Rating: 
Summary: Great disappointment... and I'm not author's cousin
Review: This was quite a disappointment after reading all the great reviews here. The author starts off very laboriously trying to describe a cash-less, digital money system that the U.S. government implements.After 3 or more pondering chapters, the author then starts off on 14 or so... sub-plots... that go absolutely NOWHERE. You learn about a bunker in one chapter... and alot of its detail. Then you never see it again. Then... there's NO ENDING! The book is really short. Too short for all the sub-plots the author got started. You can read it quickly in one sitting. And last, when the author describes details, it shows that he is not specific. It's a 7 mm Remington with a 3 to 9 power scope. But you are not told what type of scope, etc. A gun guy would be disappointed. This carries through to many other objects being described. The only good points are the illustrations of the corrupt politicians and governmental agencies. The author does a good job of how they take advantage of people in their own command: double-crosses, threats, etc. All in all, a great disappointment. There could be a great book on this subject, but this is not it. Compared to Cryptominicon (sp?) or Unintended Consequences this book is a dud. John
Rating: 
Summary: What I had wanted, but not what I had hoped
Review: Well, Transfer came, got read in a few hours, and has been set aside. The story was more like several threads woven together at certain points. These threads follow the book's main character's as they face a nation which has decided to switch to an entirely digital currency--paper money and coin are no more. I bought the book because it seemed like it would provide an interesting, fresh look at the ramifications of a "cashless" society. And boy did it... it showed realisiticly how people might react to the new paradigm... and how those who accepted it would be likely to react to those who didn't. It also showed how circumstances and consequences would eventually force the system to be made mandatory; and yet how this system could be used to exert a level of control Orwell didn't even forsee. I got what i wanted to get out of the book in that respect. That said, I still think I paid too much for it; whle the story was OK, the proofing and editing of the book was atrocious. Normally, I can ignore this--one or two slip-ups won't kill me. But when it happens practically on every page, well, I get a little miffed. The font (yes, the font) started getting to me, and the sections of dialogue where the characters were thinking could be hard to identify because of it. Frequent grammatical errors such as forgetting quotation marks, starting an apparent new sentence in the middle of an old, or following an unusual punctuation style, made the book difficult to follow at times. Often you had to reread a paragraph to see who said it, and sometimes you just had to guess and move on. While the book lost a star due to the errors, it still would have only rated a 4, and that's probably generous. The story went into detail of the going-ons.. and background... for the cashless society. And while I liked some of the apparently-historical references to key legislative bills and such (drawing a stark picture of how close to reality the book could be,) I can pretty much see where the story is headed. Having gotten my "fresh look" at a cashless society, I have no incentive to buy the sequel when it comes out. If you're curious to see how a cashless society would look, give it a try. If the details and daily perspective of such doesn't interest you, I'd skip it... there's pretty much nothing else there, as apparently the good stuff is saved for the later books.
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