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Liked It “Good collection of short stories on Doctorow's familiar themes. The downside of such a collection of short stories is the thematic repetition. Though each is refreshing on its own, the stories get stale when read back-to-back. I recommend reading them interspersed with other works by different...” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“Good collection of short stories on Doctorow's familiar themes. The downside of such a collection of short stories is the thematic repetition. Though each is refreshing on its own, the stories get stale when read back-to-back. I recommend reading them interspersed with other works by different authors.”
Jon T wrote this review 6 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“i read another book by him and decided to read another one”
7r0yy wrote this review Wednesday, October 21 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Doctorow is a very good sci-fi writer. ”
Adam D wrote this review Wednesday, February 25 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This is an amazing book of short stories. Its interesting and never boring, its thoughtful and intelligent, and it really makes a statement both about the present and the future to come. Nanotechnology, Robotics, AI's, copy right control(maybe greed is a better word), online worker's rights, and personal health are all themes you will see in these stories. My two favorite stories in the collection of 6 are "Anda's Game" and "After the Seige". "Anda's Game" is on of Doctoro's plays on classic sci-fi titles. This time its a play on Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game". Its a story of Massive Multiplayer Online games such as World of Warcraft and City of Heros. Its about the newest frontier of sweatshop labor, and competition between rival online sweatshops. If the story just had these themes as well as tight and skillfull writing, it would be great. Its ampted up to another level by the addition of another dimension to this girl power character. She is fat (I could say it another more PC way, but I'm fat too and why beat around the bush) and her online exploits tie in with her unhealthy eating habbits and lack of exercise, as well as poor self-image. Its a very interesting story, that I really feel does justice to the namesake it springs from. My other favorite (amongs a batch of very good stories mite I say) is "After the Seige". This story on the surface has flavors of the Russian front of WWII, particularly the seige of Leningrad or the battle of Stalingrad. Yet when you look deepr it resonates also with the HIV V.S. Wealthy Western Corporations struggle you see in the African continent. Though I connected with "Anda's Game" on a more personal level, I felt a deeper social message resonating backward and forward in time from "After the Seige". So its a fine book of Post-Cyberpunk/Globalization fiction, and I highly recommend it to fans of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson .”
Jesse S wrote this review Sunday, May 4 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“"Ada's Game" is interesting but not all that engaging... I had read "When Sysadmins..." before, and love it already, but after reading "I, Row-boat" I am keeping this in my permanent collection. The best short story, and most awesome AI scifi scenario I've read in ages.”
Eris wrote this review Friday, April 18 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I've only read "After the Siege", and I really enjoyed it. I'm intrigued by the I,Robot and I, Rowboat, so I think I'll read them next.”
Lyssa wrote this review Wednesday, April 9 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Yeah, the short story thing. Some were good, some were nearly great, and some were kind of crappy. I appreciate that Doctorow has a gift for capturing the zeitgeist of today's technologies and projecting them just a little further into the future... but I didn't necessarily enjoy reading the results.”
emilysk wrote this review Monday, January 7 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This is one of the few short story collections where I can honestly say I enjoyed each story. There's lots in here, from zombies, to heroic system administrators, gamers, and sentient rowboats and reefs.”
DK Thompson wrote this review Thursday, August 9 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I’m not normally a reader of short story collections but seeing as how Doctorow seems to be the next best thing in Science Fiction, I thought I’d give “Over Clocked” a try. On finishing it, I realized why I don’t read short story collections.
Stuart Clark wrote this review Thursday, June 7 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
The problem is, short story collections inevitably end up being like CD’s. Sure, there’s one, maybe two great tracks on it, a few mediocre tracks and then some that are positively awful. Over Clocked suffers the same malady.
One of the strongest stories is “When Sysadmins ruled the world.” An interesting tale that describes how a technologically dependent world gets brought to its knees by rampant worms and viruses and how the system administrators (Sysadmins of the title) may be the only people skilled and tech-savvy enough to fight humanity’s corner.
Equally enjoyable is I robot. Winner of the 2005 Locus award and a finalist for the Hugo and British Science Fiction award in the same year. You’d expect for it to be a good read with those credentials.
Holding the middle ground for the book is Anda’s game – which will no doubt be a favorite with the gaming readers - and provides a virtual backdrop for the rich minority vs depressed minority scenario to literally be played out once more.
After the Siege, where the horrors of future war are exploited for entertainment value, also provides food for thought. One can’t help but think that this story might not be a statement about today’s news media.
I enjoyed all of these stories but then that’s where I ran into trouble. Perhaps in no other genre than speculative fiction does the phrase “Suspension of belief,” come into its own. Every author asks you to suspend your belief and go along for the ride, and for the majority of Over Clocked I was prepared to do that. Rampant computer viruses I can do. Robots I can do. Future war and gang warfare on the net I’m prepared to go along with. With I Row-Boat, Doctorow lost me.
Over Clocked’s subtitle is “Stories of future present.” Most of the stories seemed to be a reasonable extrapolation of science and technology today with a dark, dystopian slant, but I found sentient rowing boats and coral reefs a little beyond what I was prepared to accept. As a result, I just couldn’t get past the first five pages of I Row-Boat.
Similarly, I found the very short, short story (2 pages) Printcrime, equally hard to swallow.
Overall, I’d give Over Clocked a 3 out of 5 rating. Of the six stories contained within, there are a couple of gems, a couple of easy reads and a couple that I would skip if I had a “Next Chapter” button.
Maybe that’s a future present.
”
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