Is it just me or are a lot of the ideas in The Matrix ripped out of Feersum Endjinn by Iain M Banks? I mean, that wasn't exactly an original story in itself, but the "Crypt" seems very similar to the "Matrix". In the book, characters in Crypt-space can think things to have them happen; the way it's described just sounds very much like the way the Matrix works. I'm sure there must be loads of other things in literature that the Matrix is similar to as well, but I just kept getting big warning bells when I re-read Bank's novel recently.

Anyway, it's an excellent book and one of the few I've felt into enough to read more than once. The phonetic parts of the story (told by Bascule) reminded me of the book Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban which I also greatly enjoyed. It got me wondering what it is about the phonetic style that attracts me so much? I'm sure it's partly to do with the characters themselves, who are both underdogs and have a pretty innocent view of the world, and also I tend to like literature written from a first person perspective. It draws me in for some reason, even to the point of finishing one novel and then going hunting for another, discarding any third-person ones I find.

By the way, they really should have left The Matrix alone after the first film - the latter two really spoilt it for me...