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Standing Wave | 
 enlarge | Author: Howard V. Hendrix
Publisher: Ace
Category: Book
List Price: $6.50
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $6.49 (100%)
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Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 1846108
Media: Paperback
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0441005535
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780441005536
ASIN: 0441005535
Publication Date: September 1, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Expect to see visible wear to book including crease to cover and spine
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Product Description
In the near future, humanity will encounter a vast new intelligence. It is virtually immeasurable. It is beyond alien--and it is coming. Hendrix unleashes an electrifying new novel that returns to the universe he created in his national bestselling debut, "Lightpaths".
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 The author is impressed with himself December 11, 2006
S. Bender (san francisco, CA USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Normally, I enjoy a novel with a firm grasp of the lexicon combined with a comprehension of the science and the philosophy of life; however, I did not enjoy this book. I really tried. I appreciated his first book and thought if I just kept mucking through that I would come to enjoy even his self-conscious "witty" wordplay and mixed up physics/philosophy but at the end I was bothered that I'd wasted my time. Too often I found myself jolted by the authors insertion into the narrative in the sense that he too obviously finds himself very clever and thinks that the reader should also find him extremely erudite and jocose AND scientifically brilliant. As a person with degrees in hard science, psychology and philosophy I found many of his characters discourses reminiscent of late night student conversations while under the influence of too much food and/or intoxicants. Not surprisingly, we were galling to everybody but ourselves as well.
 Grab a Dictionary December 7, 2006
Hank Luttrell (Madison, WI United States)
Hendrix uses physics and philosophy as the basis of a story which
extrapolates from a unified field theory of existence. Matter and particles are only special kinds of waves or energy.
A lot is going on it this book. The internet achieves such information
density and complexity that it becomes sentient. A young man dies and his brain is used by a corporation as a data-handler. The universe itself becomes sentient and self directed.
On the most basic level, this story is a murder mystery, with some entity
-- person? artificial intelligence? what? -- horribly killing people with some internet borne agency. On another level it is a political thriller, with a secret agent of a right wing Christian nation recruited by the internet killer to start trouble. There is a great scene when the Christian undercover agent visits a goth amusement part with a H.P. Lovecraft theme, complete with live performances by a Cthulhu-like giant squid.
Most of the narrative is simple, straight ahead and crystal clear. Other
parts hope to suggest technical expertise and profundity in the way of most professions: unfamiliar vocabulary or jargon. I don't have the background to be sure, but most of this vocabulary is certainly in common use in various scientific and academic fields, while some Hendrix may have coined as needed. Sometimes the characters, instead of being sleepy after a big meal, feel "postprandial lassitude." This is a rewarding, entertaining novel, but not light reading. Hey, I like books with challenging vocabularies.
Confused and unfocused February 16, 2002
D. Craig (Buena Park, CA USA)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Let me first admit that I did not finish this book. The plot apparently depends on reading the author's previous work. Characters, ideas, and plots seem to just appear in mid-stride. I kept extrapolating what must have gone before to make sense of the book. The other problem was the lack of any real direction. Characters just appear, pontificate over some very questionable philosophy and physics, and then just leave. Even this might be acceptable if the philosophy and/or physics were interesting. However, the author seems to think throwing together ideas that sound good result in a coherent philosophy. For example, one "idea" is that something called informational complexity, as a result of expanded human consciousness, will result in some type of physical subspace conduit through which people can travel. In Hard science fiction the extrapolations conform to our basic concepts of reality. Speculative science fiction builds a world view that is separate from our scientific ideas, but still internally consistent. Combining these two types of science fiction results in this book.
 Intelligent speculative fiction March 22, 2001
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I usually don't review books but some of the other reviews of this book were, I thought, rather unkind so anyway here is my two cents... first of all the author is true to the genre - 'Standing Wave' is nothing if not speculative and the authors grappling with the bleeding edge of theoretical physics, artificial intelligence and information theory is well done and integral to the story. The characters are interesting and multidimensional as, in some 'big idea' science fiction, they are not and the story itself is well structured. I don't think the novel gets lost in subplots but the previous reviewers who mentioned the fact that a lot of what happens is based on Hendrix's earlier work seem to be correct (I say seems because I have not read his other work yet but it is true that the characters constantly refer to earlier events and you definitly feel like you are missing something if you haven't read the prequel). Even so the book is excellent and it does stand alone though I am adding 'Lightpaths' to my reading list. Another point I would like to make is that the author does not drag the book out - this could easily have been a 600 to 700 page book but Hendrix resists the tempatation to have his characters engage in endless monologues to make his point. His science is, contrary to what other reviews said, founded firmly in the more cutting edge speculation I have read about string theory, artificial intelligence not to mention the possibilities of evolved consciousness and the philosophical ideas of Tielhard, Jung, RAW, Tim Leary, Terrance McKenna etc, etc. I don't see the 'New Age' criticism as being very appropriate either, there really isn't anything here that falls into the kind of shiny happy goofiness that I, at least, associate with New Age 'thinking' and the author is never heavy handed or preachy - his characters have points of view but they are consistant and plausable. Anyway, if the book has a flaw it may be that there are places where Hendrix left me wishing for more, some of the most interesting characters appear all too briefly and the end is a bit disappointing but all in all this is one of the better science fiction books from a 'new' author I have read in a while and it is well worth the time. Also, for the previous reviewer, mescalin is the psychoactive component in Peyote which is a cactus, not a mushroom.
Seek the right audience March 16, 2001
Svein Olav Nyberg (Grimstad, Norway)
I think the backside blurb of the book has sought out the wrong audience. "Heinlein if he had read Gibson" says Sawyer on the back of the book. So we expect a writing style similar to Heinlein's - the younger Heinlein at that. But Hendrix has a style different from Heinlein's - not the same tendency of going straight for the main point and the action, for one. So obviously those who seek for more Heinlein will be disappointed. As we can see from the reviews below.But Hendrix premises are intriguing; present him on his own premises, and evaluate him from that. (I had to get this review off my chest even though I am still at the beginning of the book. My rating is therefore still in neutral - 3 - until I've read the book to the end.)
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