- Taschenbuch: 384 Seiten
- Verlag: Harper Perennial; Auflage: Reprint (30. Mai 1996)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0060987049
- ISBN-13: 978-0060987046
- Größe und/oder Gewicht: 20,1 x 13,5 x 2,5 cm
- Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung: 4.4 von 5 Sternen Alle Rezensionen anzeigen (130 Kundenrezensionen)
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 230.070 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)
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Microserfs: A Novel (P.S.)
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Produktbeschreibungen
Amazon.com
Microserfs is not about Microsoft--it's about programmers who are searching for lives. A hilarious but frighteningly real look at geek life in the '90's, Coupland's book manifests a peculiar sense of how technology affects the human race and how it will continue to affect all of us. Microserfs is the hilarious journal of Dan, an ex-Microsoft programmer who, with his coder comrades, is on a quest to find purpose in life. This isn't just fodder for techies. The thoughts and fears of the not-so-stereotypical characters are easy for any of us to relate to, and their witty conversations and quirky view of the world make this a surprisingly thought-provoking book.
" ... just think about the way high-tech cultures purposefully protract out the adolescence of their employees well into their late 20s, if not their early 30s," muses one programmer. "I mean, all those Nerf toys and free beverages! And the way tech firms won't even call work 'the office,' but instead, 'the campus.' It's sick and evil."
From Booklist
Imagine being lost somewhere between the unreal worlds of The Brady Bunch and the information superhighway. Coupland, coiner of the term Generation X, takes us to the land of twentysomethings in this journal-as-novel about the lives of young computer geeks. Dan, who writes the journal, is one of several people working for guru Bill Gates. When they are not programming, coding, or debugging, the group members spend their time wondering what it's like to be Bill--what it's like to have Bill's genius and money. They live in a group home a few miles "off campus" --that is, a few miles from Microsoft's Seattle headquarters--making it easy to put in the usual 11 hours 7 days a week. They discuss with wonderment the days when companies were lifetime employers, when people envisioned their jobs as careers. But these seemingly depressing truths do not drown the story; the characters are fascinating, and the relationships they develop, though unconventional in every way, are vivid and lovely. There is a new world out there, and Coupland's story grants young people their own reality, their own voice, and consequently, their own tradition. Expect demand from Generation Xers, who will love the novel; others may get lost in the technobabble and the 1970s and 1980s pop-culture references. Mary Frances Wilkens
-- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
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This morning, just after 11:00, Michael locked himself in his office and he won't come out. Lesen Sie die erste Seite
Buchdeckel | Copyright | Inhaltsverzeichnis | Auszug | Rückseite
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Format:Taschenbuch
"Microserfs", besides being one the the easiest reads I've ever had, is also one of the most accurate portrayals of geek twentysomething (circa the mid 90's) confusion, compasion and comradery I've ever read.
It also effortlessly skewers the high-tech community with laser-like accuracy, both in the oppresive, monoculture environment of Microsoft coders as well as the hyperpaced whirlwind of Silicon Valley. The book is presented in the form of a journal by Daniel Underwood, who initally identifies himself only through his Microsoft email address danielu@microsoft.com. Surrounding him is a cadre of fellow coders all willing to submit their lives wholesale to their fearless corporate diety (B..B..B..Bill!), until a chance for equity and "one-point-oh" status lures them into Silicon Valley Start-up Hell. The story arc provides an exhilarating study of geeks in search of a life, with no pop-culture reference left unturned. Incredibly for a book mired so much in a technological world advancing at a logarithmic pace, it is as relevant in its characterizations and themes as the day it was published.
It's these characterizations that really make this book sing. The ensemble players seem as if they were carefully removed from a petre dish at the Atlanta Center for Dweeb Control...the bemused narrator obsessed with the randomness of popular culture, the riot grrl, the ultra-sensitive high-strung coding genius, to mention just a few...and the story arc provides them with ample room for change as they embark on their quests to find lives and loves. And again for a novel that deals with the software industry, it has an amazing feel for the female perspective. Not only are three strong women characters provided, their each distinct personalities provide the spectrum of geek-girl sensibilities. Along with a show-stopping female tirade about...well, you'll know what I'm talking about when you read it.
It is probably enough to say that Microserfs out- Generation-Xes "Generation-X", author Douglas Coupland's other study of slacker culture. Within the mechanical confines of the software industry, Coupland conjures an incredibly enjoyable and touching tale of young people finding their way out of digital serfdom.
Format:Taschenbuch
this book is warming, startling and profound. it's a fresh, confrontational, provocative novel that pulls the reader into the narrative while making them realize the world that surrounds them. like the radiohead record "ok computer", it emphasizes the juxtaposition of technology with the patterns of life, the patterns of sadness and desperation, and the things we need to do to take control of our lives from being gripped by either technology, sadness OR desperation.
the focus, despite the occasional confrontation of a page saying something like "I AM YOUR PERSONAL COMPUTER", shifts from the materialism of life making what makes life worthwhile to the interdependency and essentiality of friendship in society. it freaks me out to think of all the technology that has made it so much harder for people to connect in society. this book is ironic: in the narrative, it brings together the people at the very root of the creation of technology that causes this separation and makes a family out of them. and really, it's not cheesy... this book seems like a direct ray of purpose from the author telling us to wake up. i think it's great. and you don't have to be a computer geek to agree.
Format:Taschenbuch
I was expecting "Microserfs" to be the witty send-up of Microsoft culture and start-up angst that it is. What caught me off guard was the surprisingly tender moments of love, life and death that Coupland manages to squeeze in amongst the humorous descriptions and dead-on depictions of life in Redmond and the Silicon Valley. It's not perfect: The plot takes a little while to get going, and there are some gimicky moments (2 whole pages of binary code, pages without vowels). The story sometimes seems to barely scratch the surface of the characters' lives and emotions, glossing over the missing depth with relentless pop culture references and relying on Big Moments - birth, cancer, coming out - to let us know we should be feeling for the characters. But those very flaws are a part of the book's post-MTV-generation style, full of quick cuts, potent images and Pop-Up Video factoids. Once you get past all that, "Microserfs" rewards you with a creative, insightful look at geek life and a fondly-crafted time capsule of the early 90s. If you're under 35 and/or work in high tech, definitely give it a spin.
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Insightful, funny, and sweet
I shied away from Coupland's work for the longest time, because all I knew about him was that he coined the term "Generation X. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 19. Juli 2000 von Jan Bednarczuk
...like a baby, who would've thought!
But maybe that's just me, but I know that if you're a programmer in your early 20's slogging away for some far-away goal you're not entirely sure of, then you might find yourself... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 16. Juli 2000 von "gindala"
Good, Still Not Great
Coupland's 3rd novel is still very good, yet still nowhere near great. This is about a group of techie friends in Silicon Valley who work for a Bill-Gates-like character, whom... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 8. Juli 2000 von Arthur
A great look at IT culture...
A fellow geek friend of mine convinced me to get this book. We both work as network engineers for various major corporations, so we're not coders. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 3. Juli 2000 von Eric R Torbenson
Genuinely enjoyable
What's so remarkable about this book is that in 93/94, Coupland managed to write, with such accuracy and detail, about a subculture which the mainstream caught onto only about a... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 26. Juni 2000 von rudy
A great insight into the internet generation of the 90's
I really loved the comments & analyses of the Silicon Valley way-of-life, and although the book was first published 'ages ago' in 1995, most of it is still valid in 2000. Lesen Sie weiter...
Am 24. Juni 2000 veröffentlicht
Promising start, fizzled out.
The first pages were a wonderful peek inside the walls of Microsoft headquarters -- the culture, the personalities, etc. Lesen Sie weiter...
Am 18. Juni 2000 veröffentlicht
Really cool fiction, but very accurate
I was still a relative newcomer in the field of software development, when I bought this book. I had always wanted to learn more about the experience of other programmers, and the... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 29. Mai 2000 von Enrique Pineda
Great Book
If you like science-fiction/fantasy of any sort, then you'll love this book. I certainly did.
It has great characters, that you could swear you know. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 17. Mai 2000 von "spec8472"
Full of Wonderful Insights and Interesting Details
The previous reviews have pretty much said it all, so this review is going to be a little more subjective. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 2. Mai 2000 von Edgar W. Bridges
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