The Fortunate Fall

Maya Andreyeva is a camera in a world that has become ever more wired, and everywhere is a third world country - except for Africa, where you need to have a blood test before you can immigrate. America fell long ago, and only Africa is still hyper-technological. To be a Camera is to be wired for vid and sound, and to share your perceptions with an audience.Camera's need screeners, who experience the full gamut of the Camera's sensory output in order to filter out the extraneous background crap that interferes with whatever the Camera is filming - and Maya has a new one, who is troublesome. Worse, Maya's Screener is also female, and that is not How Things Are Done. She also only appears to her on the net - another oddity. Soon, however, there is a political coverup, incarceration, and love to look out for... So the idea of a human camera is not exactly new - Gibson's done it, so has Stephenson - but there's something special about this quirky tale. It may be Mr Carter's prose, which is cool, distinctive, self-assured and wry. It might be the inventive and clever sociological insight, or maybe his take on love, or perhaps his believable rendition of Africa as the Top Of The Pile for a change (he refers to America as a place where the highest technological experience most people have is the use of a pitchfork). I think that's brilliant! Almost everyone assumes America and the European Union will be there till the very bitter end - standing strong against the death of Empires. I'm sure everyone felt the same about the Roman Empire back in Julius' days, and I've seen nothing to separate Washington from Rome, except a few years and some space, which two count for little in the human psyche. It's a worthy read, and he's an author worth keeping an eye on.