Robert Glover

In The Kings of England, Robert Glover worked a tour de force in historiography, combining and streamlining many earlier histories of English monarchs into a concise volume. From a modern perspective, the work demonstrates what traits historians valued in the royalty during the sixteenth century. While editing the Folio edition of this book, Derek Parker corrected many of Glover's errors in dates and fixed problematic and indecipherable sentences. For most of the book, Glover attempted to write an accurate history, though he takes a more politic approach during the last few entries, roughly from Edward V onward, as any indiscretion on his part could have cost him his position as herald. The reader will notice especially that the entries on Henry VIII though James I forgo most attempts at historical accuracy in favor of outright praise or, in the case of Queen Mary, condemnation. Even these sections are instructive, though, as they capture the mindset of those in politics during the period in which Glover wrote.… (mais)

SciFi, Dystopia, Cyberpunk.

After several pandemics and successive governmental screw-ups attempting to create the perfect little obedient citizen (and when that failed, the perfect little obedient soldier to exterminate the previous failures, but that failed too), Humans Mark I are extinct, replaced by the 9th series of clones to have been created.

They make up for their relative lack of distinctive features by wearing electronic masks that among other functions display (for a cost, and with authentication) marks reflecting their various skills and achievements.
The matter of those masks, and the hero's initial moping at the blankness of his, are maybe dwelt upon a bit insistently, but this probably reflects those people's general obsession with what is for them the equivalent of many things rolled into one : wearing branded clothes, tallying their social, professional and other success for all to see, etc... the very identity and uniqueness their uniform appearances and less widespread access to non-mass-produced or superfluous goods hamper. (Probably another mess of Screw-Up Government, thinking it would be cheaper and good for everyone to look the same.)

The protagonist is a programmer just out of training with scant marks to show to his name, which makes it difficult for him to find a job and make a living.
To make things worse, he finds out his software and main source of income is usurped, big time, by a deadbeat who unfortunately happens to work for one of the major crime families in the city. Yet he may get back at the thief, for a few favors to another group...

So, fairly interesting world premise but...
(1) The protagonist is supposed to be insanely good. Alright. But the treatment of his programming efforts is often more akin to hand-waving or a magic spell than anything like the real work and time it may involve. That or him somehow almost always having chunks of old code lying around that happen to be a perfect fit for the specific situation.
(2) While his becoming more world-wise but still attempting to remain a basically decent person is a major plot point, and a change from the typical jadedly cynic Cyberpunk protagonist could have been welcome, his initial naivety feels laid on a bit too thick and doesn't make too much sense. Did he have a loving family despite there being no mention of them whatsoever ? Are young clones educated by the collectivity in places somehow sheltered from what seems to be a fairly crapsack world overall ? Are they still produced through cloning, and released into the world as adolescents or young adults with no real childhood, a set of flawed expectations and only some final training to go through ?… (mais)