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Microserfs

Microserfs

List Price: $21.00
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: boring and whiny
Review: I can't stand this Coupland guy, this stupid excuse for a writer has delivered one of the whiniest books about generation X that I have ever read. It seems that all his characters do is worry and bitch and pretend that everything was perfect in the 50's and 60's, and all this generation can do is sit around, whine and maybe if their lucky, find their inner child. Oh and another thing, don't worry about having to have extensive technical knowledge to read this book, Coupland seems to only know three computer terms: C++, OOP, and internet, everything else is just a bunch of psychobabble/sociology B.S.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: totally plausible
Review: One thing that struck me about this book was the characters: although it was written in the first-person point of view (Dan's), his friends all seemed to be like people we know in real life. I read this book in a day, and with my short attention span, that's the highest compliment I can give it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Douglas Coupland caputres the spirit of the '90s once again
Review: Beginning with Generation X Douglas Coupland has worked to capture the 90's in capulses of entertanment. Profound, vibrant characters allow the reader to enter into their world to examine them and possibly see what they are really about.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The first of a new genre
Review: Microserfs embarks on what I believe to be a coming genre of fiction. It plainly describes the exploits of a bunch of geeks in silicon valley without resorting to any stereotyping. It's success lies in the fact that all the characters are people that some of us know very well and are at times even reflections of ourselves. Nevertheless, I look forward to other authors like Coupland who explore the world of computers and geeks in a believable fashion.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A novel that really understands us geeks
Review: I'd read Coupland's _Generation X_ on the recommendation of my girlfriend, who loved it--it described much of her and her friends' lives perfectly. It didn't do much for me personally, but I figured I'd give Coupland a second chance because she liked him so much.

And along comes _Microserfs_, excerpted in _Wired_ (how could that be anything but a good sign?). I immediately bought a copy and...it was glorious. It was *us*; it was everyone who ever had an 8-bit computer and knew all of the PEEKs and POKEs; it was everyone who looked up from coding to notice that 14 hours had somehow passed and the bottle of Coke next to the computer had gone lukewarm and totally flat. Early on, one of the characters is mentioned as having a Lotus Jazz poster hanging in his room--and that's what sealed it. Anyone who understands why that's funny is one of us, and Douglas Coupland became one of us with _Microserfs_ just as surely as he became a Gen-Xer with his earlier work.

If ROT13 or CALL -151 or " 'Magic' and 'More magic' " mean anything to you, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy right now.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My first bite and I already want more!
Review: Microserfs is my first crack at Douglas Coupland, and I am already HOOKED! He has revealed my life,as well as my boyfriend and his friend's lives! It's crazy the coincidences. I have spent a week grieving the characters....I miss them! I want more! I miss Michael and his flat foods, and Karla's revelations. It made me cry twice, and laugh the rest of the time...out loud even! I am a fan already!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Honestly the most worthwhile book to read of this decade!
Review: This book will make you think. It poses the reader with a new perspective regarding human behavior. Coupland has created a beautiful cast of characters which illustrate that man is constantly in search of faith. We see it in how the Microserfs revere Bill Gates as a God, how Todd is so determined to adopt an ideology, and how Micheal CAN in fact love. This book will leave you feeling whole. And it is by no estimation a "trekky" book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Realism in a Virtual World
Review: Living in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and having visited The Bomb Shelter a few times, and having family that live outside Seattle, I can attest that Douglas Coupland has captured nuances of people's lives were previously a part of their collective subconscious. The book was a wonderful tale, and it made me miss my "geek" roots (having left a mostly scientific education in favor of a more creative one, like Susan) In short, You need to read this book if you can remember the Family Ties episode when Alex was caught doing drugs.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Searching for your soul in Silicon Valley...
Review: As would be expected from Douglas Coupland, ironic and off-kilter humor abounds in this entertaining story of the adventures of a group of 'Microserfs' who leave Seattle to create a start-up in Silicon Valley. Taking the form of the diary of one of the programmers, Coupland's observations about the life - physical, emotional and mental - of his programmer protagonists, written in Coupland's characteristic deadpan voice dripping with GenX irony, are as often thought-provoking as they are funny. In capturing the frenetic and uncertain atmosphere surrounding a software startup, Coupland's book has similiarities to Po Bronson's 'The First $20 Million Is Always The Hardest', which was published later. But the real core of Coupland's story - as always - is the search for meaning in the final decade of the twentieth century. Coupland's tale ultimately has a humanistic, emotional and bittersweet edge to it that resonates with the reader long after the laughter and smirks have faded away. An excellent book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So close to perfect, yet so far away
Review: Amazingly amusing throughout 99% of the pages, the ending serves to send the book tumbling down to an 8, being worse than predictable. Apart from this, Microserfs is a well-written, postmodern view at a world obsessed with computerized relationships. The fragments from the main characters' database of thoughts sends the reader reeling into strange rows of associations and adds a dimension of openess and awareness to the book that would have been impossible to express otherwise. These fragments are the counterparts of the small narratives in Generation X, but possess a freedom and life of their own that makes them genuinely unique.
Having seen Douglas Coupland live, I am also pleased (and relieved) to find once again that he is much more coherent on paper than in person.


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