Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute Silence

Product Details

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• ISBN13: 9781416599593
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Description

Have our noise-soaked lives driven us mad? And is absolute silence an impossible goal—or the one thing that can save us? A lively tale of one man’s quest to find the grail of total quiet.---

“ I don’t know at what point noise became intolerable for me,” George Michelsen Foy writes as he recalls standing on a subway platform in Manhattan, hands clamped firmly over his ears, face contorted in pain. But only then does Foy realize how overwhelmed he is by the city’s noise and vow to seek out absolute silence, if such an absence of sound can be discovered.Foy begins his quest by carrying a pocket-sized decibel meter to measure sound levels in the areas he frequents most—the subway, the local café, different rooms of his apartment—as well as the places he visits that inform his search, including the Parisian catacombs, Joseph Pulitzer’s “silent vault,” the snowy expanses of the Berkshires, and a giant nickel mine in Canada, where he travels more than a mile underground to escape all human-made sound. Along the way, Foy experiments with noise-canceling headphones, floatation tanks, and silent meditation before he finally tackles a Minnesota laboratory’s anechoic chamber that the Guinness Book of World Records calls “the quietest place on earth,” and where no one has ever endured even forty-five minutes alone in its pitch-black interior before finding the silence intolerable.Drawing on history, science, journalistic reportage, philosophy, religion, and personal memory, as well as conversations with experts in various fields whom he meets during his odyssey, Foy finds answers to his questions: How does one define silence? Did human beings ever experience silence in their early history? What is the relationship between noise and space? What are the implications of silence and our need for it—physically, mentally, emotionally, politically? Does absolute silenceactually exist? If so, do we really want to hear it? And if we do hear it, what does it mean to us?According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 30 million Americans suffer from environment-related deafness in today’s digital age of pervasive sound and  sensory overload. Roughly the same number suffer from tinnitus, a condition, also environmentally related, that  makes silence impossible in even the quietest places. In this respect, Foy’s quest for silence represents more than  a simple psychological inquiry; both his queries and his  findings help to answer the question “How can we live  saner, healthier lives today?”

Innovative, perceptive, and delightfully written, Zero Decibels will surely change how we perceive and appreciate the soundscape of our lives.

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Customer Reviews

Can't wait to read it!
Heard the author interviewed on NPR: Here & Now. The topic is interesting and timely, given the amount of ambient noise we have to put up with every day, and the toll it takes on our lives. Hearing health is a neglected area in our society and any examination of the dangers, physical & psychological, are welcome.

2010-05-28 (Twin Falls, Idaho USA) | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5

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The Shift

Description

Alex Munn works in Manhattan's "Television City" as head writer for an ordinary soap opera. But when his TV bosses decide to use brand-new virtual reality technology to produce the most involving drama series ever, Munn signs on to revolutionize the TV industry. In his spare time, though, he creates another virtual world: "Munn's World." It's set in gaslit 1850s New York City, where a vicious serial killer called the Fishman is disemboweling victims in the Bowery. But now, something has gone terribly wrong. It's unscripted, it's terrifying, but the Fishman has somehow escaped from Munn's World--and followed Alex into the present.

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Customer Reviews

Good Beach Reading
I am convinced that amid the dusty shelves of my local used book store, there are hidden gems. SF books that, for one reason or another, have been overlooked by fans and therefore a good read can be picked up on the cheap.

I picked up "The Shift" for less than three dollars, which seems a fair price for this murder-mystery-SF hybrid (more mystery than SF, I'm afraid).

Other than the already-mentioned-in-other-reviews cheesy cover, bad title and clunky first chapter, I think the biggest problem with this book is that it feels dated. No one's writing VR books anymore, for good reason.

But the references to mid-90's pop culture icons of Oliver North, Tonya Harding and Oksana Baiul seem weirdly out of date. Are cellphones really that unusual in the future?

The narrative moves along swiftly sometimes, but also gets bogged down mid-novel, as if even the author wasn't sure where this was all going. And perhaps there are a few too many shocking revelations in the last 50 pages (or at least, revelations that are poorly telegraphed).

I don't want to sound too negative, though. Given the competition in SF books these days, one could certainly do a lot worse. The worlds shown are well-realized (the 1850's world especially so), the characters are interesting, and I think overall, the book would make fine beach-reading.

2004-04-13 (Huntsville, AL USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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Munn's World
"The Shift" has three immediate strikes against it. First off, the title is wrong, and has little to do with the book (It should have been called "Munn's World.") Second, the cover art is embarrassingly bad, and screams cheap and pandering with every airbrushed inch. It is the kind of cover and title you don't want people to see you holding on your lunch break. Third, the first chapter is so awful that it seems like it was written by a different author. It is cheap and pandering, just like the cover leads you to expect. In short, the very things that are supposed to hook you into a new book, repulse you instead. I can imagine more than one person picking this book up, shaking their head at the cover, then setting it back on the shelf after a glance at the first chapter.

If you can make it past these three considerable barricades, however, you are in for a completely unexpected treat. This is a good book! The writing style is excellent, and the writer does an amazing job of bringing to life two such disparate worlds, that of his cyberpunk pseudo-future and the VR historical world of 1800's New York. Both worlds are fully fleshed out, with a detail that surprises even the characters in the book. The characters are also complete, although Alex Munn tends to be the single loud voice in the book. His supporting characters are equally interesting, and well researched. The punk-obsessed Zeng is accurate, although there are a few minor flaws (Sid Vicious did not sing "God Save the Queen." Johnny Rotten did.) The mysterious villain, The Fishman, is a nice boogie man to chase Munn down his various roads.

Altogether, a book worth the time. Some good ideas and good writing, with an unusually successful blending of science fiction and historical fiction. I would love to see "The Shift" reissued with a different title and cover. Don't give up after the first chapter!

2003-03-08 | japanreviewed.com (Seattle, WA, USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Urban noir, semi-cyberpunk, and very good writing
Alex Munn is a sort-of-television producer for X-Corp., a Hong-Kong-financed major player in New York of a few years from now. Through unprecedented computer power, X-Corp. has developed an extremely lifelike virtual reality system, user access to which ranges from ordinary 2D television to immersion of the consumer and wide control of the story's development, depending on how much the consumer wants to spend. Alex considers himself an artist and he hasn't much use for "Real Life," the sappy product he's being paid to develop, but it's hard to give up the money -- though he's already lost his wife, a soap actress on one of his earlier projects. Alex has been working quietly on a much better application of the VR technology: "Munn's World," set in the New York of 1850. Where "Real Life" ignores plot in favor of showing off the technology, "Munn's World" is gritty and involving . . . and almost too real, for a Nativist killer who stalks the old city, butchering the hated Irish, seems to have edged over into the "real" New York. Foy is extremely knowledgeable about his city of the present and the past (or else he's really, really good at faking it), and he has a serious gift for characterization, intricate plotting, and descriptive writing generally -- and a teriffic ear for Nooyawkese. He puts you inside the protagonist, especially, and his take on Riker's Island is terrifying and unforgettable. I don't know how I managed to miss hearing about this when it came out, but I'm glad I found it!

2002-05-15 (Gonzales, Louisiana) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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A very poorly written book
The "Author's Note" irritated me (check out the first and last sentences) and the first paragraph of the book irritated me even more. This goes beyond writing style or inventive wordplay ala Riddley Walker or Feersum Endjinn - Foy seems oblivious to the basic rules of grammar. After reading the first page I flipped through at random and it didn't get any better. This book got thrown across the room, then picked up and put in the bin. However judging by some of the other write-ups it contains some very good ideas. So read the first page - if this doesn't bug the **** out of you maybe you'll enjoy it.

1999-10-12 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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Excellent Book
This book is one of the best I have ever read. The plot grabs you and brings you into the life of Alexander Munn. I definatly suggest anyone who likes the cyberpunk genre, read this book. You will not be dissapointed.

1999-08-28 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Contraband

Description

The most dangerous commodity of all...

Joe "Skid" Marak, aka the pilot, is a compulsive smuggler. For him, borders are an outrage to freedom. He lives with his pet rat in the abandoned spire of Manhattan's TransCom Building. His friends are outcasts in a world ripped by plague and repression. The pilot knows his days are numbered. On his ECM-pak, he watches helplessly as his freetrading comrades vanish from the screen: victims of a mysterious force known only as "Bokon Taylay."

The brother of his Rollerblading, go-go-dancing girlfriend is Taylay's latest victim. All that is left behind is a smuggled message telling the pilot he must locate the one man who can break Taylay's code, the legendary author of the Smuggler's Bible--a man who may not even exist. It's a risk worth taking. Because to the pilot, there's only one contraband more valuable than life--freedom.

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Even for a smuggler, the Pilot lives on the edge. There seems to be no vehicle he can't master and eventually destroy in the pursuit of his career, yet he never misses an issue of The Smuggler's Bible. When a mysterious man (or force) known as "Bokon Taylay" begins to take out all of the smugglers one by one, only the Pilot escapes Bokon's ever-tightening net. To save his comrades and keep the "free trader" lifestyle alive, the Pilot decides he must track down Forrest Hawkley, the (possibly mythical) man behind The Smuggler's Bible itself.

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Customer Reviews

Ultimately Disappointing
Contraband is set in the distopian near future, where the world is run by an increasingly repressive government that monitors all of its citizens activities and movements. The main charater is a smuggler living outside the law.

When the government creates a new system for catching smugglers, based on intercepted communications traffic and predictive modeling, the Pilot's world falls apart. He is shot down and nearly killed. His former girlfriend ends up in Bellevue when her brother, also a smuggler is presumed killed. The smuggler then goes off with a rag tag band the search for the creater of the smuggler's bible.

The book started off as a bit of a slog. At this point about two hundred pages in, the book started to pick up. Unfortunately, it didn't really last.

From here on the plot became progressively stranger and began to have some rather gaping holes. When told to go east, the pilot heads directly to a god forsaken spot in Asia with access soon to be cut off by the winter snows. We never find out why he went to this particular place.

The characters have a series of increasingly strange adventures, culminating their return to NY no closer to their objective of shutting down the government's new system. The characters clear up their personal growth issues and the book just ends with them deciding to go their separate ways. The story is never actually resolved, leaving me disappointed.

While the quality of the writing is excellent and the characters are well developed, if a bit odd, the plot is full of holes you could drive a semi through. And, the book was difficult reading. It only grabbed me briefly. Most of the time, I was just reading it because of my compulsion to finish the books I start and my hope that it would improve.

If science fiction set in the dismal future is your thing, you may enjoy this more than I did. I mostly found it depressing and not very interesting.

2004-03-28 | jsdunk (Camas, WA USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2

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Contraband
Intelligent, stylish and well-realized near-future SF. Foy does well at portraying popular culture and infusing humor. His writing here is often beautiful.

Contraband, the story of a pilot in a world where secret cargo cults do battle with governnment agencies, follows one of the cargo cult philosophies: the journey is the destination. The plot is circular, and not especially strong. Still, the reasonably appealing characters, the original worldbuilding, and the strength of Foy's language carry the reader along.

2002-06-10 (Apple Valley, CA USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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An excellent, engaging, and thought-provoking read.
Contraband is set in an extremely believable very-near-future in which multinational corporations dictate international law and second-generation biohazard mutants staff the toxic-waste dumps which were formerly known as wetlands. The Bureau of Nationalizations, or BON, is an international entity set up to interdict and dispose of smugglers like the pilot, who transports goods and people across international economic boundaries. The BON is a servant of the multinationals, whose economic interests are threatened by free trade. The BON regularly uses deadly force against smugglers; because of the economic challenge they provide to the multinationals, smugglers are considered equivalent to terrorists under US and international law.

Typical of Foy's work, Contraband is much too complex to summarize in a couple of paragraphs. The main character is the pilot, Joe "Skid" Marak, a good guy and professional smuggler who likes any mode of transportation that goes extremely fast and has a pet rat named God. BON has a programmer who has recently developed algorithms that allow BON to substantially increase their smuggler interdiction rate. Interdiction leads to immediate death or to sentencing without trial to a commercially-managed interrogation facility from which no one has ever been released. The increase in the interdiction ratio - which has resulted in the capture and sentencing of one of the pilot's best friends, the death of another, and a couple of very serious near misses on his own part - leads Marak on an international quest for the near-mythical Hawkley, who publishes the well-respected Smuggler's Bible and who reputedly knows what the new BON algorithm is and thus how to work around it.

Plus, there's lots of Foy's characteristically highly insightful treatment of human relationships, both romantic and otherwise. He also reinforces themes introduced in The Shift, such as people developing severe personality disorders which derive from a need for constant A/V stimulation and others perpetually confusing VR-delivered programming with real life. And in one nice and very subtle little twist, in one chapter intro Foy quotes one Mr. William Gates as the Chairman of the National Intelligence Committee (a tool of the BON, of course) as stating "... these people actually think they have the right to trade freely... without any regulation or permission from the government...".

George Foy is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers. I couldn't put Contraband down.

2000-05-28 | SF Addict (Austin, Texas) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Right Concept; Wrong Author
The concept behind the book is a good one, but it was rather poorly executed. It started off okay, but as it got further, it became more of a chore to read. It didn't seem as if the author's heart was really in it. To see how this concept fares when properly executed, try Walter Jon Williams' *Hardwired*.

1999-12-29 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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A superb technothriller quest!
A wonderful novel about what technology enables the power structure--and the individual--to accomplish, told through the quest of a small band of people seeking their own freedom. Highly readable, blending a nice sense of computer-based semi-magical realism ("Any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic", to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke), this is a book that stays in your memory, both for its attention to detail (believability) and its themes.

1999-08-13 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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The Memory of Fire

Description

In a dark and not-so-distant future, whole populations are addicted to virtual sensation--and vast bureaucracies are using deadly force to rid themselves of troublemakers. Within this world, small, self-contained communities--called nodes, or cruces--live in an anarchistic freedom that threatens organized society. This is the world of accordionist and composer Soledad MacRae.

When the cruce of Bamaca on the South American coast is destroyed, Soledad flees to northern California in search of a Yanqui node to give her refuge. But terrifyingly realistic dreams of her old city intrude on her peace. It soon becomes clear that Soledad's visions of her doomed home have somehow turned into a black prediction of how the bureaucracies will wipe out the American node. Now, to save her new refuge, Soledad must uncover the deadly secret that lies at the heart of her old life, particularly her passionate love affair with rebel poet Jorge Echeverria, whose incendiary poems she once set to music. For music is the final key, not only to the bureaucracies' deadly plans, but to the ultimate mystery of her own survival.

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Customer Reviews

One of my favorites
It's been a while since I read this book, but I remember loving it when I read it (i.e. the five stars). Much of it had to do with Foy's description of the nodes, which given my travels, and associations with artists and musicians, I found very familiar and stirring. Of course I think this goes to the heart of why some people love Foy and some don't. He definitely takes a stand on issues that most authors just float by, and if you're on the other side of these arguements I'm sure he would seem quite absurd; hence the 1 star reviewer, who I'm sure falls firmly in his self-described "no fun crowd." ;)

2003-08-01 (Silver Spring, MD United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Pretentious and Ponderous
So it's about 50 years from now, and everybody's amusing themselves to death, except in the nodes or "cruces" where the fun crowd likes to stay. So: the no fun crowd blows up accordianist Soledad McCrae's "cruce" in Latin America with her lover and all her fun crowd friends and the next thing you know she's in the Bay Area mutely hanging with another fun crowd (and oh oh, tossing her cookies in the morning, uhuh, uhuh) and the no fun crowd is after _them_ too, and the flashbacks are told in the present sense and the present-time events are told in the past tense and Soledad is so _not_ fun herself that you really want to slap her, and there are a lot of Spanish words and so every tenth word is in italics and there's all this arcane musicology stuff.

But this is cyberpunk, so there are also lots of product references and the fun crowd are all heroes and the no fun crowd are fascists, and there's this performance art machine that keeps smashing the carcass of a dead horse against the wall and Doris Lessing likes it and on the back cover compares Foy to Conrad (you cannot make this stuff up) and another blurb mentions Hemingway.

So I guess this is for graduate students in English or American studies who want to deconstruct science fiction. I.e., paraphrasing what Dr. Samuel Johnson once said about a popular drama of his day: "this is a book not to read, but to have read."

Whatever.

2003-06-27 | lb136 (New York, NY USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 1

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Intense but not gratifying
I like the writing of George Foy enough to buy every one of his books that appears. I thoroughly relished "The Shift", found "Contraband" less pleasing and more difficult, and find "The Memory of Fire" to be even more so.

The characterization is excellent, as is Foy's wonderful use of language and his ability to evoke vivid and realistic scenes in which to place his action. I enjoyed getting to know a great deal about Soledad MacRae; her personal experiences, her inner life as a musician, her relationships with Jorge and Stix and the other characters that crossed her path. Foy made life in the Cruces very real in my mind, and I liked "being there".

In spite of its intriguing exotic atmosphere, I found the novel wanting. It moves very slowly, but jumps erratically between the time frames and places from which Soledad is escaping. Even though the story gradually heats up to a violent action packed conclusion, I felt that I was getting ever more bogged down and plodding through it. I wasn't carried along by its final energy.

I suggest passing on this one, and keeping an eye on whatever comes next from Foy. I love his writing and hope that his next effort has more than atmosphere.

2001-05-06 | banjo & SciFi | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 3

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Dreamy
If you, like one of the reviewers here on Amazon.com, thought that Foy's previous book, "Contraband", was similar in style to James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", then this is "Ulysses".

Nothing much actually happens in this book, it is mostly a stream of thoughts by the main character Soledad MacRae. The setting picks up on the idea in the quote to chapter 21 in "Contraband". In this quote, BON talks about Hawkley-ites establishing communities called "nodes" that behave like sovereign states and trade freely.

"The Memory of Fire" starts with the destruction of Soledad's node and continues in two main streams. One stream is her memory of the events that led up to the destruction of the node, from her moving from the "normal" city to the node, falling - perhaps - in love, and discovering herself as a woman. The other stream talks about her flight to the American node, the fight for its survival, and Soledad's further self-disovery.

It is a difficult read - much more so than Foy's previous books - but it pays off reasonably well for the patient reader. If you liked the previous works then be aware that this story is quite different: much more thought stream and much less "cyperpunk". And almost no Hawkley quotes! Depending on your tastes, this may be a better or worse starting point. "Contraband" is certainly an easier read. If you don't enjoy the "cyber" elements then you might prefer this volume.

A good effort by George Foy.

2000-07-31 | Just Another Reader (Bedfordshire, UK) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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literary SF
I gave this book five stars because it is the only book I have read in the last ten years that I would consider reading again immediately after finishing it. Its plot is not strong, as other reviewers have remarked, but I imagine the author would not claim that this book is written for those who demand a lively plot. The book is set in the future, and there are some interesting futuristic scenes as well as a framework for the story line based on conjectures about the consequences of corporations that extend past national boundaries, abuse of the media to form public opinion, and excessive influence of corporations on official policy. The real power of this book, though, is its ability to put you in this future world and acquaint you with the intimate thoughts of someone who lives there.

One of the professional reviewers pans the writing, but I put the quality of the writing at the top end of the spectrum. The writing is strongly evocative. It provides a strong mood for the book, and a very unusual solidity of surroundings. In a way I have rarely, if ever, before experienced in a futuristic novel, I finished the book thinking that I would not be at all surprised to be able to buy an airline ticket to Bamaca, and disembark to see exactly what the book described. And though the San Francisco of The Memory of Fire does not exist, if one is willing to suspend one's knowledge of the facts, the book gives its city the same feeling of reality we experience when we think of the real San Francisco.

As another reviewer remarked, the protagonist, Solidad MacRae, is not someone we would be likely to meet on the street. On the other hand, she comes across as a very real person. Many SF books give characterization short shrift. Most of the best put believable people into the plot. In contrast, MOF builds the plot around an improbable character, and somewhere along the line gives her life.

There is much in the book about Solidad's personal relationships. Relationships with her mother and father, her past and current lovers, even her lover's daughter. This focus on her relationships is what makes Solidad so real. It is also what makes this book a distinctly literary sort of book rather than SF. It is also the aspect of the book that comes close to putting the plot in the back seat. Someone who has trouble understanding people who are not like them will probably not enjoy this book, because they will fail to appreciate what the words about Solidad are doing. My view is the following. If I want a book likely to have a riveting plot, I can read John Grisham or Michael Crichton or Stephen King. If I want to feed my mind with new technical ideas, I really should read some book on programming, because it furthers my career. I do often choose science fiction because it has both of these, but what I am really looking for in my SF is books about people in an interesting situation. And this book is about someone in spades, even to the extent that it does not come across much as science fiction despite its distinctly futuristic setting.

Another interesting aspect of the book is its attempt to describe musical experiences. It is extremely difficult to describe the experience of music in words. I have been a musician, and I would say the author comes amazingly close to the mark as he relates to us Solidad's thoughts about her instrument, her performances and nervousness, and her music. This facet of the story could have been reduced without doing serious damage to the plot, but that would have deprived us readers of a rare opportunity to learn something of the meaning music has to the serious musician.

I said I would read the book again immediately. That's so because this book is packed so full of comments on life and about the envisioned future that I felt I was only able to take in about 50% of what is there to get on the first reading, and experiencing the mood of the book is so interesting that it would not be a chore to read it a second time. In reality, I probably won't go through it again because "So many books, so little time." But I got far more than my time and money's worth just from the 50% of the meat that my efforts garnered me.

This book is decidedly not for everyone. It's not for the hardcore SF fan or the typical fantasy reader. It IS for a sensitive person for whom experiencing other people's lives through the written word is a valued gift, and who is wide open to living that life vicariously in a world that does not exist. It is for someone who appreciates mood and literary style. And it is for someone who is of pretty liberal persuasion, and for whom social issues have some interest. If this description fits you, then I cannot recommend this book too highly. And if you love music, so much the better!

2000-07-13 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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The Last Harbor (Bantam Spectra Book)

Description

Dreams can set you free -- or imprison you forever....

The acclaimed author of The Shift and Contraband delivers a brilliant new novel set in an edgy future where nothing is more dangerous than a dream....

Slocum had it all: the perfect family, the perfect home, and the perfect job with X-Corp Multimedia -- a major producer of interactive virtual-reality entertainment. In a world divided between protected enclaves of luxury and blighted, decaying landscapes, the ubiquitous 3-D telecasts over the Flash hold millions in thrall with their packaged, programmed dreams.

Once Slocum helped devise those dreams, until his career at X-Corp self-destructed and with it his marriage. Now his world has shrunk to a tiny sloop berthed in the dingy harbor of a dying New England seafaring town, where the main attraction is a virtual-whaling theme park. In his solitary cabin he studies the legendary Smuggler's Bible and dreams of sailing off to a life of freedom.

Then an enormous ocean liner docks beside him in the harbor: a floating palace of glittering wealth and mystery, with a single enigmatic passenger, a woman who restlessly walks the decks as if unable to leave the ship. For Slocum -- rejected by his wife and daughter, hounded by his vengeful employers, harassed by the town police, his credit cut off, his funds running out -- the alluring woman soon becomes his sole hope of escape. Only by learning her terrifying secret can he free her from her gilded captivity ... and realize his own dreams -- which, in a world of mass-produced fantasy, is the most forbidden pursuit of all.

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Customer Reviews

The Last Harbor by George Foy
The Last Harbor. George Foy. New York, New York: Bantam Books, March 2003. 357 pg.
Reviewed by Kayla Wigen

X-Corp, makers of graphic interactive 3-D "dreams", controls the New England Town. Slocum was a rising worker who lost interest in his work, which led to a divorce with his wife and unable to see his daughter. He moved onto his broken down sloop with his only companions being the Smuggler's Bible and a cat. The harbormaster orders Slocum to leave his current place were he docks his boat because Coggerhill Wharf is THE LAST HARBOR in the area where a big ship can dock. Slocum refuses because he doesn't believe a big ship will arrive after fifteen years or more without any docking but he can't leave anyway until the mechanic fixes his boat. To his amazement, the big ship arrives along with rumors that the Syndicate is its owner. Invited to enter the big ship, Slocum meets Melisande. Soon he believes that she is his last harbor to enable him to regain his real dreams, but first he must learn what holds her prisoner on the big ship.

A lot of The Last Harbor takes place in bars and brothels. The Last Harbor has "mature" themes and a general tone of depression that may not be for everybody. If you can put up with Carl Hiassen, you'll have no problem with this guy. This book had more setting and fewer plots than is normal for the story. I personally thought that, after all the buildup, the author was in too much of a hurry to get the story over with, and the ending was disappointing in terms of the ever-popular and quite important "what happened?" quotient. THE LAST HARBOR is a typical George Foy grim and dark look at a 1984 book of what today's future would be. It leaves little hope for a person to survive let alone thrive all alone. The grayness of what is to come simmered through Slocum and his interactions or lack of with other people. At the same time that readers begin to understand the scope of Slocum's feelings and the environment her resides in, the audience will ask where is the action as the plot slowly evolves. If grit, grime, and gray are what a reader wants in a science fiction tale, then they should stop THE LAST HARBOR.

The plot of the book is a science fiction story with a little romance mixed in. This book is mostly for adults and young adults. The main character is unraveling a conspiracy. The setting is on earth in the 22nd or 24th century. The story is mostly in 3rd person and has some scientific explanation. He is in his own place. The Last Harbor is very long on atmosphere, and very long on "writing." Here is a passage from the book:
Slocum looked at other things as he sat and sipped his coffee but always his eyes returned to the marina across the water. He thought, as he watched it, that the place looked the same as the first time he'd seen it. That lack of change always felt odd because much else had changed in his life and in relation to the Whaling City Marina and the credit entity that was its core. But there it lay, starfiltered by mist, the tangle of rigging and masts, docklines and pilings, and the warped facades of the condo development behind, with the fuzz of sickened saltmarsh extending from it on both sides like the claws of a yellow-green crab. Behind the marina rose a jagged hairline of third-growth pitch pine and then the tower of an old-fashioned town hall and rooftops of suburbs farther south. He remembered seeing it like this across the harbor when he used to drive into Town looking for god knew what.

I really wanted this book to redeem itself. Foy's use of language is beautiful. The images created by Foy's words are vivid and his metaphors are brilliant. As I neared the end of this story, however, it became clear that I would be disappointed. While the themes explored throughout the book are interesting and relevant and kept me reading, the plot is ultimately one of "male hero rescues female victim". Yuck. So over all I liked and hated it at the same time.

2004-04-12 (Spokane, WA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Haunting
To all appearances, John Slocum is a success: a high-level executive with mega-corporation XCorp Multimedia, in charge of developing 3-D interactive shows for the Flash, the sense-enveloping virtual reality environment that provides the ubiquitous background for millions of lives. He has all the perks of wealth and privilege, including a gorgeous home and a perfect family. He's also, like so many others of his kind, addicted to Flash, and spends nearly every waking hour with a face-sucker (VR mask) on, viewing 3-D dramas as he goes about the ordinary business of his life.

But Slocum is more self-aware than most of his colleagues, and he has slowly become disgusted with the way the Flash saps his ability to sense and feel apart from the cues of 3-D. In a spasmodic attempt to force a change, he quits his XCorp job and goes to work for the Independent Credit Entity, a ragtag alternative community founded on a philosophy of smallness, interdependence, individuality--the polar opposite of giant Orgs like XCorp, whose size has transformed them into what amounts to independent, self-interested life-forms. But things don't work out with ICE. Slocum's wife leaves him, taking his daughter. Now Slocum lives alone on a sloop whose engine suffers from chronic mechanical failure, berthed in a decaying harbor in a crumbling New England town. He spends his days puttering about his boat and dreaming of escape, a routine broken by futile attempts to see his daughter and by visits to the Sunset Tap, a bar where outsiders like himself gather.

The sloop and its berth are all Slocum has, so when representatives of the town Council tell him he must move to make room for a large ship that's coming into harbor, he refuses. He half-believes the ship doesn't exist; when he wakes one night to find it has already arrived--a vast luxury liner like something out of the past century--it seems more dream than real. It carries, apparently, only a single passenger, a mysterious dark-haired woman. As a hurricane moves inexorably up the coast, and the Council steps up its efforts to make him move, Slocum's growing fascination with the woman and the ship lead him toward a secret that may offer the escape he craves--but at a price that may be too high to pay.

"The Last Harbor" is set in the same near-future world as "The Shift", "Contraband", and "The Memory of Fire". Like the latter two novels, it's concerned with the nodes (alternative communities like the ICE) and their opposition to the Orgs; but its focus is more on those who've fallen out of (or have never chosen to be part of) either sort of community, and live between the cracks--from the regulars at the Sunset Tap to the whores and toughs who hang out at Madame Ling's fortunetelling parlor to the little group of hobos who ride America's vanishing rails. Foy's evocation of the precarious existence of these people, and of the small, defiant sense of community they evolve despite their alienation, is both lyrical and profoundly melancholy, and sharply contrasted to the anomic, overstimulated excesses of Slocum's former colleagues, when he returns briefly to that world.

Though "The Last Harbor" is shaped by its science fictional content--especially Slocum's Flash addiction, which is painstakingly examined--it reads for the most part like a mainstream literary novel, exploring the same territory of physical decline and moral defeat that has been dissected in detail by such non-genre writers as Robert Stone. The bulk of the novel involves Slocum's efforts to understand his failures and pierce his many self-deceptions, and work his way back to something like a responsible life. Much of the action is internal; the external encounters that trigger Slocum's ruminations and propel him, bit by bit, toward transformation aren't particularly suspenseful, despite their deep significance for Slocum, and their often explicit symbolism (such as the unending quest to fix the unfixable sloop). The drama lies in the process of transformation itself, and in the choice Slocum faces at the novel's conclusion--a choice that (depending on how you read it) is either the final step in his struggle to break free, or a catastrophic re-surrender to slavery.

Straight science fiction fans, or those who liked Foy's more conventionally cyberpunkish books, may find this rather dull--and they will certainly be frustrated by the ending, in which a Big Science Fiction Idea, which might have been the center of another book, is put forward and disposed of in a page or two. But for those who appreciate more literary work, "The Last Harbor" offers a feast of imagery and atmosphere, and a compelling portrait of a flawed man coming to grips with his own history.

2002-03-29 (Massachussetts, United States) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Miserable, dull and boring
I was a fan of George Foy. But gone is the clever and witty writing from his earlier work. After wallowing through half of the book, I gave up. Little plot, little action, just miserable exposition. Dull and boring. Read Neil Stephenson (anything) for quality writing, if you like this genre.

2002-01-05 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 1

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Excellent work of science fiction
X-Corp, makers of graphic interactive 3-D "dreams", controls the New England Town. Slocum was a rising yuppie who lost interest in his work, which led to an estrangement with his wife and an inability to see his daughter. He moved onto his broken down sloop with his only companions being the Smuggler's Bible and a cat.

The harbormaster orders Slocum to leave his current mooring because Coggerhill Wharf is THE LAST HARBOR in the area where a big ship can dock. Slocum refuses because he does not believe a big ship will arrive after fifteen plus years without any dockings nor can he leave anyway until the Mechanic fixes his sloop.

To his amazement, the big ship arrives along with rumors that the Syndicate is its owner. Invited to enter the big ship, Slocum meets Melisande. Soon he believes that she is his last harbor to enable him to regain his real dreams, but first he must learn what holds her prisoner on the big ship.

THE LAST HARBOR is the typical George Foy grim and dark look at a 1984-esque future that leaves little hope for an independent person to even survive let alone thrive. The grayness of what is to come is slowly simmered through Slocum and his interactions or lack of with other people. At the same time that readers begin to understand the scope of Slocum's feelings and the environment he resides in, the audience will ask where is the action as the plot slowly evolves. If grit, grime, and gray are what a reader wants in a science fiction tale, then they should stop THE LAST HARBOR.

Harriet Klausner

2001-06-28 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Tidal Race

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