Equations of Life

Initially, I had trouble getting in to this because I found the writing... odd. I think it was supposed to be noir but it didn’t quite make it and instead landed on awkward. Plus, all the Russian was kind of annoying, especially since there were no other verbal indications that the main character was so English-as-a-second-language that he would use that much of his native tongue in normal conversation unless it was an affectation. But as I got further into the book, it was so obviously a nerd self-insertion fantasy that I just couldn’t take it. The main character is almost schizophrenic - threatening police detectives and pushing around mob bosses, but also squeaking when kissed by a(n underaged) girl and vomiting after he runs because he’s so out of shape his side stitches hurt worse than his heart with a dodgy pacemaker. Oh, and he also touts himself as a tactical genius because he’s played some computer games and read The Art of War. Please. I did make it 70-some percent through this (though there was some heavy skimming after the halfway point) and I told myself I was going to finish it because I only had an hour left but.... I couldn’t. As soon as I said “it’s ridiculous and eyerolling but I’m going to finish it!” I couldn’t make myself pick it up again. So I give up. But I knew a lot of gamer guys in school that would love this book, so if that’s you, go for it.

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The action in Equations of Life is virtually non-stop, from the moment when Sam Petrovitch makes the split-second decision to save Sonja Oshicora from being kidnapped by a rival mob, until the very end, where every character has been battered and bruised and significantly worse for wear. I could easily see this be made into an action movie, with some pretty awesome special effects: there are explosions, sentient machinery, train wrecks, car chases, gun fights, and more.

Sam is an interesting choice for an action hero -- in some ways, he reminds me of Matt Farrell from Live Free or Die Hard. Sam's a tech and physics genius with a bum heart; he's not the kind of guy you'd expect to go running for his life through an increasingly dangerous city just to prove a point. He's a loner whose sole friend seems to be a fellow PhD student named Pif, who focuses on her work with an incredibly strong single-mindedness. He's foul-mouthed and sarcastic and is, of course, harboring some pretty dark secrets. It's perhaps a bit easier to connect with Sam than your traditional lead in an action story because, despite the dark past, he's much more of an every-man, the kind of nerdy kid you pass in the halls at school and don't give much of a second thought to.

Excellent, fast paced sf thriller

Equations of life: What you get when you multiply a mathematician by a teen-aged warrior nun and a Quantum AI, add the police and divide by three gangs. It's great fun.

Samuil Petrovitch is just trying to finish his physics/maths phD in the Metrozone - what's left of london some decades after much of the rest of the UK (and the world) had been hit by terrorist dirty nukes. Life in some respects is much like it ever was, especially for those with money. For the rest, it's just a lot more crowded. Sam wouldn't normally think of himself as a white knight, but seeing a young girl being abducted (pretty much par for the course) triggers and old nerve, and he intervenes. They manage to flee to church which happens to be guarded by Magdalene who found her vocation and stature young in life - permitted expression of extreme violence. She's rather taken with Samuil, as she see's little good in the world anymore. Between the two girls they manage to get him patched up, whereupon he learns that the girl he saved is a gangland boss's only daughter. Said father is extremely grateful as only a Japanese ganglord could be, but Sam would much rather make his own way in the world, especially as he now has attention from the police as well. He know's his history won't survive too much scrutiny and he's really rather get back to his maths, especially as it seems his study partner has made a rather clever breakthrough.

It's just a really neat dystopia, full of clever ideas and interesting people who are (always my favourite) morally ambivalent, trying to do their best in a complex an dangerous world. The romance is down-played and well handled, the gangsters suitably violent, but tempered by intelligence which is welcome. Everybody has believable motivations and only the copper Chain is somewhat one-dimensional. In some ways it' s a bit of disappointment that the physics is relegated to a sideshow as there's very little social commentary that is the hallmark of the best SF.

Well worth reading.

This book was a lot of fun where the protagonist, a theoretical scientist and former refugee from Russia, gets involved in a deadly game, caught between two mobs because he tries to do what is right for once.
Very fast paced.

energetic & fun, I read it at quite a gallop, the writing was both clever, descriptive and pacy. A fairly simple storyline but told well.

Loved this book! Great dystopian novel. Samuil Petrovitch is a Russian ex-pat living in the London Metrozone after an apocalypse, that we're told little about, has occurred some years in the past. He's a grad student in physics and about to solve the problem of time travel with a colleague. Then something happens. He gets involved. He notices a beautiful young lady about to be kidnapped and possibly assassinated and grabs her. A chase ensues and they escape. The police get involved, of course. Turns out she's the daughter of the biggest Japanese mobster there is and the Russian mob was out to get her. Now there's a price on his head.

The book is one major chase scene after another through a rapidly deteriorating London. In the midst of this, he meets Maddy, a young Amazonian nun with the biggest gun he's ever seen. They become partners. See, the girl he saved does end up getting kidnapped after all and he vows to save her. In the meantime, something called the New Machine Jihad starts tearing the city apart, with all of the electronics going crazy. He comes close to dying I don't know how many times and many people do die in this book, but it's not overly gross. I was reading Jack Womack's Ambient at the same time, another dystopian novel that I really enjoyed, but I was seriously glad to be done with it because its violence was so insane. Not so with this book. My only real complaint with this book was the ages of the primary characters. Petrovich and Maddy are both about 20 and the girl he saved, Sonja, was about 17. Yet all have the emotional and mental abilities of people much older, in their mid-30s perhaps, as well as academic and work qualifications. Not totally believable there.

I don't want to give away the plot ending and apparently there are two sequels, so I put them on my Amazon Wish List, as I really enjoyed this book and want to read more. I can see why this won the Philip K. Dick award. It's not really cyberpunk, although it's got some elements of it. It was published in 1987, so technology was more limited then. Still, the author did foresee some things, which was pretty cool. If you like this type of novel, try it out -- you won't be disappointed. Recommended.

An engaging story - not quite as polished as Curve of the Earth but still very good. I ordered the next two in the series while only halfway through this one!

Probably the most interesting of the post apocalypse books I have ever read. Very interesting in as much as it deals with the collapse of society as we now know it in a unique manner, compared to other works of this genre. Story line is interestingand engages the reader as well, although in true Sy-Fy manner a stretch of the imagination is required to reach acceptance of the breakthroughs made by the protagonist and colleague concerning the nature of the universe, but that is what the sequels will be about (I guess). Really enjoyed it and now will have to hunt up those sequels!

In a post-apocalyptic world, Petrovitch finds himself rescuing a woman from a kidnapping. After rescuing her, he discovers that she is the daughter of a mob boss. He then meets the girl’s father, a Japanese gangster, who is working on building a virtual Japan.

I have to admit that I found the book less than appealing. At times it seemed to be just one big chase scene, which works much better in the movies. I could see this book as a graphic novel or a short story, but the author never really explained enough about the world to capture my attention for a full length book.

Equations of Life by Simon Morden introduces the reader to a fascinating place -- Metrozone, a post-apocalyptic London full of emigrants from the war-torn world who are housed in apartment blocks built out of stacked up shipping containers. Gangs abound, including the Japanese Yakuza who fled when Japan sank into the Ocean, Ukrainians who fled when the Soviet Union & environs were nuked, and disaffected slum-dwellers.

Enter our antihero Samuil Petrovitch, a Russian expatriate mathematics student with a weak heart and a dodgy past. Petrovitch's number one rule is to keep his head down, and he breaks his rule when he steps in to save a girl who is being kidnapped. Suddenly he finds himself the center of attention, right in between the Ukrainians who are angry that he stopped the kidnapping, the Japanese mobster/tycoon father of the girl he saved, and Chain, the dogged policeman who hates the Yakuza. Petrovitch does his best to extract himself from the situation, but his efforts only get him in deeper and deeper. Soon he is battling something called the New Machine Jihad which has the power to control computers and thus buildings, cars, surveillance cameras, communications, etc. However, all is not lost because along the way he meets Madeleine, a tough, sexy, pistol-packing nun who helps him deal with the craziness around him. Adding to the tension is the fact that his artificial heart is on the fritz and needs immediate replacement. He desperately needs to get to the hospital, but is too busy saving the Metrozone.

Petrovitch is a sarcastic, entertaining, and endearingly weak protagonist. He has the previously mentioned bad heart, wears glasses, is nerdy and out of shape. But he is a survivor, and this gives him the edge (well, yes, having Madeleine on his side does sway the odds a bit too -- she is fully capable of lifting him over walls, carrying him over her shoulder, and patching up his wounds). Petrovitch starts the story by insulting an acquaintance, and explains "I've got trust issues, so I don't do the people stuff very well."; but he finishes the story with some close friends who would risk their lives for him.

A great, action-filled plot, a novel and interesting setting, and great characters make this book a success. I will be reading the other books in the series. Right away.

Full of action.