SHADOWRUNNING

I just finished (demolished/devoured) reading the latest book from Walter Jon Williams - THIS IS NOT A GAME (TINAG) and I enjoyed sufficiently that after a long hiatus from Shadowrunning I had to make a post to reccomend this book. For those of you who don’t know Walter Jon Williams - his book Hardwired (1986) is considered one of the gateway books for modern Cyberpunk novels (along with Neuromancer and The Artificial Kid ).

Hardwired was a great book but I was not able to get into his one of his other SF books Voice of the Whirlwind, so I was not sure what TINAG would be like or if I would enjoy it. TINAG falls into the category of a cyber thriller- taking place in either the present or near future. None of the technology described in this books seems outside of the what could be used or created today. So though not technically a cyberpunk book it still is something that I feel most people reading this blog would enjoy.

The book focuses on a group of four college gaming friends (pencil and paper gaming - Dungeons and Dragons) and how there relationships have evolved from those innocent times in college to the here and now world of big business and entrepreneurship with its backstabbing and greediness. The backdrop is ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) where the heroine, Dagmar, is the Puppetmaster and how the realworld leaks into the ARG that she is creating.

The book moves is fast moving and will keep your attention and a real page turner. I guarantee it will be a quick enjoyable read.

ENJOY!

Enoc

I vaguely recall the 90s effort of plopping Marvel superheroes into a cyberpunk future … looks like they’re at it again.

Don’t know how I missed this last June, but Barnes and Noble does a series of author/musician reading/playing events and featured Gibson and Wainwright. 71 minutes long and haven’t checked it all out yet, but … facinating to be sure!

I love how dedicated Gibson fans are. Have seen this site in the past, but it bubbled up again as the 16th anniversary of Agrippa came to pass. Seems they found an ol’ floppy of the self-destructing poem and where able to rejigger it and run it again. And they took a movie of it running! Here’s MediaBistro’s review of it.

Meanwhile, my Gibon newsbot found a most interesting set of gifts, one a $500 gibsonesque notebook bag. Nice!

Haven’t had the opportunity to post in a while but I hope to do so more regulary as things in Real Life calm down.

Wanted to give some quick insight into Neal Stephenson’s new book Anathem which I have been reading since it came out in September. Neal Stephenson is one my favorite authors but I would not say that any of his books since Cryptnomicon would be considered “easy reads”. Neal  is either tackling complex storylines based on historical events, juggling multiple characters and or discussing “heady” topics that require some real thinking.

In Anathem we are focused for the most part on one character, named Fraa Erasmus ( Fraa = Father) and his life and experiences in what can only be called a monastery for scientists. The book so far has been heavily focused on the concept of Plural Worlds or World Tracks (Narratives) and takes quite sometime to digest. So far I am really enjoying it and I cannot tell you more without spoiling the book. I will give my final thoughts when I am done reading it but I would definitely encourage anyone to go out and pick up this book.

Enoc