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Air by Geoff Ryman
01/11/2006 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: St. Martin's Press. 390 page enlarged paperback. Price: $14.95 (US), $21.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-312-26121-7). pub: Gollancz. 390 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-575-07811-1. Buy Air in the USA - or Buy Air in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk and www.stmartins.com
'Air' is the name of the book and new technology that allows people to directly contact a new version of the Net mentally in the near future that will allow people to communicate across the world. An early test in the country of Karzistan, which looks more like some sort of Chinese province, causes a couple deaths. For one lady, an illiterate village clothes make Chung Mae (the last part being her Christian name), she absorbs the personality of Granny Tung before she dies as well as sets her email address on 'Air' which gives her additional awareness.
The problems are caused by software hip-cups and the UN version will be given the heave-ho with more in favour with the Gates version - nice touch. In the meantime, Mae's exposure allows her to use an earlier version though her television and discovers the rest of the world and people in New York who like her work. Mae in turn is going slowly off the rails, has an affair while her husband is away and gets shunned by the village while she is attempting to teach them how to cope with Air.
Geoff Ryman really catches the flavour of this village and its different type of mindset although I have to confess that he loses some of this towards the end...but not much. All too often, writers have a tendency to write too much from what is around them rather than research and stretch their mindsets capacity. As such, 'Air' should be required reading for all neo-writers to learn from. Ryman successfully brings the various characters to life and we enter their lives and society.
It is rather an odd thing in that we don't really see much of 'Air' itself. It's just waiting in the wings, so to speak, and centring on its developing effects on one village rather than the world at large. Again, this is more a crucial turning point for mankind and I doubt if it would be so effective had it centred on a community better equipped for dealing with the world. As outsiders, we can see the effects and can draw our own conclusions without thinking of ourselves as superior. A definite SF book to read.
GF Willmetts
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