I don’t know if Douglas Coupland changed my life. If not, he came close.
Douglas Coupland is the author of Microserfs, a fictional tale of life at Microsoft in the mid-1990s. I had to have read Microserfs before December 1998, because, according to my Amazon’s history, that’s when I read Coupland’s Girlfriend in a Coma. I read Microserfs, and wanted to be with those people, to know those friends, to live that life.
Now I work there.
JPod is an update that takes place a decade later and two hours to the north, in Vancouver, British Columbia. JPod is not a copy of Microserfs, but the books definitely ‘rhyme.’ JPod also takes place in the world after the 9/11 attacks, which are never directly mentioned but appear to lurk behind the surface. Microserfs was a work of techno-optimism, and ends with what might be the most moving description of transhumanism I have ever read. The world of JPod is subtly darker and more violent.
We no longer live in a world where the young do not have a war to support, oppose, and think about. They now have too many.
But JPod’s tone is funny, the antics more absurd than in Microserfs, and follows a stream-of-consciousness style. There’s plenty of geek humor too — if a technical manual that identifies .cpp (C++) files as “containing information about films that won an Academy Award” is hilarious, this may be the book for you.
JPod is recommended for fans of Douglas Coupland and Microserfs.
one of the most treasured books in my personal library is a Greek translation of MICROSERFS. I got it as a thank you from the translator, who stumbled into me online and asked me for help with geek vocabulary. FredZ