The Jazz

Rating:
Summary: Another Solid Read from Scott
Review: The Jazz
Melissa Scott

To paraphrase the San Francisco Chronicle review of David Mamet's latest film, Heist: The Jazz is a minor work by a major author, which is still better than most in a genre still seen as pulp fiction by most of the reading populous.

I've been a Scott fan for several years, starting with Trouble and Her Friends, which is still on of my favorite works by her along with The Shapes of their Hearts. In fact, The Jazz is an odd updated, yet more grounded re-conceptualization of Trouble.... The Jazz is an odd cop/detective chase story set in a not so distant future USA. Technology has developed in some fairly expected manners, as has corporations relationship with a society of consumers. The plot revolves around an entertainment conglomerates pursuit of a teen boy proto-hacker, who who accidentally stole a secret program from their networks, and a bad girl-turned-good creative programmer, who decides to help him fight the power.

Scott's strength in writing science fiction has been her focus on society and psychology, weaving stories based on the interplay between individual psyche, interpersonal relationships, and larger societal movements. Her visions of fantastic future technologies are vehicles for these elaborate tapestries; and while her imaginings are detailed and fascinating in their own right, they are never simple shiny baubles meant to mask a vacuum in plot or character development.

That said, in The Jazz, Scott's vision of the future is much closer to that of the present. And, the mundane character and simplicity of the technological future is paralleled in the characters and story. Instead of a more familiar future serving to make her characters more accesible and grounded in our present experience; the characters are simpler and less intriguing. In particular, Keyz, the plot's reason d'etre, seems to simply exist with no reason for us to be actually interested in him. I'm sure this was by design, but his construction only failed to hold my interest in one of the books major protagonists.

All criticism aside, this book is a great read and well worth the investment.

Rating:
Summary: Not that jazzy
Review: The premise is classic cyberpunk, but unfortunately Scott stops short of adding anything really new to the genre. Once the protagonist is 'taken down', one is left wondering why the solution hadn't been carried out in the first half of the book or at any one of the mind-numbing locales that the heroin drags us through. Not a bad read, but definitely look to Snow Crash or just about any William Gibson for groundbreaking stories.

Rating:
Summary: Not that jazzy
Review: The premise is classic cyberpunk, but unfortunately Scott stops short of adding anything really new to the genre. Once the protagonist is 'taken down', one is left wondering why the solution hadn't been carried out in the first half of the book or at any one of the mind-numbing locales that the heroin drags us through. Not a bad read, but definitely look to Snow Crash or just about any William Gibson for groundbreaking stories.

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: This book was fantastic.Melissa Scott puts so much detail in this book.Out of all the books that that she has wrote I think this ones the best.I do hope that Melissa Scott writes a sequal to The jazz.