Its opening chunk of italicized, simile-beset prose causes some unease. As one reads on, the never-explained title grows more and more opaque, and one hopes that Plowing the Dark shares only titular obscurity with Operation Wandering Soul , by far Powers's least successful novel. Spiegel and Klarpol's story is staggered, not always consistently, with Martin's. There, she serves as the resident artist for a start-up called the Realization Lab. The Cavern's transfiguration, however, is another matter.
Hedgerows serve as mere suggestions.
Approached, their bushes swell in detail, swimming toward the eye until they fill it. Then, with an optical pop, they vanish, freeing the scrawled grazing lands beyond them. Considering the dross that today passes for interactive entertainment, one might find such a notion easy to dismiss. We are not anywhere near that point now, of course, and Powers nicely captures the smart, petulant boy-men caught somewhere between artist and programming drone. How concentrated their knowledge of every mechanism, except for life.