White, Corey J. Repo Virtual. Tor, 2020.
In an interview, Corey J. White denies that William Gibson’s Neuromancer was an “inspiration” for Repo Virtual but says that Gibson’s novel was a “touchstone” for it. That seems to be a distinction without a difference, because the influence of Gibson is everywhere present in White’s novel. Set in a future multicultural South Korean city dominated by big tech corporations, the world of the novel certainly resembles Gibson’s Chiba City with echoes of his Sprawl. His hacker JD is a less conflicted character than Gibson’s Case, but they are both denizens of a tech underworld with some dangerous antagonists. The central caper of White’s story is a burglary to steal (perhaps repossess) a computer virus from a corporate mogul. The virus turns out to be an emergent strong AI that takes part in its own kidnapping. Along the way there is some lively discussion of the Turing test and what it takes to qualify as a person. There is also some fun future tech. I especially liked the robotic police dogs. They are not always good dogs. ( )

From where I sit, it seems that cyberpunk was replaced by steam punk, which became another form of cosplay, or in other words, just another excuse for the young folks to dress up and perhaps try on a corset. Anyhow, I'm sure there is more to it than that, I just don't pay that much attention. When I was a just plain punk, interactions with screens was limited to going to a seedy theatre that mixed art films with grindhouse. Or an all-night party space that showed rock videos before there was an MTV. In 2020 Cyberpunk has “chosen” to focus on certain aspects of a particular form of cyberpunk like the Cyberheist, which undoubtedly has somewhat come to pass (yet also still looks like a potential future). The wider themes of Cyberpunk still resonate and that's why cyberpunk still exists and is being written it just looks differently because it looks forward to the potential future with an eye to current trends. All the examples about AI, interconnectivity and virtual worlds half exist now. They don't really in the way they do in most cyberpunk, but we still are looking forward to those. We are also looking forward to the new tech emerging. Then there is the other side of cyberpunk, the literary styles and examination of the political/social aspect of the genre which doesn't go away. That's why there are so many punk subgenres now (Cyberheist is just another of one of those). They all explore different tech potentials with the same principles as steampunk.

“Repo Virtual” essentially looks at the roots of the current revolution occurring in AI and uses the cyberpunk mould to explore the far flung potential of that in the way Gibson and Sterling did with networked computers. If anything the genre becomes more prescient, along with all SF but specifically cyberpunk, as technological advances have exploded in the last 35 years and we begin to consider the social ramifications of these technologies as they mature.



SF = Speculative Fiction. ( )

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Quote:

I hate money, I despise it. It has twisted a beautiful and creative species and turned us into a ravenous, all-consuming virus.

Review:
Repo Virtual was a very interesting book that was very easy to read and become a part of. I enjoyed the world, once I figured out what was going on. It also has a very diverse cast of characters and the story is fun and interesting, too.

Repo Virtual is about JD, who works as a Repoman for a virtual online game. His brother asks JD to do a special Repo job, which is much more like stealing than normal. For some reason, JD actually does the job, because family is family. It started complicated, when it was just stealing a piece of software from one of the most powerful companies in the world. It got even more complicated when that software ended up being the first sentient AI.

Julius Dax (JD) is not the most likable main character. He doesn't make the best decisions. He doesn't have the best outlook on life. And in some respects, he just happens to know people in the right place at the right time that he ends up the lead character in this story. Yet he has a lot of traits that do make him interesting in his own right. Like the fact that he is disabled because his he took part in some riots years ago, and he never had the money to fix the problem. So he lives in pain and with a limp. This job he takes is supposed to give him enough money to fix the problem in his leg.

I did enjoy the world, once I figured it out. But it took me a lot longer to actually figure out what was going on than I would have liked. I don't know if it is because I was distracted when I started reading this (I was on an hour long bus ride), or what. I just could not figure out what was virtual reality and was was reality. And then I learned that most of the book was augmented reality, which made things make a lot more sense. It also took me quite a while to figure out that this took place in Korea. In part because I'm not familiar with Songdo and didn't know it was a real place. And that's just some of the issues I had.

Repo Virtual takes place in a near future world where capitalism has run rampant and Corporations have near slave labor in the search of more of the all mighty money. People just accept that they are expected to work and work, and if something happens to them they are out of luck. There are even factions looking to stop capitalism, which is who JD ends up working with to steal what turns out to be an AI.

This was a bit of a slow start, because the book didn't really start until about 30% in. It was interesting before then, but once it started it went off with a bang. You just know that a heist starting off in the first quarter of the book is going to end poorly, somehow. In this case, it is the dilemma of how do you hand over a sentient being to someone who doesn't care about it and just wants to use it? There is also the dilemma that while JD is trying to find this out, both the people he stole the AI from and the people he was supposed to give it to now want him dead. And he can't just handle this on his own.

Repo Virtual was fun the entire time with a lot of cute moments. Especially when the AI was trying to figure out if it was sentient and what that means. I enjoyed myself a lot.

ARC received from Tor Books on Edelweiss. This did not affect my review. Thank you! ( )