| Title | : | Trouble and Her Friends |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0812522133 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780812522136 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 379 |
| Publication | : | First published May 1, 1994 |
| Awards | : | Lambda Literary Award Science Fiction/Fantasy (1995) |
India Carless, alias Trouble, got out ahead of the feds and settled down to run a small network for an artist's co-op.
Now someone has taken her name and begun to use it for criminal hacking. So Trouble returns. Once the fastest gun on the electronic frontier, she had tried to retire-but has been called out for one last fight. And it's a killer.
Trouble and Her Friends Reviews
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A pretty good cyberpunk story, read as part of my patented Cyberpunk Appreciation Program - or as some people call it...research.
I will warn that it starts really slow. I feel that the first couple chapters could probably be removed and sprinkled into the rest of the book as backstory and the whole thing would be stronger for it. -
Trouble and Her Friends is old school queer cyberpunk — enough said? It is a little on the slow side, but I found that the pacing worked for me: I needed to get to know Trouble (and, well, her friends), and get settled in the world and the old school view of the internet and how it works. I enjoyed the sheer number of queer characters a lot, although it was a little jarring to have a world where they’re clearly somewhat looked down on. From my comfortable position here, it feels like most things are pretty okay on that front.
Once you get a handle on the lingo, it’s a pretty easy read. It’s not hard to guess where certain plot threads are going — surprise! Cerise and Trouble reunite; they keep talking about Seahaven and its Mayor for a reason! — but it takes its sweet time in unwinding all of that. There’s no sudden jumps ahead without pausing to consider, and the characters typically do not do stupid unhelpful things that cause them more trouble. Each step is a step forward, more or less.
I really enjoyed visiting this world, even though it’s one that took its time. The details of the net, the brainworm, the way the characters could hack in a sort of virtual reality, were all fascinating — and so were their relationships and goals. Honestly, I was going to compare it to a sort of cowboy story for the internet before they wore white hats in the final section.
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian. -
rating: 4.5/5
There is just so much to think about/analyze with this book I'm not sure where to begin. I'll admit that I'm not familiar with cyberpunk, it has always been on my tbr lists but this is the first I've been able to get to it. Some other reviewers have said that this book borrows too much from other cyberpunk books but I wouldn't know, haven't read them yet.
That said, wow! I loved this ride! The descriptions and details of the world inside the net were so vivid it felt like I was inside it myself. All the actions, the cracking done inside made sense.
Also, the plot was fascinating, although I did figure a part of it out earlier than they did I still didn't get it quite right. The story takes us through multiple settings in the real world as well as on the net. In summary, Trouble left the underground cracking (hacking) world after a law was passed that would crack down on illegal activities on the net. In doing so she left her partner (cracking partner and lover) and friends, and disappeared. But three years later someone has stolen her name to do bad, bad things on the net. Now, law enforcement is chasing her and she has to find who is defaming her name before its too late.
I love the relationship between Cerise (the partner) and Trouble, especially when they are forced to work together again to find this newTrouble. They are both strong, independent, and capable women and the sparks fly like crazy! However, this is not a romance, it has a few relationship-y scenes but they are tertiary to the plot and everything else that makes up this novel. It also has two sex scenes that seem positively prudish compared to most what's out there. But still hot.
Published in 1994, this novel dates (especially the technology) 20 years, and yet there are many still relevant societal critiques. For example, control of the net. As I was reading this book I read news stories about the federal court that struck down rules designed to prevent the nation’s largest broadband service providers from charging content companies for access to Internet “fast lanes.” It is a step closer toward corporate control of the internet as opposed to the neutral free forum that it has been until now. This novel presents similar themes and explores questions of control and policing the net.
I absolutely adore this novel, there is so much goodness in there I am sure in a few years I'll be picking it up and reading again! -
It's good to go back to books from my adolescence that have not been visited by the suck fairy. This was most likely the first cyberpunk novel I ever read and definitely the first that I remember. When the lawlessness of the net is lost, when the wild frontier is gone, when you have lawmen who don't understand the net but still feel they have the right to police it - what do you do? Trouble knows what do to, leave in the middle of the night taking all of her equipment and not saying a word to her lover Cerise or the cadre of queer friends they've amassed. Then 3 years pass and someone is using Trouble's name stirring up things that don't need to be stirred up. So she's back in the game and with Trouble and her friends there'll be hell to pay.
Loved it when I was fourteen, love it now. Cyberpunk as a genre is about the marginalized using the tools of the oppressor in new ways, to fight the power and so on but this is one of the few cyberpunk novels I've read that deals with the continued marginalization of people not just by authorities but by the community that's supposed to love us. It got 4 instead of five stars only because I felt that the time gap of three years felt way too small for all the changes and emotional growth that Scott explores so amazingly well. Highly Recommended. It's lesbian cyberpunk for god's sake what more do you need? -
Well I waited to long to read this book, by about 23 years. This book would have be an amazing read when it was written back in 1994. With the internet as the main background of the story it is somewhat dated today and doesn't read as well as it would have I think. I can see where it was an amazing early book in the cyberpunk movement. Not recommended by me but if you enjoy the cyberpunk SiFi set it is worth a try.
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Main plot advances too slowly and I found the ending not satisfying. Pity because the book is well written and characters are fleshed out nicely.
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Trouble and Her Friends might be the last cyberpunk novel (at least according to Matthew Claxton), written in the final days when the internet was still the net, and not the world wide web, or worse a walled garden of apps and platforms. Trouble and Cerise are partners, romantic and criminal, two of the baddest hackers on the net, when Trouble disappears after a new anti-hacker law passes. Cerise goes legit and tries to forget her old partner, but three years later someone appears on the net using Trouble's handle and some of her programs. Cerise's company and the US Treasury want Trouble in custody, and the two of them reunite to find and take down the punk threatening Trouble's quiet retirement.
There is a lot that is good in this book, mostly tied up in this quote. “Maybe that was why it was almost always the underclasses, the women, the people of color, the gay people, the ones who were already stigmatized as being vulnerable, available, trapped by the body, who took the risk of the wire.” The cyberspace has a nice Gibsonian vibe, Trouble and her cadre of queer hacker friends are wonderfully drawn. This book is definitely about being gay and has some ambitions about doing crime. There are fantastic asides, like districts haunted by vicious dolly-gangs of wannabe corporate secretaries with network implants, stilettos heels, and switchblade knives.
Good advice from mr skelly
Unfortunately, it also has some serious flaws. The pacing is on the languid side, with important plot threads like Cerise's boss's obsession with Trouble dropped aside. The conclusion centers around the real and virtual twin towns of Sea Haven, a gray zone useful to the shadows and bright lights of the net alike, abandoning the idea that what happens in cyberspace is about cyberspace for a physical confrontation. And while I was really hoping for a solid landing, the end is about outsiders coming inside, about crackers growing up into cops, rather than breaking down unjust systems of exploitation. -
4,5*
Simply excellent old school cyberpunk.
Not really the actual plot - retired netwalker Trouble see her rep slandered by a wannabe impersonating her. She wants payback.- but all the rest.
First thing that comes to mind: the cyberspace is fully used, something much less seen in today’s (post)cyberpunk. Lots of detailed and very well written scenes take place there. One of the best depiction of the cyberspace I’ve read, par with Gibson’s.
Which leads to the second thing that comes to mind: the down-to-earth aspect of the book. Netrunners need drives, pads, jacks, cables and stuff. They need to pack them when traveling and they’re in trouble when they can’t access them. They are actual people, needing to eat, to pee, to sleep. Getting an implant hurts. It needs to get calibrated. Simple stuff that anchors what happens in the virtual world in the real one. Some tech is a bit dated (storing data on disks for instance) or missing (smartphones) but quite few all considered and I honestly don’t think it’s a problem whatsoever.
Third thing: the characters. Trouble and her former lover Cerise. Again, down to earth. They have emotions, they can get hurt, they can be scared, they can be presomptuous and prideful (Trouble just want to restore her web cred after all). They are fleshed-out humans and not simple fearless virtual warriors. And their loving relationship is well handled to boot.
Fourth thing: the subtexts. They are never the main argument but are subtly displayed here and there: ecology, net regulations, homophobia . Please remember this book was written 30 years ago and what seems obvious now wasn’t then. And these topic remain relevant today.
I’m amazed I’ve missed this cornerstone of the cyberpunk genre for so long but that’s now thankfully corrected. Anyone pretending loving the genre HAS to read this book. -
I enjoyed this early 90s cyberpunk story despite a couple of flaws. Well, no, not flaws necessarily, but three things I didn't enjoy.
First, and this is entirely subjective: I found the story very _dense_. There was a lot of words, words with meaning/content/weight, for everything that happened. I started another work by Ms. Scott,
Shadow Man around the time I first started this book, and that story has much the same density effect. It is, still, a good story, so this subjective, Mike-slowing density doesn't harm it, but it doesn't grip me, either.
Less subjective, and yet more personal: the sex in the book seemed pointless and layered on top of things. Maybe I am overcomplicating things; as a teenager, I probably would have loved random sexuality. With a few years' perspective, there are three, maybe four big reasons I see for sexuality in a novel -- appeal to readers' interest in sex (see teenage-me above), or as something illustrative of the human experience, or to make a thematic point, or to advance the plot. The only thig here is that it's sex.
And a very similar third point -- the sexual politics also seemed pointless and layered on top of things. Don't get me wrong, I think the story of the oppressed against the oppressor should be told, but when it makes sense, and not as an afterthought.
But yeah, past these considerations, I came to like Ms. Scott's portrayal of Trouble and Cerise and their friends, supporters, detractors and enemies, and their guts facing the tribulations of a world only a few bad steps down the road from our own.
(I think this gives me a Bingo in the 2108 Inclusive Book Bingo challenge!) -
This is peak Cyberpunk, wow
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Stuff I Read – Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott Review
I picked this up mainly because it's considered a classic in many circles. At the least, it represents a rather mainstream queer addition to a time in SFF where that wasn't the most popular thing. I mean, most queer SFF that I can think of either has happened somewhat recently or well before I was born, and here's a book out in the 90s that features not one or two but pretty much an entire cast of queer characters battling their way against conspiracies and in a fresh and fun future where the web can be experienced directly in the brain, where hacking is just as full of politics as SFF is now. And perhaps a bit of that is going to creep into my review, because I find is such a fascinating parallel.
And I guess what I mean by that is I love the way the struggle is conceived here, that there is this group of hackers who have made their lives riding the edge, basically hated by the hacking community because of their queerness but who have carved out a space because of their talent and because they had nothing really to lose. They risked brain damage to get the worms that allowed them to up their game. They had to innovate and to risk themselves and it got them ahead, got them so that they were the top of the pack. Which only lead to resentment, which only led to people making targets out of them. Trying to steal their names. Trying to use their own vast wealth to fight against them. And damn, yeah, that's something that I think a lot of queer people get. There is a sense that we have to stick together at times, not just because it's more dangerous for us but because our success makes people angry. Makes us into targets. And the only way to overcome that is together.
And that is the beauty of this book, that it is so hopeful, that it's about community and about people finding each other. That it's about love and all the difficulties that can come from that. It's about sex and power and selling out and resisting, about going rogue and trying to stay true to your principles. And it's about so much more, about fighting and about kicking ass and about corruption and governments and laws and innovation. About technology and about bodies and about all of it. This book does so much and is so much and is fun and alive throughout. And to me that's something amazing, especially for its time (which isn't that long ago but still). It's a story that reflects many of the things still facing queer people in the world, queer people who are pushing things forward and getting attention and upsetting the powers that be. It's a fucking good read and a 9/10 for me. -
The crackers' time is at an end - the Law has come to the net, and Trouble skips town and her lover. But one does not leave that easily, and three years later Treasury is on her back, there is an impostor that took her name, and there is nothing she can do but to go back.
This was a refreshing take on cyberpunk tropes - if still a bit dry, and full of technobabble I abhor. The characterization was good, the world-building solid, and I came to care what happens to Trouble (and her friends, naturally). The plot dragged in the middle, and some interesting plot moments were picked up and immediately dropped (I'd like to know more about secretary schools, thank you very much), but all in all, it was a solid book I can't rate higher because... cyberpunk. Ugh. -
Well-done and highly memorable queer cyberpunk novel. This was was a hugely important novel
For me - first time I saw myself represented to any degree in cyberpunk. A must read. -
Slightly put off by classic cyberpunk on account of its difficult prose, the way it dumps the unwary reader in the middle of a strange world, hoping s/he will figure it out before s/he misses out on what is happening, I was skeptical of taking up another work that promised cyberpunk, though of a different flavor. Not only was I pleasantly surprised at how lucidly the process of jacking into the matrix and running its programs can be described, it was an adrenaline of pleasure to see how many notches above feminist cyberpunk is above classic cyberpunk.
I had wondered, after reading Neuromancer, if bringing in delicate concerns such as a queer gender would take away the focus from the main premise of cyberpunk, which is the virtual reality. I see now that not only does good writing not interfere with what cyberpunk is, but in fact, enriches it and takes it to a whole new level, in fact, bestows a kind of literariness to it.
The novel goes thus - Set at the end of 21st century in America, the world is a place where crackers enter and interact on the virtual reality platforms using neural implants, stealing from corporations and selling them in the shadows, the illegal hubs of the virtual worlds, while huge corporations safeguard their data through IC(E)s, or Intrusion Countermeasure (Electronic). India Carless a.k.a. Trouble is a cracker in the shadows. With the Evans-Tindale bill passed, making shadow-cracking illegal by making hacking of bits and bytes as illegal as property theft with its stringent laws, she leaves her partner Cerise a.k.a. Alice-B-Good, a fellow shadow-cracker, and their entire close-knit queer cracker group, for good, to go legit. Fast-forward three years. The Treasury, where India now works in the lights as a syscop, notices that Trouble, the shadow-cracker, has returned to the nets after a long-hiatus. Pursued by the Treasury, India flees once again in the pursuit of the imposter who has taken her name, her working style, her identity.
There are several subtexts in the novel - the texture of this feminist cyberpunk is so very different from that of classic cyberpunk. The queering of the main characters - Trouble and all her friends - is the most obvious feature. Women, even the tough ones, in classic cyberpunk were delegated as hetero, the object of desire for a macho man who acts as the protagonist. Although it doesn't explicitly demean women - for instance, Molly in Neuromancer was as crucial to the plot as the male hero - it doesn't raise the issues of identity as well.
The subtext of queerness lends this possibility - identity - virtual, real-time and sexual. The virtual identity of India was christened Trouble, a moniker derived of her extraordinary capability to court trouble and get out of it, and still be the best in business. Her real-life identity, that of India Carless, out of the shadows, clean for three years, maintaining a precarious balance of her corporate work and queer status - which is quite unacceptable even now. Her sexual identity, that of a queer, that gives, or rather, takes away from her her social leverage - on the nets, she is doubly marginalized - for her choice to use the brainworm, which feeds her physical sensations in the virtual world, and her choice of partners, which corners her and her entire queer group, made unwelcome by the heteros and the non-wired hacker community.
A step further is the character of Silk online - she seduces Cerise as a woman, and Max as a man - this fluidity of genders and sexuality is all the more obvious as an extension of the future world where anonymity would also cover sexuality, not just names.
Taking away from men the legitimate right to machines that classic cyberpunk was so heavily focused on, the novel enters the world of female queers, and sometimes men too, where even the virtual world of hacking is a small place.
Bodies, through their sexuality, and the second-generation (Trouble and her friends) hackers' choice to go for the brainworm, are reproduced culturally and show how they are technologically disciplined. Their bodies, through these two acts, are their identity. The crisis of somebody impersonating Trouble online is not just one of virtual identity, but also one of communities (the queer community, here) that rally together to save Trouble. Like in the real world, queers face marginalization in the virtual world as well.
Essentially, feminist cyberpunk picks up where classic cyberpunk left - the void left by cyberpunk in discussing real life issues is filled by its other half, without compromising on the basic premise of virtual reality.
The narration is swift, the dialogues crisp, fresh and no-nonsense. There is too much detailing sometimes, so it was tempting to skim-read a few portions. Originally published in early '90s, it seems a little outdated, owing to the fact that internet, virtually unknown then, has not only caught up with cyberpunk, but already surpassed it in some ways. But considering from the time when it was new and quite radical, to talk about virtual platforms and queerness, it stands as an enviable landmark.
And despite being a little dated, as all classics are bound to be at some point, it is still delicious to read - the technology seems a bit dated, but the plot and characters are refreshing as ever! -
A very intriguing tale - and still relevant commentary even though it was written in 1995.
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Original review post at
Layers of Thought.
A futuristic science fiction novel with underground “noir-ish” themes, which takes the reader on a journey via internal biological internet connections into an intriguing online world.
Trouble is well known online as one of the best and most notorious “crackers”. She is a future version of a hacker, where cracking is breaking through IC(E) – the acronym for the complex security systems which simulate actual ice. Intriguingly, web users have connections to the web via “dollie ports” and “brain worms” giving a “virtual reality” experience to being online, where one smells color.
A story set in a dystopian US where things have gone environmentally sour, the beaches are so polluted that visiting them is toxic. Political factions have set in place laws which make “cracking” illegal and dangerous. As the stakes become higher, Trouble disappears in an effort to protect herself.
What brings her out of hiding is that someone is using her name. Not happy (neither are some significant powers that be), she emerges to set things right. As Trouble lives up to her name - she and her friends have an interesting and not entirely safe romp into an online and real-world futuristic adventure.
Trouble and Her Friends is cyberpunk. It is a subgenre which is characterized by a high tech dystopian environment with characters that are of marginal class standing. It is also said to have a “noir-ish” feel. Which are perfect descriptions for this science fiction novel.
Melissa Scott uses many intriguing science fiction concepts - for example the “dollie ports” and “brain worms” which actually hook the user up to the net through implants into the body. Beyond the nerdy bits she also has included romance (lgbt), virtual sex (nicely done), and the experience of traveling the net via internally hard wired brain connection with some excellent results.
I could not imagine a writer being able to tell you about a virtual web experience as it occurs in Trouble’s world. But she does – and very well at that. Scott uses a technique that toggles between real world and internet experiences, using italicized letters for the virtual world travels and normal text for the real world experience.
Despite the description, the book is very accessible and is actually a mystery thriller set in a darker future time. There are strong female characters (another favorite element) and it has some realistic science (another one too). I will be looking at this author and this subgenre more. This is an impressive novel with a redemptive ending. I give it 4 stars. -
3 stars for technical quality, bumped up to 4 for enjoyment - the descriptions of the tech and the VR world of the nets was gorgeous, but the plot and the overuse of certain constructions like "the other"/"the other woman" and "all [adjective] and [adjective]" got a little grating after a while, and after the meandering, exploratory pace of most of the novel, the conclusion seemed disappointingly abrupt and clean. On the other had, it was fun to read and I liked it the whole way through, I liked Trouble and Cerise, her queer friend group lived experience really shined through and felt refreshingly honest and real, the aesthetic was fantastic, and this is the only book I've ever read that uses the word "rotary" and makes a point that people go to New Hampshire for the lack of sales tax. It's good, it's a bit dated, it's really a western set in the glittering VR shadow-world of the nets, it's about lesbian hackers, I like it.
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Good cyberpunk. It's more of a fun adventure than a deep, analyzing society kinda book, but I enjoyed reading it twice....
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I finished this yesterday and thought about how much I loved it (and one small gripe) but I forgot to write it down. It was a wonderful book. It got me into this whole alternative future that we know never happened quite like that. The author has masterfully trod the balance between extremes that sometimes unbalance the book. Enough world building so we can understand, not enough to turn into a tedious explanation or info-dump. Enough backstories to make the characters relatable and suggest there's a social-justice, almost robin-hood element to them, but details kept vague so it's not just moralising or psychologising. Moral ambiguity in literally everything.
I still don't know why Trouble left Cerise but I sort of understand why Cerise wanted her back. My minor gripe was that Trouble was too centred when Cerise in many ways was the better character and more skilled than Trouble at some things. Trouble keeps accusing Cerise of being arrogant but in fact her lack of warmth, the fierceness with which she protects her loneliness is the more arrogant of the two. I especially wanted a bit more Cerise at the end. Initially I was really angry at the end because I thought she was basically just becoming a cop...I love that the story continued long enough to bring some ambiguity in but the last scene made it too sanitised for me, I could have done without that and I wouldn't have minded seeing something nice for Cerise who apart from being rich has a pretty shit run through the book (and is a real hero in the way she backs up Trouble anyway).
I have questions about new-Trouble but I think we are supposed to. Another good balance in the story was romance. There was enough of it to make me really want Trouble and Cerise to sort out their differences but there was no cliched bickering (or even nastiness) just an understandable wariness and that palpable but frustrating desire. There was enough sex so that this was not a "family values" sort of book but the queerness in it was not about bodies it was about lack of acceptance, lack of fitting in, people not understanding you. The portrayal of the undelying misogyny and homophobia that Trouble and Cerise each navigate so differently was another strength. Similarly the pollution in the real world is present but understated- what is chemsand? But we get the idea.
All in all this was capable, engaging writing (I kept desperately wanting to come back to my book and having to force myself to do adult things instead). I will look out for more from Melissa Scott. -
I've spent most of 2020 plowing through book after book in what's considered cyberpunk canon looking for something that reached the level of joy that Neuromancer or Snow Crash gave me, and this has been the cream of the crop so far. I think one of the most ringing endorsements one can give a book is that it made you immediately want to check out other works from that author, and the excellent character work here definitely means I'll be looking into the rest of Melissa Scott's bibliography.
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Classic cyberpunk; jacking in, breaking ICE, walking around virtual BBS; it's all here.
Good:
* Engaging depiction of LGBT subculture in relation to broader hacker community feels relevant in context of today's abusive tech culture
* Goes beyond conflict between cops/corps & hackers to explore impact of legislature & how internet could/should be regulated
Bad:
* Takes a bit to get going
* Writing a bit dry at times -
Genial historia de cyberpunk con todos los ingredientes que buscas en una historia de este tipo: el gobierno pisoteando los derechos de los usuarios, implantes, hackers, espionaje industrial...
Es bastante lento pero emplea ese tiempo en desarrollar a las protagonistas y en describir el mundo virtual, cosa que a mediados de los 90 no era fácil de imaginar. -
I was really heading towards a 4-star review on this, but the overall ending and amount of loose ends really bumped this down a whole star for me. Honestly, I'm taking that whole star away for the simple question: where did the subplot with Coigne go?
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Just two outlaw lesbians in the shadows of data borderlands... What would I have done if I read this instead of Snowcrash as my intro to cyberpunk?
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A really fun one! Not the best written book of all time, but i love to think about lesbian scifi hackers in the 90s. Gays on the BBS. What if we kissed on the net.
I wish the cyber world building was a lil fuller. -
This was a very good read, overall. There are some shrotcomings. Keep in mind that, when a book isn't very good, it's not usually worth going into too much detail about what's wrong with it; with a very good book, it's easier to pick out the biggest issues and describe them more fully. The amount of detail about what's wrong is, in a way, an indication that this book is actually quite good.
See these examples of shortcomings:
1. The secondary protagonist starts looking more like a deus ex machina at the end than a character per se. I found myself wondering how many specialties a single person can have without simply being good at basically everything.
2. The primary protagonist doesn't seem to have "won" by being good at what she does. It's a bit like how, at climax time, the protagonist of
Neuromancer mostly just watches some highly effective AI-driven intrusion software he deployed do all the work, except in that case it fits and doesn't detract from the story, while in this case the protagonist's bravado and reputation seem to hinge on her ability to outskill her ultimate opponent. The secondary protagonist did actual cracker-skill related things while the primary protagonist just dealt with weird problems via "the wire", in a sense proving the antagonist correct in his judgement of her skill. I get that it's difficult to write a scene involving a sort of live-hacking challenge and make it interesting in a novel, but all too often I see "solutions" to that problem like this, where it seems almost like a rank newbie with the right equipment could do exactly the same thing as the protagonist just as well because it's not about the person's skills in the key area at all.
3. The antagonist went out without a satisfying explanation of motives, and without the mystery of his motives even being treated as significant at the end. It seemed like that mystery was just cover for the author not having a clear sense of the antagonist's underlying motivation.
4. There were a couple loose ends that vexed me, such as the reason (and ultimate outcome) of the request for a personnel file on Coigne. Unless there's a sequel to this book I don't know about, it's just a story thread that got dropped on the floor in a weirdly significant-feeling way despite the evident insignificance of it in the end.
5. Some of the author's apparently quirky preferences in phrasing seeped into many characters at times. It looked like some effort went into cover up for it, but not enough to completely hide the fact. For instance, one character, once, said "I am not well pleased" and, for a few following chapters, it seemed like everyone was saying someone was "not pleased", but at least there wasn't any more "well pleased" scattered about as far as I recall, I guess. It would be better, I think, if the same character used "well pleased" a couple more times in the book, though perhaps not too closely spaced, and if supporting characters responded interestingly to the phrasing and/or the character saying it to point out some character quirk significance -- and if other characters said things like "unhappy", "upset", "angry", "pissed", "annoyed", "aggravated", "ticked off", or any of myriad other things one could say to convey similar meaning. English is richly appointed with different ways to convey the same general feeling, with minor differences in meaning that could introduce a little richness into the reader's understanding of how exactly someone judges another to feel. Even ignoring the shades of connotation that could be employed, mixing it up a little would at least give different characters somewhat clearer, more individuated "voices".
Despite these flaws (and others), it was engagingly written, with (eventually) likable characters, draped in some vivid scenery at times (though perhaps not consistently), evocative of the atmosphere in various scenes (also "at times"), paced well enough to carry the reader through after a slightly slower start (I have no problem with slow starts, as long as they're worth it, and this was), and so on. I liked it quite a bit, even if some of the core ideas -- reasonably well handled -- were not to my particular taste (e.g. the "happy ending" being a sort of bland centrist position in a way). -
India Carless, a.k.a. Trouble has tried to go straight. When the law cracks down on the wild frontier of cyberspace with an aggressive new bill which makes it possible for computer hackers to be convicted of armed robbery, Trouble knows that it's time to get out. Trouble was the best of the netwalkers, but the net had gone crazy now. What she once saw as high adventure is now simply suicide, so Trouble walks away from it all.
Away from the shadow world of the netwalkers -- professional hackers who operated in the grey areas of the old laws, cracking virtual IC(E) - Intrusion Countermeasures (Electronic) - and outwitting the syscops of major corporations to steal data for a lucrative commission. Away from her friends in the netwalker community. Away from her professional partner and lover, Cerise. Trouble abandons everything she knows and forges a new, "legitimate" life for herself as the network administrator for a small artists' co-op.
Back to using her real name but living more of a lie as India Carless than she ever did as Trouble, India tries to convince herself that she is happy in her mundane but safe existence as a syscop -- almost legal, save for her occasional continued use of the "brainworm", illegal technology used to enhance the VR experience of the nets which Trouble had hardwired into her brain back in her hacker days. Life could be a lot worse.
Then Trouble resurfaces on the nets, but it's not India Carless. Someone has stolen her old cyber-identity and is cracking some major IC(E)s in a style not dissimilar to Trouble's old modus operandi, save that this Trouble brags loudly and widely about its work -- an indiscretion that could get the real Trouble into some real trouble indeed.
Thus, Trouble is drawn unwillingly back into her old life to defend her name and the life she has now. Many old friends from her hacker days -- including ex-lover Cerise -- resurface to help route out this new Trouble as well, and Trouble and her friends are launched into the most dangerous mission of their lives.
The heroines of Trouble and Her Friends are smart, savvy and sexy, and Melissa Scott creates a fascinating cultural mosaic in the near-future world which they populate. Scott's depiction of virtual reality cyberspace is intelligent and cohesive as is her vision of real space. The boundaries and crossovers between the two realms are also well thought out. VR is not just a gimmick in this novel but an integral and interesting part of the story, and the integration into VR made possible by the "brainworm" renders the action in the VR passages every bit as riveting and meaningful as the real space passages.
Strong characters, strong environments, strong story, Melissa Scott shows mastery of it all in Trouble and Her Friends. -
Grr, I'm still really wrestling with how to rate this one. It is unmistakably 90s-era cyberpunk, which mostly worked for me. Overall, there was a lot I loved about the book, but I found the ending disappointing.
Good parts:
-I loved, loved, loved the depiction of queer community. This is a book about early 90s queer culture written by a queer woman. This aspect of the book felt like family history told through the filter of near-future sci-fi.
-The characters! I adored both Trouble and Cerise, and really enjoyed the exploration of their post-relationship reconciliation. I liked a lot of the secondary characters as well, although I would have been happier to see more of them.
-The political and social commentary. Despite being a bit dated, I thought a lot of the questions being asked about how to regulate internet interactions continue to be relevant and interesting. Definitely Trouble and Cerise's experiences as queer women in the tech world continue to feel familiar.
-I like Melissa Scott's writing style and laidback (some would say slow) approach to storytelling. Even in writing cyberpunk, she focuses on how the technology feels, rather than technical details of how it works, which I enjoyed.
-Most of the plot. I liked reading about Trouble and Cerise's investigations and adventures through the net. It kept me engaged and interested for the vast majority of the book. However...
The bad:
-The end! I was just left feeling incredibly dissatisfied by the ending. It felt too rushed, too neat, too simplistic. There were several story threads that were left hanging or incompletely explained.
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-I wished that there was more of the friends mentioned in the title, because this was nearly all Trouble and Cerise. Which, I liked them, but it would have been fantastic to learn more about the other characters as well.
