have and should have been broken up into two or even three novels; as it is, I get a glimpse of Grand amidst the Good.
Rating: 
Summary: Goofy Entertainment
Review: Recipe: Start with parody, stir in madcap; search the surreal cupboard, add everything plus the kitchen sink; light on the spices, you don't want much depth; toss sloppily. Result: An entertaining beach read with several tasty morsels (e.g. Abbie Hoffman trying to develop Ayn Rand's sense of humor), but you'll be hungry for some literary meat after an hour.
Rating:
Summary: A mad-cap joy ride through the future
Review: Although derivative of Stephenson and others who use the future to wildly satirize the present, Matt Ruff's "Gas, Sewer, Electic" is a lot of fun and a good, addictive read. The book manages to suck you into a world where random occurances that become a highly contrived (here it is not used derogatorily) plotline where shark-sightings, Earthquakes, the soul of Africa put on a computer and a green and pink polka-dotted submarine called "The Yabba-Dabba-Doo" not only are accepted, but actually make a modicum of sense. Yes, these things are funny. Yes, they're insane. But you'll laugh at them as you buy into them and find yourself enjoying the book.
Rating:
Summary: "Sirens of Titan" meets "Stand on Zanzibar"
Review: Ruff's sensibilites go a lot farther back than Snowcrash. This book resembles nothing so much as John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar, if it had been written by Kurt Vonnegut. It has been a long time since I read a book that was laugh out loud funny, but this book is.
Rating:
Summary: _Snowcrash_ lite - but in a good way
Review: I totally enjoyed this homage to the wily genre of eco-thrilling, econo-dystopic futuristic sf. This book not only invoked Neal Stephenson's _Zodiac_ and _Snowcrash_, but also Terry Pratchett's entire _Discworld_ series. In addition to the loopy - and well-researched - plot, Ruff provides us with prose that dances dextrously across the page. He delights in writing well, which is almost as important as writing Big Original Thoughts.
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