An interview with said titled second wave cyberpunk author. Or was he first wave? At work on lunchtime right now so don’t have resources to check that out, or read this, but I will read this, cause it’s an interview with a sci-fi author! And he mentions nearly all my favorites at one point!
Monthly Archives: September 2007
Rayguns and Steampunk
What with the gift giving season fast approaching, I thought it prudent to mention this delicious site I just found via my Google Alerts: Dr Grordbort’s Infallible Aether Oscillators and Other Marvelous Contraptions! Just what everyone wants I know — a $700 raygun! Wow! (And yes, the category should have scare quotes around “toys.”) From that site, I was then led to a steampunk site: Brass Goggles. What’s my Google Alert alerting me to you ask?
Rudy Rucker – What a FLURB
For those of you not familiar with him, Rudy Rucker, is one amazing writer… He is a professor at San Jose State University in the Math and Computer science department as well a writer. I would not consider his books cyberpunk though I have seen him lumped into that genre and I believe that is how I started reading him. In any case check out FLURB his ezine and you can get a sample of his work (and others). If you want to read a very trippy series check out his FREK
20 geek hall of fame apple users
OK so what does the ‘20 geek hall of fame apple users‘ have to do with Cyberpunk? Well take a look at #14, #15 and #16. I think you will find those 3 are some of the greatest Cyberpunk authors dare I say ever. Plus I am not listed here but should be.
Enoc
Reality Gaming
Ah, another reality gaming endeavor! I keep hearing about these over the last five-ten years it seems, but not much after they actually take place. Text messages to your phone for a treasure hunt. I saw an interesting “choose your own adventure” recently (prolly Boing Boing or Gizmodo) that involved small text snippets painted on sidewalks with a male and female storyline that basically winds you both up in a coffee shop to meet. Hmmm, must find that link, that was kinda intersting. Viola!
And then of course there’s the Micheal Douglas movie, The Game. Or sure, The Running Man, The Condemned, or The Truman Show. What fun! These reality games are intriguing in their modern flashmob approach to gaming with some “choose your own adventure” script writing. Wiki of course has a decent entry on the genre.
Spook Country: The Review
I started reading Spook Country shortly after Ling and I had the pleasure of hearing William Gibson speak at Cody’s Books in Berkeley. The strange part about going to a book reading is that the author chooses a chapter at random with the hopes that whatever he is reading will interest the listener to read the book. What always happens for me is that I feel like I “dropped” in on a conversation in midstream and it always take me a while to catch up.This “dropped in” feeling was definitely true for Spook Country. The nice thing is that Gibson is kind enough to fill in the holes as you go but sometimes you are asking yourself now how the heck did that guy get into this situation and it takes Gibson a while to fill you in and I believe that by the end of the story the “whole” of it is revealed and explored.Here is a quick synopsis of the story. 3 story lines happening at once that all are interrelated.
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The iTouch
An early review of the iTouch via BoingBoing. So close to my holy grail of everything box. There’s this cyberpunk concept of the everything box that’s really just a mashup of all the electronics you need soldered, welded, spliced and esp duct-taped together, but it’s everything you need right there. Your rig. Well sure, the iPhone is so much closer to that, but for me … ahhh the iTouch!