- Paperback: 512 pages
- Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (Sep 5 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 015603137X
- ISBN-13: 978-0156031370
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 16.7 x 2.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 454 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #326,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The code-breaking and -making heroine of Thomas's latest smart, engaging novel (after Going Out) takes a critical view of the corporate marketing of cool, an exploit she knows from inside the rapaciously hip boardrooms of the titular British toy company, the third largest in the world. Twenty-nine-year-old Alice Butler has parlayed her expertise in "crosswords, cryptography, and cryptanalysis";talents she gained from her mathematically inclined grandparents;into a job at PopCo's Ideation and Design department, where she creates sleuthing kits for kids (KidSpy, KidTec and KidCracker). At a companywide countryside retreat (aka "Thought Camp"), the CEO selects Alice to help invent a product that will spark a craze for teenage girls. While Alice looks into her past for insight to this inadequately tapped market;and for clues to her own identity;she also ponders a locket from her grandfather that may contain the code to a centuries-old puzzle. As Alice works on PopCo's blockbuster product and decodes the ancient brainteaser, as well as encrypted messages from an anonymous PopCo colleague, she becomes increasingly disenchanted with her employer's ubiquitous branding, advertising and exploitation of young consumers. Thomas delivers a captivating heroine and a pointed cultural critique that will especially resonate with the No Logo crowd. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Mathematical puzzles. Mind-bending codes. A secret manuscript. And a cake recipe, too. Thomas' latest (after 2004's Going Out) has a chronic case of attention deficit disorder. As the novel opens, Brit Alice Butler is en route to a retreat sponsored by her employer, PopCo, a cutting-edge--and slightly creepy--toy company. (Alice takes the midnight train to avoid colleagues--and human contact in general--an early indication that she is a little off-kilter.) It's no wonder Alice considers herself an outsider; her father disappeared when she was nine, leaving her in the care of her grandparents, two quirky cryptanalysts privy to the whereabouts of a centuries-old buried treasure. Meanwhile, at the company conference, Alice and her colleagues are charged with developing the ultimate product for the teen-girl market. Alice is soon distracted from the task by mysterious encoded messages slipped under her door. Will deciphering them shape her future, or perhaps shed light on the past? Although Thomas' premise is clever, her digressions into esoteric topics (Godel, anyone?) are likely to leave readers more exhausted than amused. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.9 out of 5 stars (33 customer reviews)
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely brilliant, Nov 16 2005
By hollygolightly - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: PopCo (Paperback)
One of the most interesting and intelligent books I've read in a long time, PopCo ties together its spiky protagonist Alice Butler's childhood as a junior cryptanalyst with her current job developing products for a massive toy conglomerate. As she wrestles with her latest corporate challenge--how to market toys to teenage girls--she reflects on the nature of codes, cryptanalysis, cryptography, buried treasure, the ethics of marketing, and veganism.This is definitely one of those books where you either read it and think it's an utter waste of time and mildly seditious, or you really wish the author was a friend of yours and you could call her up just to chat (to paraphrase Salinger).
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing, but a disappointing end, April 27 2007
By David J. Ree - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: PopCo (Paperback)
This is a book with so much promise. The central character, Alice, is intriguing and the characters who surround her, particularly her grandparents, are real and likeable. The author keeps several plotlines on the boil at once, and all of them get you in: now-Alice as she struggles through a work conference in rural England, then-Alice as a child growing up in her grandparents' household with a growing interest in codes and cryptography and a mystery where someone at work is sending Alice encoded messages. Scarlett Thomas really gets you in and hooks you into the story, while doing a great job explaining code concepts, as good as Neal Stephenson in Cryptonomicon.Unfortunately about two thirds of the way through the novel everything Thomas has built up started to just run out of steam. Alice starts having various crises of confidence both in the contemporary storyline and in her flashbacks and it all just starts to get a bit tedious.
For me, Thomas fails to bring any of the various storylines she has developed to any kind of satisfying conclusion. Most limp to a whimpering conclusion. A couple actually peter out altogether. The main "mystery" that's run throughout the book is a complete disappointment, with the denouement being a large dose of ill-thought out "let's all just only ever buy organic products and oppose globalisation" speechifying. I found myself reading the wooly-headed hugfest ending and exclaiming out loud "oh, please".
Such a pity for a book with such initial promise to end up like this!
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, and like nothing you've read before, Mar 30 2006
By D. P. Hock - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: PopCo (Paperback)
Popco is an intriguing and intelligent novel that manages to present a smart, interesting and likeable heroine, several engaging plot lines, thought-provoking themes, and powerful writing. If you want a fast-paced action adventure story with lots of movement and dialogue, this isn't it. Instead, this story explores fascinating topics well and with depth, while keeping several mysteries humming along. Cryptology, the hierarchies of teen girls, marketing, virtual worlds, math, religion... this story touches on all of these topics and many more, but without being boring or trite. This novel is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to think about what they're reading.
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