The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter

Attendees: A. T. Campbell, III; Shirley Crossland; Cyndi Dunn; Wes Dunn; Jeff Rupley; Willie Siros; Lori Wolf.

We gathered at Adventures in Crime & Space to discuss The Fortunate Fall, a recent cyberpunk first novel Although many of us had grown tired of cyberpunk in recent years, we found this story to be interesting and well-told. The characters, especially the narrator, were well-developed and the prose style was eminently readable. Carter’s speculations on the future of the Internet were well-conceived and plausible, and worked well as story elements.

There were a few problems. Some of us found the constant use of 20th Century popular culture references distracting and confusing, and we were worried that it would date the book. As Wes Dunn put it, “I don’t have a lot of connection with current culture.” And while the political climate in this near-future book was interesting, many of us couldn’t figure out how to “get there from here.”

We found this book to be a strong debut, and we recommend it to folks looking for intelligent science fiction.

— A. T. Campbell, III