Microserfs

by DOUGLAS COUPLAND | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 0060987049 Global Overview for this book
Registered by wingmaryzeewing of Taneytown, Maryland USA on 9/3/2011
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4 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by wingmaryzeewing from Taneytown, Maryland USA on Monday, February 6, 2012
I've never read any Coupland, but I've heard this title is very good. So when I spotted it recently at the Book Thing, I decided to add it to the stacks.

From the cover -
Microserfs: a hilarious, fanatically detailed, and oddly moving book about a handful of misfit Microsoft employees who realize that they don't have lives and subsequently become determined to get lives inside the lightning-paced world of high-tech 1990s' American geek culture.
Amid a Seattle backdrop of software corporation cultishness ("B-B-B-B-Bill!") and the financial terror of San Francisco and Silicon Valley tech startups, the members of Coupland's quirky ensemble "stick a piece of dynamite inside themselves, like a cartoon cat, in the hopes that when they reassemble their exploded insides they will be somebody different."
Coupland gives readers an intimate, deadly accurate, and profoundly funny view of a way of life that is quickly becoming the dominant lifestyle: friends, families, and lovers falling through trapdoors of the new elctronic order and becoming involved in an engaging, awkward scramble toward love and success in a brave new world.

Journal Entry 2 by wing6of8wing at Westminster, Maryland USA on Monday, June 4, 2018
Sadly, MaryZee passed suddenly in September 2012. MaryZee's daughter is now ready to rehome her mom's books and I was willing to collect and redistribute them to keep her literary legacy alive.

Journal Entry 3 by ResQgeek at Alexandria, Virginia USA on Monday, September 17, 2018
MaryZee was an enthusiastic evangelist for BookCrossing, and she is greatly missed by those who knew her. I am glad to have had the opportunity to be her friend and am honored to be able to share some of her books with the world.

Released 5 yrs ago (9/17/2018 UTC) at US Patent & Trademark Office - Madison Building in Alexandria, Virginia USA

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Left on a table on the concourse level in the Atrium, near the entrance to the elevators on the east side of the building.

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DEAR FINDER,
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Journal Entry 5 by nialla808 at Alexandria, Virginia USA on Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Searching for this book in a security heavy landmark like the USPTO made me feel like I was a character in a spy thriller (in the best way). Thanks for the good release notes, I'll journal again once I've read it.

Journal Entry 6 by nialla808 at Alexandria, Virginia USA on Tuesday, July 7, 2020
Parts of this were entertaining. I lived in the Microsoft sphere about 10 years after this was published and parts definitely rang true. The pining for meaningful connections while competing with everyone else and yourself for the most hours worked definitely rang true. Some of the "journaling" messing with letters and binary was amusing (I didn't decode much of it.) The early word clouds felt like they were trying to be portentous and flopped for me. I doubt this was much of a book in terms of story when it got to the editor, and there were some obnoxious errors that made it seem like a editor dug in too deep at times e.g. Uwajima-Ya (old spelling) spelled correctly but Lynnwood spelled wrong smacks of a non-local editing a local; only the first 25% of the book happens at Microsoft but it has the catchy title.

It was very 90s in attitudes (the gay character was actually handled with decency, but overall very romance-normative, and the emergence of Susan as a feminist was dismissive as hell) but fine with some nostalgia to recommend it, so I was planning to send it to my friend in Seattle who remembers those days. Then less than 40 pages from the end they went to Vegas and BAM multiple major plot twists BAM completely unnecessary and unprompted transphobia and BAM they incredibly unrealistically invented AAC (something my profession does better and had been doing well before the mid 90s. And a halfway decent nostalgia read nosedived into a dumpster fire. Will not be rereading, will not be passing on.

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