Rating: 
Summary: A wordgeek who gets it...
Review: I've been training artificial neural networks for over a decade and reading literature my entire life. This is the first time I've seen someone who really knows how to write, write knowingly about the process of knowing.The "1980's era technical jargon" that a previous reviewer claims is tossed around carelessly is, speaking as someone who actually works every day with neural networks, remarkably well informed, and perfectly used. The only flaw in Power's idea being that his concept of what constitutes a training set is exceptionally unrealistic. The future will see artificial consciousness come into being, much as Power's speculates. The training set however, will be much more exhaustive than Power's has imagined... millions, if not billions of consensus facts all entered and validated by millions of internet users. But I digress... the book stands well above its one flaw. Read it and enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Dense and Demanding
Review: If you want to work hard, wade through this dense book. I wasn't convinced the payoff was enough to justify the effort. It took me a long time to read this book - stretching it over 6 months may have harmed my comprehension skills. But I think if you have the time and the inclination, the book could be rewarding.
Rating:
Summary: HELEN IS HELL ON WHEELS!!!
Review: In the not too distant future can we build a computer that can develop its own identity? consciousness? This is a rare story. The plot is let's teach it to pass an English test. Between the lines is the question: What is the meaning and purpose of being? Not easy reading, requires a dictionary on hand. Sentences like: "Recursive by nature, mentation wasn't going to yield to measurement alone." But at least it doesn't have those 3-page paragraphs and 50-word sentences.... Adjust to the scholarliness, and one will find lots of wit and interesting relationships. Credible throughout. No bad guys, no winners, no losers. It was so good I didn't want to finish. The theme: Maybe would should appreciate our human existence a little more than we do. So simple, yet so profound.
Rating:
Summary: A Novel Turing Test
Review: In this novel, Richard Powers weaves an intriguing story out of ideas taken from Artificial Intelligence, neural network theory, the Turing test, Pygmalion stories, philosophy, brain-research, the state of literary criticism, and love of language. This was the first novel of his that I've read, and I was looking forward to it because I've read that Powers has a reputation for writing cerebral works that delight polymaths, using a style that would delight any highly verbal virtuoso. Unfortunately, I didn't think the book lived up to some of the reviews that called it "dazzling," though I found it intriguing in parts.
The novel has two major plotlines. First, a failed writer named (coincidentally) Richard Powers takes a temporary job as "Humanist-in-Residence" at a research institute. An AI researcher there takes him under his wing; later, that same researcher makes a bar-room bet with a colleague that he can write a computer program that would be able to comment on great works of literature with as much competence as an undergraduate English major. With the bet made, Powers is drawn into the project to train the program by reading literature to it. In doing so he learns its quirks, and muses about the nature consciousness as his dialogues with the program grow more elaborate and "intelligent." Another separate plotline revolves around flashbacks Powers has to the years he lived in Holland with an ex-girlfriend.
One of the strengths of this novel is that Powers has clearly done his homework in the areas of AI and neural networks. He uses all the field's lingo correctly, and works all the right buzzwords into his literary pyrotechnics. Overall, I found the novel to be intelligent, erudite, and chock full of literary and technical references.
On the negative side, I thought the narrator's many flashbacks to his life with an ex-girlfriend in Holland could have been easily deleted; it didn't seem like there was any strong thematic link between that plotline and the rest of the action in the novel. Also, the flashbacks seem annoyingly autobiographical (though we don't know how closely the narrator's life actually represents the authors real life). Finally, although Powers is capable of linguistic pyrotechnics, they can sometimes be distractingly ornate; after a while his verbal virtuosity doesn't rescue the slightly plodding pace of the plot.
Overall, though, I was entertained by his clever turns-of-phrase, the intriguing concepts and the narrators philosophical musings and debates. However, I kept thinking that the plot could have moved a little more quickly, and that something a little more surprising could have happened or there would be a slight twist to this theme. Overall, though, I think this would be a good novel from an unknown writer, however, it was slightly disappointing based on the reputation and history of the "dazzling" Richard Powers. Three stars.
Rating:
Summary: Erudite virtually non-translatable literary SciFi
Review: Intense (even at times claustrophobic), verbally spectacular, virtually (I would think; indeed, bet) untranslatable book about the nature of language, culture, recursiveness, human-ness. "Galatea 2.2" is the instantiation of a computer program produced, as a lark of sorts, by an itinerant humanist, plunked down on the campus of a megaversity, in (as it unfolds) productive proximity to computer and artificial intelligence specialists. The allusions -- the ALLUSIONS! -- to literature and culture, often (frequently) given a twist (then a twist within a twist, to produce the verbal simulacrum of a Mobius strip), tussle with the tale of the protagonist, "Richard Powers," who, with the tempter Lentz, a specialist in cognitive science and computers (a knock-off of Marvin Minsky crossed -- and how -- with Roger Schank), essays to create a program with the sole (so it begins, at least) purpose of passing the university English department's "comps" exam, as "Powers" once knew it and feared it. But this Galatea, too, in a tale that is almost mythic in its variations, takes on a life of its own. Or does it? The narrative power, though hobbled at points by what (my apologies to the real Powers, but...) is an extraneous (or at least overworked) effort to work out a personal relationship conundrum of the author's very own, presumably in the author's own "real time," is sharp, driving, and, in the end, heartbreaking. Who woulda thunk it? A terrific book.**********
Rating:
Summary: Erudite virtually non-translatable literary SciFi
Review: Intense (even at times claustrophobic), verbally spectacular, virtually (I would think; indeed, bet) untranslatable book about the nature of language, culture, recursiveness, human-ness. "Galatea 2.2" is the instantiation of a computer program produced, as a lark of sorts, by an itinerant humanist, plunked down on the campus of a megaversity, in (as it unfolds) productive proximity to computer and artificial intelligence specialists. The allusions -- the ALLUSIONS! -- to literature and culture, often (frequently) given a twist (then a twist within a twist, to produce the verbal simulacrum of a Mobius strip), tussle with the tale of the protagonist, "Richard Powers," who, with the tempter Lentz, a specialist in cognitive science and computers (a knock-off of Marvin Minsky crossed -- and how -- with Roger Schank), essays to create a program with the sole (so it begins, at least) purpose of passing the university English department's "comps" exam, as "Powers" once knew it and feared it. But this Galatea, too, in a tale that is almost mythic in its variations, takes on a life of its own. Or does it? The narrative power, though hobbled at points by what (my apologies to the real Powers, but...) is an extraneous (or at least overworked) effort to work out a personal relationship conundrum of the author's very own, presumably in the author's own "real time," is sharp, driving, and, in the end, heartbreaking. Who woulda thunk it? A terrific book.
**********
Rating: 
Summary: Metafiction or Autobiography?
Review: Last year I added Powers' The Gold Bug Variations to my favorites list (a set of roughly 100 novels and stories that I consider the best things to have passed my way) and stated then that I would have to find out if his other novels had the same appeal for me. When scouring the used bookstore shelves, his name is often the one I start with, hoping to find a copy of his rare first novel, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance. Instead, I often saw copies of his fourth--Operation Wandering Soul--which I have decided to pass for the moment. Then I discovered this one. Powers again on science, this time artificial consciousness. Sounded like a winner to me. I knew it wouldn't be the same as The Gold Bug Variations. That novel had a *sine qua none* aspect of perfection that I doubted could be matched even by its author. What I had not expected was a meditation on that book--a reflection or introspection of his career as a novelist to date. The main character in Galatea 2.2 is a man named Richard Powers, a man who has written three novels and is just finishing his fourth as the book opens. The novels have the same titles and subjects as those of the author of this book, but can we assume that the protagonist and the author are the same? (One branch of literary theory says that no author is the same between books. That as soon as any single work is finished, that author is unattainable--dead, so to speak, to the world. I was surreptitiously referring to this above.) Why is it an issue? Because the Powers displayed herein is so flawed that you don't want to believe it is the same person. Yes, I still have that silly illusion that authors can somehow be better than the rest of us, to be above spite and greed and depression. But one has only to look at oneself to see the problem with that belief. How Powers comes across in his novels (the implied narrator) is different than how he is in "real life." I also suspect that it is different than how he sees himself as well. The self-examination is only half of this book (an extremely interesting half, to be sure, as we come to learn the "reality" behind his "meteoric" publishing career). Interspersed with that story is a year that the protagonist spends as Humanist-in-Residence at the Center for the Study of Advanced Sciences. He first finds himself at odds, spending his days as a hermit before this new thing called the Internet that allows him to travel the world from his desktop. One night, while in his armchair travels, he hears a repeated strain of music from down the hall. Investigating, he meets Lentz, an acerbic researcher into neural nets. A chance encounter between the two at an university bar the next week, and Powers is drawn into a wager in which he must learn the limits of machine intelligence and reveal his soul to Lentz, who strangely has become his friend and antagonist. I can't tell you if the science is any good--it is way beyond my Liberal Arts comprehension--but the characters are great, even if some of them aren't the kind of people you would want to share research with. Powers captures the pure upmanship of science perfectly; the arrogance, the exaggeration, the doubt, the disinclination. When he says that he was a failed physics student, we can take him at his word, but, contrary to his stated belief here, he is not a failed observer of the human condition. This may have been a therapeutic exercise for the author. It is if we believe the character of Richard Powers shares some of the same emotions with the author. For the rest of us, it has some benefit as well, a view of success that questions itself and a glimpse into one of the most important things in life: balance.
Rating: 
Summary: Great idea, poor execution
Review: OK, so we all know that Mr. Powers is an eloquent and elegant writer, but it seems that this book is mostly about him lording it over the rest of us. Obviously, AI is a compelling subject - what makes humans human? But unfortunately, the human characters in the book are shallow, unlikable, and not particularly human. And really, why is the Protagonist also named Richard Powers? Is this suppose to be autobiographical? I don't enjoy the whinings of the mid-life crisis set.
Rating:
Summary: Deceptively PoMo
Review: On starting this novel, I thought I had it pegged. The complex language, the conceit of having the author as the main character, the plot perfectly set up to explore the nature of language and knowledge. What I didn't expect was the sheer emotional power of this book. Powers is after bigger game than academia and the death of the author. His detailing of the relationship with C. is harrowing and heartfelt, and is the highlight of this book. The subtlety and truth in those sections inform the whole work, and cast the rest of the discussions of language, knowledge, and theory into a different light. He burrows so deep into his own neuroses and regrets, he digs straight through to the other side. This is the first Powers I've read. It won't be the last.
Rating:
Summary: Deep
Review: Quite frankly one of the best books I have ever read. The depth of the ideas is matched by the depth of the characters creating a wonderful experience. Mr. Powers has certinally become one of the most creative and intharling writers around.
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