Rating: 
Summary: An incomplete tale
Review: Plowing the Dark contained many memorable passages. The language was challenging and imaginative. However, the story lacked the power and punch that his earlier works had. The split narrative reminded me of Operation Wandering Soul, but Plowing didn't have the same raw impact of its predecessor. Mr. Powers began many tales, and then decided not to pursue them further. The afflicted former boyfriend demanded more attention than he got; he was far too complex to be just a plot device for a tonal piece to set the finale to. Also, Jackdaw just disappears. Mr. Powers hadn't shied away from delving into the very personal lives of his characters, but Jackdaw served his purpose and was dispatched. I can't determine if those two examples are just indications of a tale told too fast, or of characters intended for a singular purpose and then dismissed with the purpose was achieved. Plowing was worth the time; however, it doesn't compete on any level with his earlier works.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, remarkable, stunning
Review: Richard Powers has a unique ability to see his characters' deepest inner workings and lay them bare on the page. I've read practically everything he's written, and the process of evolution from the start to end of each novel, from expectation and exegesis and exposition to synthesis, denouement, and afterglow is similarly mindbending and remarkable. Plowing the Dark shows the evolution of many interrelated characters, not just the main two elements of the affectation of the book: a parallel of a man kidnapped and held hostage in Beirut's development of an internal mental landscape and a woman who has held herself captive in her real life as she creates a new world in a virtual computer environment. Never a missed note in this book: never a misstep. The hostage goes through crises of soul and flesh; the woman becomes more and less complex, viewed through the deepest darkest parts of the people she works with. Ultimately, and frankly, Powers can't bear to end his books, and the endings are often difficult to parse and appreciate. One story comes off well; the other plotline fades a bit for more. But in a way that gives rise to me thinking more about its conclusion. It's trite, but his books don't really end when you finish them.
Rating: 
Summary: It's the singer, not the song
Review: Richard Powers is certainly a master of language. I would argue that this is as much a prose poem as a novel, full of beautiful and original images. And the Lebanon story is emotionally powerful. But I found Adie Klarpol a wan heroine, making a great struggle out of pretty ordinary difficulties. And the ending...no way, Jack. Powers is a great singer, but this isn't much of a song. In all, not up to the admittedly high standard set by the Gold Bug Variations. PS: I'm guessing that the VR lab is based on the HITLab (Human Interface Technology) Laboratory at the University of Washington.
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking, inspiring, but...
Review: Richard Powers is well named; for this is a powerful book. Every page just slams your head with a combination of punches that just does not stop. While incredibly impressive, at times you wish the bell would ring and you could go back to your corner to catch your breath. I've lived in the world described in the book, doing research in computer graphics for the last 22 years; and in weaving his tapestry he does not drop many stitches. Every detail of the hardware, and almost everybody I know in the field can be found here. Still, the arcaneness of some of his references (Cornell boxes, please!) go over the line that separates authenticity from pedantry. In the end, this is a very good book. By packing so much into each page Powers can explore a huge number of subjects. Some characters are two dimensional, perhaps; but between them they span the limits of human experiential space. The book soars breathtakingly then in crashes despairingly in a few pages; it's a remarkable ride. This book reminded me at times of Asimov's Foundation; and at other times of Stephenson at his best. It's a book that I wish I had read more slowly -- Powers demands that the reader work hard to digest fully all the courses in this feast...and I'm sorry I pushed through to the end so quickly. This is a book for savoring. Maybe next time.
Rating:
Summary: The imaginary spaces humans create, furnish, and inhabit
Review: The intricate detail, measured pacing, data-packed prose, and clever wordplay of "Plowing the Dark" will awe some readers and simply frustrate (or bore) others. Unlike virtual reality games and its many military applications, unlike the news accounts concerning the many victims of Middle East terrorism, Powers's novel favors description and experience over action and emotion. His novel explores the "virtual" rooms humans create under wildly different circumstances.
Both of the book's storylines, which don't converge until the very end, are about the imaginary spaces we create, furnish, and inhabit. In one plot thread, a team of programmers transform an empty closet-sized cubical into a place of desire--a 3-D theater of the fantastical, an interactive carnival that entices and awes its visitors. On the other side of the world, an American hostage trapped in an equally empty Beirut dungeon constructs a place of need, using the stage of his mind to recreate his past, his present, and an endless variety of elaborate fictions.
Neither of these fabricated realms is real, but only one of them is essential for survival. Meanwhile, in the "real" world outside, tanks are mowing down protesters, iron curtains are falling, and an instantly televised war begins.
The prose is often a challenge and nearly always fascinating--in small doses. Powers's polymath mind is a warehouse of art and music, literature and history, religion and philosophy, technology and science--and he likes to incorporate his genius into every sentence. Although overwhelming, the deluge of data is remarkably seamless, and I never felt like his brilliance is simply for show. As a programmer from the later 1970s and 1980s, I can appreciate Powers's gift of technogab with a certain post-geek nostalgia, but not every reader will enjoy the wit in passages like: "Bergen dreamed that his Tinkertoy docking simulator would one day drive the actual mechanisms it symbolized. In the cybernetics of enzymes, the mousy, invisible man saw the basic switching and feedback networks of natural selection. In these shape messages telegraphing among their senders he heard whole counterpointing choirs, choruses untestable in isolation."
The two main characters are intelligently and sensitively portrayed. Adie, a disillusioned New York-based artist, is drawn to the possibilities offered by the new media. The thoughts and dreams of Taimur, the hostage in Beirut, are both haunting and believable, and the second-person perspective ("Someone brings you food") simultaneously conveys the horror of the experience and evokes the imaginative qualities of role-playing games from the 1980s.
But--and this is probably the novel's greatest fault, the members of each supporting cast (the Islamic terrorists and the team of Seattle-based computer nerds) are nearly impossible to differentiate. And, finally, the "Angels in America"-inspired ending, while oddly emotional and initially satisfying, strikes me (on reflection) as a bit contrived. After 400 pages of both brutal and virtual reality, this climactic, unexpected dose of magic realism seems borrowed from a wholly different software package.
Rating:
Summary: A Modern Tour-de-Force
Review: The novel is set in the late 1980's and early 90's, and has as its backdrop the astonishing worldwide events of those years--the Berlin Wall, Tianneman Square, etc. The main plot concerns a group of people working on a virtual reality project, and the team consists of everyone from stereotypical anti-social geeks to a crochety mathmetician, from a wannabe poet turned programmer to a former painter turned logo designer turned graphical designer. Though it doesn't sound like much of a plot, their struggles with what they are creating, set against the political background and motivated by their personal interactions is very compelling. The descriptions of what they are trying to create are breathtaking--Powers' writing is more beautiful in these sections than I can imagine "real" VR will be for decades. There is a parallel plot that has as little "action," but is more harrowing--it is the story of a man taken hostage by middle-eastern extremists. What he goes through is still resonating in my mind. I won't tell you how these plots work together, but to my mind, Powers succeeds in bringing them together. Having praised this book so much--and it is one of the best new novels I've read in a long time--I should say that it probably isn't for everyone. While it isn't extremely "post-modern" (there are no characters named "Richard Powers;" no extended discussion about textuality; the only idiosyncracy of printing is the placing of quotations in italics), it certainly is in a post-modern mode. The book isn't terribly depressing, but it is gut-wrenching at times, so I wouldn't read it if you are looking for a pick-me-up. That said, though, I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Heart Touched, Mind Stretched, Imagination Celebrated
Review: This book does everything a novel should do: it transports you to a world with characters you care about, challenges your intellect, plays on your heart strings, and leaves you changed and richer for having read it. One of the side benefits of reading this book was that I re-acquainted myself with Yeats poem, "Sailing to Byzantium." I like it when a book leads me down unexpected paths or calls up forgotten areas of past literary experience. This book is deep, and addresses those perennial questions about what's real and what it means to be human. It is a celebration of the triumph of love and the human imagination over solitude and despair.
Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous, Stunning
Review: This book just swept me away. Richard Powers is one of my favorite writers of all time and Plowing the Dark shows Powers in prime form. Like his other novels, this one is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally rich. And yet -- how does he do it? -- this book is an absolute orginal! It provides all the expected pleasures of a Powers novel, yet it reminds me of nothing I've ever read before (by Powers or any other writer). Plowing is an absorbing story told in gorgeous prose. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: A Tale of Two Cities?
Review: This book was difficult to read. I kept running into words I had never heard. I tried looking them up, many of them were not in my small dictionary. I also felt bad that I did not know many of the art names, movements, etc. that Powers gave. I don't think I am uneducated but I really found out there is a tremendous amount I don't know. Because of this problem the book seemed snobby to me. And I think that will seriously limit it's readership. This book has a nice contrast in types of life problems. There were many characters who were scarred by one thing or another in their lives; the hostage character demonstrated very well that emotional scars pale in significance to some very real horrors. It might be time as a people to put away our preoccupations with our own emotional hurts and losses and get on with it. This may be the message Powers is trying to project. The book explores all kinds of sensory input, and lack of input. Imagination and various types of intelligence are visited and described. The difficulty for me was that it felt like Powers sat down with a grocery list of all the different words, art movements, types of imaginations, VR developments, etc., and crossed them off each time he got through one of them in his novel. Some of the lush descriptions also felt like a grocery list to me. In spite of the difficulties listed above, I did like the book. After all, I finished reading it. (I hardly ever waste time reading all the way through an unworthy novel.) The ending was beautiful, but it was a long time coming.
Rating:
Summary: Turn Off the Television!
Review: This is the kind of book that deserves your full attention -- no distractions will do to really enjoy this "meaty" read! Powers latest is the kind of book most writers would love to write; filled with magnificent prose, rich texture and an intelligent story. Not for the under-educated, this book is shocking in its beauty and vision. Don't peek at the ending -- it's worth reading every page to get to the wrap-up. One of the best books I've read in years (and I'm a voracious reader). I'm definitely going to order another of his novels, hoping for lightning to strike twice. This is a masterpiece.
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