Review: Interface

Interface
by Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George
(c) 1994
Bantam Dell

InstaRating: 3.5 out of 5
An experimental biochip is implanted in a governor of Illinois after he suffers a massive stroke. Its stated purpose is to repair the connections in his brain, giving him access to speech and motor skills again. Unknown to many, the chip also gives him access to up-to-the-second live polling data, making him an unstoppable Presidential candidate. But more than that — the chip gives a shadowy network of power-brokers access to him — making him their perfect candidate…

Lots of spoilers follow.

I’ve loved Stephenson since Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and of course, In the Beginning, There was a Command Line. I have no idea who J. Frederick George is or what his contribution to the book was — though he must have added something, as Stephenson apparently chose to partner with him on another book (The Cobweb). I picked up Interface eagerly, as — after Stephensons’s Baroque Cycle — I was looking for something more modern, more accessible, and not 1500 pages long. At 600 pages, Interface was guaranteed to meet the last point at least.

Overall it’s a pretty decent book. About 50 pages in, I suddenly realized it didn’t sound “new” and checked the copyright date. To my surprise, it’s from 1994. That places it between Snow Crash and The Diamond Age — and the same goes for its style. It has the off-the-cuff hipness of the former and the intricate plotting and politics of the latter. Stephenson shines through during the descriptions of the biochip device and its implications. You feel you really have a handle on the tech, though he doesn’t drown you in detail like in Cryptonomicon. (No pages-long Perl programs here!)

This is really a political thriller with sci-fi trappings, and the authors do a good job within the confines of these two genres. I’m a political junkie, so I particularly liked the early parts of the book, when the outlines of the Presidential race are drawn. The end accelerates abruptly and cuts off without a full denouement, but it more or less works. I flinched a little at the series of improbable events needed for the final resolution to “work”. It’s clear that the course of history can be deflected by seemingly trivial and random happenings, but the authors stretch credibility a little by the sheer number of such coincidences they pile on. I’m not sure if they’re trying to make a point or if they’re just a tad sloppy.

The characters are a bit cardstock. Surprisingly, the likeable geeks — there are two well-intentioned uber-users — end up with comparatively little roles. For the most part, you can peg which side each character will end up on within a few pages of being introduces to him or her. Only Cy Ogle surprised me. He starts off gruff, becomes quite likable — and then dehumanizes at the end. Nonetheless, this arc of character development seems appropriate. I didn’t feel cheated by Ogle’s many twists; rather, they read naturally as the revelation of different sides.

Interface is an above-average political thriller. It makes some points about politics, civility, and the American ailment (values breakdown) but they’re not profound. Stephenson’s on/off embrace of libertarian impulses shows through but his discussion isn’t one-dimensional.

Perhaps most interesting was the odd effect of reading a “cutting edge” thriller by a well-known futurist, but reading it over a decade late. Interface focuses on the election of 1996 — interestingly dismissing Clinton as un-reelectable — and of course predates the Internat bubble and bust. Twelve years later, American democracy has been through the wringer a couple of times, and it didn’t take a miraculous biochip. The book kicks off with a President declaring his intent to default (more or less) on the national debt, an issue that seemed a lot more urgent then (even though it’s probably a heck of a lot more urgent now). The economic bogeymen are still the Japanese, not China. The Cold War is ended but the East European chaos hardly merits a mention. Indeed — like much of America in the 1990s — the book almost entirely ignores the foreign policy aspect of the Presidency. Knwoing what we now know — and bizarrely, considering its premise — Interface seems to harken from a simpler, almost rosy time.