Microserfs

Rating:
Summary: Contemporary story about living in the 90's
Review: Douglas Coupland is a master storyteller for the 90's. Microserfs is a biting commentary on our computer culture and what happens to our interpersonal relationships when they become bogged down in a morass of technology and silicone chips. A revealing look at Microsoft and the daily grind of computer programmers, Coupland takes you on a Pentium-powered ride as the main character and his friends leave the giant and strike out on their own, starting a computer software company. The characters are clearly non-stereotypical and whimsical, with unique world views, and opinions on everything from snack food to women's liberation extremeism. Often profound, and possibly prophetical dialog is both stimulating and thought provoking. Coupland contrasts this 90's generation with the main character's father who has been fired from his longtime job at IBM due to downsizing, and who subsequenty joins the band of young entrepreneurs in their quest to corner a specialized market of the software industry. As in his prior books, Generation X and Shampoo Planet, Coupland displays an uncanny sense of who we are and where we are all headed.

Rating:
Summary: A great book but a tad too loosely structured.
Review: A great read. However, I'm afraid that most reviewers, in their enthusiasm for the first real book about "us", overlook the fact that this book reads like an early draft. You can't help but come away with the impression that Coupland simply stopped once he had the skeleton of a decent book, and missed the chance to rise to the next level (i.e. Atlas Shrugged, Snow Crash, Ender's Game et al)

Rating:
Summary: Inciteful look at High Tech Geekdom
Review: Being within the tech world, I find that this book is definitely a refelction of what's going on. If you are planning on working for Microsoft or any company that deals with intellectual property, read this to find out what you're in for

Rating:
Summary: This Is an Excellent Book
Review: I enjoyed how Coupland present the concept of the "nerd" to his book. Also, the way he writes and expresses his ideas in the book. Who is your Bill Gates? I think that everyone should read this book, even by just glancing through it they will automatically get hooked on it

Rating:
Summary: Crude, yet inspirational.
Review: This was a great book, one of the best I have ever read. The best part about it is that the characters are well developed, funny, and stand out in such a way that you can be surprised, scared, or happy when they do things throughout the book. I considered this book to be mostly a satire and humor piece of writing. The writing style was intentionally humerous, and I liked that, even though most people would probably say that it isn't the best writing a book could have. Overall, I highly reccomend it obviously, that's why I gave it the magic 10. You'll find it funny, inspirational, and harsh

Rating:
Summary: Story goes south when the characters do.
Review: I really wanted to like this book. I've spent enough time working in high tech purgatory to get a tremendous kick out of the first section of "Microserfs" -- when Our Heroes are working for the Evil Empire (oops, I mean Microsoft!) and seeking freindship and love with their fellow coders. It's tight, amusing as hell (especially the flat food episode), and unexpectedly poignant. However, once the characters pack up and move to California to start their own high-tech firm, the story goes flat. Conflict never arises; crises seem to resolve themselves; setbacks and failure are minimal; and a bunch of bright, egotistical, socially unskilled misfits live in constant contact for 16 hours a day without fighting like a bagful of cats. Having worked at several high-tech startups myself, I just did't buy it. It doesn't happen that way in the real world. (At this point, I realized that I was reading a work of science fiction, suspended my disbelief, and finished the book.) To sum up, I'd give the first section of the book a 9 and the second section a 5 -- leading to an overall rating of 7. Coupland really seemed to be on to something initially, but could not rise above superficiality and slickness. It's another "Generation X," this time for the cyber-geek set.

Rating:
Summary: If you're not a techie, keep on browsing
Review:

In light of the predominantly positive reviews I've read about this book, I almost regret not liking it.

Copeland has done a masterful job of illustrating the techie "geek" lifestyle and perhaps this characteristic still makes the book a worthwhile read for non-techies such as myself. Yet many of the reviews I've seen to this point were written by people who identify with the characters Copeland has created. Such mutual experiences could very easily lead a reader to enjoy an otherwise unexceptional novel. Judging from the popularity of characters as diverse as Huckleberry Finn and Bilbo the Hobbit, however, these mutual experiences should not be prerequisites for potential readers.

Unfortunately, while the reader gets a very detailed understanding of the techie lifestyle, Copeland's techies are not involved in a particularly engrossing story. As a non-techie reader, I found the novel amusing in two regards: 1)there are a number of hilarious observations made by the novel's central character, Dan, and 2)at times, the sheer geekiness of certain actions or observations was astounding.

However, once I sit down to read a book, I prefer to read something with a rather unpredictable plot of some kind (and the makeshift ending of this book does not qualify as unpredictable). Microserfs has some brilliant character sketches but, in the end, lacks the suspense and plot-twists of first-rate literature. With Copeland's character development abilities, he could have done so much more with this book.

Rating:
Summary: This has to be a classic of our time.
Review: The "Microserfs" of the title relates to a group of programmers who are presented with an opportunity to leave the secure confines of their employer, Microsoft, and to venture into the realms of possibly having a life. Through the hilarious journal of Dan, we learn of what constitutes the life of a geek programmer - which is not much, a fact that Dan is all too aware of and which vaguely troubles him as he goes through the days "one life of bug-free code at a time".

The book accurately reflects the modern-day scenario of work without life to achieve the concept of security, which never actually exists. The situation of Dan and his colleagues is neatly contrasted with that of his father, who has just been made redundant from IBM.

As the circumstances of Dan and his friends evolve, aspects of "having a life" gradually enter the equation - from Dan's relationship with Karla, a fellow coder, to his parents and the emerging importance of their role as well as that of his friends.

I laughed aloud many times whilst reading this clever, funny and moving book. Amidst the poignancy, it leaves us with a note of hope and reminds us that technology can ultimately be to our benefit and that the human spirit can prevail against its enslavement.

Pam Forsyt

Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: Basically, this book gets by on the strength of its characters alone. The characters are wonderful, the plot is flimsy, and the little touches Coupland throws in to show computer nerd culture are obviously fake, to anyone who's actually lived in Silicon Valley...he should've done more research...still as pure entertainment, it's great.

Rating:
Summary: Whoa!
Review: As a true (computer) geek, my fiction reading has included Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, and Frank Herbert. Oh yes, I read an Ayn Rand book once. I don't get around to reading fiction much. It was recommended to me by a friend who only recently began into the technology foray. Throughout my reading, she kept asking, "Is it true? Is it true?" Oh yes. I'm buying it for my system administrator friend for Xmas, which means I *really* must like it as I'll have to do double-duty to cover time lost as he actually spends time reading fiction (I've read three books in the past year, and that's three more than him). My hope is that the ending moves him as much as it did me. Computer geeks don't cry. But I did.