Infinite Detail

This is a very high tech savvy book about a not-too-distant-future in which some group - not entirely specified - has got hold of and repurposed a computer virus of sorts that's able to gain access to any smart device connected to the internet, and then use that to launch a massive scale DDoS on, well, everything, but particularly the DNS servers and global internet backbone. The result is that every smart device from computers to toasters becomes dedicated to destroying the internet as we know it - and the entire world drops offline in a matter of hours.

Those of us who grew up before the internet may be thinking "so what", but Maughan illustrates very clearly that it's not a case to going back to the '70s or '80s. Now we're SO reliant on internet connectivity for absolutely everything from supply chains to traffic monitoring to emergency services that the world is brought to a screeching and very chaotic halt. Millions die, many of starvation since manufacturing and supply chains simply cease to function. A new generation starts to grow up without the constant connectivity we've become accustomed to. Most of the story revolves around The Croft, an artist/counterculture enclave in Bristol, England, where a small group tried to maintain an independent local network. The story touches on various members of The Croft both past and present, looking at their role in and reaction to the events that unfolded.

The writing is a bit dense and lecture-y at times, at one point an entire manifesto going on for multiple pages. It's absolutely very smart writing about some very potentially real possibilities, but not always presented in a very approachable way. Several of the characters are somewhat interesting, one of the most interesting being a gay love story, but the book fails to resolve most of the various characters' stories in any satisfactory way by the end - instead the characters seem to just wander off at the end of the book, their outcomes mostly unresolved and open-ended, or in some cases entirely forgotten (I'm looking at you, can-recycling-man). It felt as if the author was far more interested in the tech lessons he is delivering than the actual characters and their lives, which is unfortunate, because they could both have been interesting.