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Summary: B-B-B-BiiiiLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Microserfs is a must read for anyone employed by Microsoft, Intel, Apple, IBM, or any other "Sili-cawn" Valley technology firm (or, even if you just simply own a computer)! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by this reader. I think Coupland did a great job tossing in cheezy 90's lingo and some hip technology lingo (which really helps define the characters). A little bit of drama, some sappy parts, and a whole lot of comedy! I laughed out loud numerous times reading this book and by the end, I wanted more and more! I wanted to know more about Dan and Karla (their deep delving discussions on the body's memory bank), Todd and Dusty (their iron pumping, flexing & posing), Bug (the super-coder), Susan (Chyx leader, why don't they have tampons at Fry's?), Michael (and his two-dimensional foods), Ethan (the Silicon Valley veteran with the "expensive" watch), Abe (and his trampoline & bulk foods from Cosco), Mom (*sniff*), Dad (too old for a start-up company, or is he?), and even Misty (will the weight ever go down?)! The story is simple: friendship is more valuable than money....right? Well, I think Copeland has a good thing with this story. Read it, you won't be disappointed!
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Summary: The best book I've ever read.
Review: I make every guy I date read this book.
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Summary: It will be dated, but that will only increase the nostalgia
Review: I came at this one almost exactly the same way that I did with Amy Thomson's The Color of Distance. It was also a AlexLit recommendation, I blanched at the length, it was an author unfamiliar to me. But as soon as I started it, from page 1, rather than the 50 pages it took me to get into the Thomson, I was hooked. Coupland is the voice of our generation, whatever our generation is: the first group of people to work with computers. This book is a codification of that heady feeling. It praises geekdom, while also shining a blinding white light at the superficiality of this most materialistic culture. It also gets underneath the surface of high tech low-lifes (and I don't mean the cyberpunks--these are the geeks, the ones who stare at a monitor all day and all night, who never have time to make the score as a Gibson character) to show that even they are still human. Even geeks love. If you prick them, even they bleed. The cultural references here are overwhelming. I predict in the future people will use this as a nostalgic device at parties. You can pull up almost any page and find enough brand name and object references to stun even the most jaded of computer nerds. To finish it off with, Coupland here explains his concept of Lego as the ultimate geek toy, something he has elaborated on recently in Wired magazine. This is not just for those people who wonder what life as a Microsoft employee is like. While Coupland captures the feeling for a certain segment early in the book, it is only a portion of what he's casting his net for. What he is really trying to do is show you what life for the young, computer literate college-aged is like, where the world is your oyster, and you prefer pizza.
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Summary: Bringing up nostalgia for the times past...
Review: I tried to read this novel while living in NY and having to deal with tough economy and job market for computer science positions at the time. Long story short, I didn't like Microserfs back then, the plot seemed underdeveloped the characters shallow and the writing too perky.
It was not until I have moved to Seattle, the home of The Beast where I have started to like Microserfs. It is important to be able to identify with the characters in this novel and therefore I recommend it for most computer professionals, especially those who had the chance to participate in the dotcom era. It is an enjoyable read, suitable even for those with shortest attention spans as it is written in a form of a diary with entries ranging from 1 sentence to about 10 pages at most. It's a light-hearted novel and yet it addresses some important points everyone should pay attention to while growing up, mainly existential angst, love, and the "right" priorities.
It is a fun book to read. It's no Shakespeare, but it'll do.
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Summary: This was a fun book.
Review: I can't understand why some reviewers didn't like this book. I thought it was very clever, a great homage to young adulthood and the late twenties of our lives that are filled with endless questions about life, death and individuality. The characters were these witty, hyper intelligent geeks, who spent the duration of the book searching for self definition within the constructs of machinery and artificial intelligence and oftentimes, coming up with great revelations about the human species and world around them. Throughout the book, the characters question the possibility of man's melding with machine. In the end, a very human, emotional quality emerges through endless hours of coding. Overall, I recommend this book to anyone who appreciates the dynamic evolution of the computer industry. This is a very fun book.
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Summary: The 90s - An Era of Software
Review: This is a veritable time capsule for those people who lived in software development environments in the 1990s. There are points in this book, after rereading it in 2003, that just make me think "Yeah, I remember that sort of stuff". I wasn't a Microsoft employee, but... things happened then that affected everyone in the industry. In one of the chapters, Coupland even refers to Microsoft as an 'office supply company'. This book is about being a techie in the 90s, and having dreams and aspirations of being more. It's about layoffs at IBM, it's about life as a developer/debugger... It's a lot like 'Pirates of Silicon Valley', only personalized to a real human being who lived in that era - a person who lived, who loved, who had a family, and who dealt with life as a techie. The 90s were good years to be in the software industry. I give the book 5 stars based on my perspective. Your mileage may vary, but it's a classic on my shelf that makes me remember how things were.
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Summary: Nothing To Do With Hi-Tech
Review: This book is just a soap-opera that has nothing to do with the supposed setting and characters of the book. I had a hard time doing it, but I read the whole book just to see if it did actually ever get into anything to do with the things it talks about on the cover or in the first couple of pages; it doesn't. The clown author just wrote a book about clueless/lifeless characters and gave them jobs in hi-tech to attract an audience. The soap-opera story isn't even original (in fact, it reminds me of Danielle Steele's work). The author continuously reveals his lack of knowledge of the hi-tech industry in the few mentions he gives the subject. If you bought this book, I feel sorry for you. I received it as a gift and had a hard time not telling the person how little I appreciated it.
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Summary: Abrupt
Review: This book was very well thought out, and had a plethora of information throughout. unfortunately the story was kind of left behind. and only a few different thoughts were kept through. and at the end every single thing is just thrown at you. don't get me wrong, i liked the book, in fact i liked it a lot. it's just i thought the ending could have been more of an epilogue rather than this ending, that in fact didn't have anything to do with the story or the rest of the people in it. but i do understand that he wanted to find jed, and he did, so i suppose i should be happy for him. but, he doesn't exist.
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Summary: Too Much License
Review: I was given this book because I am a programmer. Unfortunately, that is keeping me from totally enjoying it. Coupland gets many of the details of programmers lives correct, the crucial exception being when he actually attempts to write about programming. The fictional product the characters are working on simply could not exist, especially during the era in which the story is set. A small detail maybe, but enough of an annoyance to ruin the suspension of disbelief necessary for stories to work. As a result, if you're thinking of buying this book for a programmer, I suggest you look at some O'Reilly titles instead.
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Summary: Excellent read for the hardcore geek or techno-enthusiast
Review: This book opened the door for me to all of the great Coupland works, however I must say that wituout a doubt this is his best. This book appeals to me on many levels, but the irony and sarchasm is just over the top! I've re-read it several times now just to catch more of the witty banter that makes this book a great fun read. Being a fan of the .com era and the happenings in Silicon Valley, this book had a little of everything I look for in a good read. Definitely reccomended.
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