It's very easy for a work to speak to you if it describes a world you recognise.
So yeah, as a coder I was always going to be interested in Microserfs, Douglas Coupland's 90s novel about Microsoft workers.
When I first read this, nay heard of it, I was serving time at a UK branch of another IT multi-national.
And I recognised the characters in the book. Hell, I really wanted to be living their lifestyle. All their geeky toys and foodstuffs.
The book starts with Bill, (his surname isn't given probably for fear of legal action), sending a flame mail, eviscerating a developer's code. The recipient is devastated but Dan, the narrator, is envious. For Bill is God. And is shown to be pretty much worshipped in this vaccum where there is no faith or politics, beyond a fiscal conservatism shown by stockholders. The quest for faith is a recurring theme throughout the book.
On a recent re-reading, Dan and his housemates are desperately hoping that they too can get rich on Microsoft stock but know it's getting increasingly hard, whilst they live in their grimy house, adorned with geek chic.
Coupland clearly wasn't a coder but uses that to his advantage as he focuses on the characters. This also means that the book's not full of what would be techno-babble to anyone outside of IT. And helps it age very well.
It being Coupland, the novel is well-written and at times quite profound. One character, Abe, remarks that, because the economy's tanked, the 90s won't have any defining architecture. Instead the decade's great structures will be code-based. This was written in 1993.
Away from the confines of MS-land, the characters grow dramatically, producing a real emotional charge amongst all the one-liners. They finally mature, emerging from the Microsoft cocoon, exploring politics, faith and relationships. All while they scramble to get enough money to fund their own start-up company, desperately trying to woo Venture Capitalist backing.
Yup, the book serves as a bit of an historical artefact. Whilst to be honest I never quite understood the business logic behind the product the characters try to sell, the book wonderfully evokes the 90s dotcom bubble. Maybe it's because the business logic proves to be so elusive.
And, as I'm geeky, I adore the word maps. Gotta love a book interspersed by word maps.
Somewhere in your friends, there's a guy who implores you to watch Office Space because it's so like his office. He may be right. However you and him both need to sample the mother lode.....
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