Dalej mi się Stross podoba. Owszem, pisze stosunkowo “podobnie”, a niektóre pomysły są nieco wytarte — ale jest w tych książkach coś, co powoduje że odkładam książkę z poczuciem najedzenia i zadowolenia. Odwrotnie niż w przypadku Gaimana, który cechując się tym samym, powoduje u mnie (na ogół) napad ziewania.
We live in an age of uncertainty, complexity, and paranoia. Uncertainty because, for the past few centuries, there has simply been far too much knowledge out there for any one human being to get their brains around; we are all ignorant, if you dig far enough. Complexity multiplies because our areas of ignorance and our blind spots intersect in unpredictable ways — the most benign projects have unforseen side effects. And paranoia is the emergent spawn of those side effects; the world is not as it seems, and indeed we may never be able to comprehend the world-as-it-is, without the comforting filter lenses of our preconceptions and our mass media.
It is therefore both an attractive proposition (and a frightening one) to believe that someone, somewhere, knows the score. It’s attractive when we think they’re on our side, defenders of our values and our lives, fighting in the great and secret wars to ensure that our cosy creature comforts survive undisturbed. And it’s terrifying when we fear that maybe, just maybe, someone out there who doesn’t like us, or even doesn’t think like us, has got their hands on the control yoke of an airliner and is aiming dead for the twin towers of our Weltanschauung.
Posłowie do The Atrocity Archives jest osobnym smakowitym kąskiem w tej książce. A fragment w którym zarzeka się że nie grał w Delta Green — uroczy :D
