Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon

Speed of Dark tells the story of Lou, an autistic genius struggling to fit into society.  Gordon works for a company who use his (and other autistic people's) ability to spot patterns in data, but as science evolves, a method of making autistic people become more "normal" becomes available, and Gordon finds himself under pressure to take the treatment.

I found this book fascinating.  The author has put a lot of effort into understanding autism and the way it works, and it comes out in a lot of ways.  For example, most of the book is set in the first person from Lou's point of view, and is written in short sentences often featuring his feelings about a world that does not understand him and that he does not understand.  You really get the feeling of his fustrations and difficulties, and from what little I know of autism, it seems to make sense.

So the writing style is well done, and the plot is interesting too; there's enough about it to keep it flowing, while at the same time not being too predictable (I did not predict the ending!).  The characters are interesting, and you get the feeling you know something about them by the end; they're not all just shallow stereotypes.

The other aspect of this book is the philosophy, about the treatment of people and about what makes someone who they are.  This is treated quite well, without trying to labour too many conclusions but allow the reader to see different points of view.  I didn't ever feel that there was a political motivation to this book, but at the same time I did feel that it would add to my view of autism, and the further reaches of living with a disabilty, and allow me to be more informed in my opinions.

So, all in all I really did like this book.  It's not a particularly difficult book to get into, too, so I'd probably recommend it to most people if they expressed an interest, although I'd find it hard to pigeonhole it in a genre.  It's well written, very interesting, well researched and really did make me think.  What more could you want?

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