It’s available now. $29.99 for a hardcover isn’t too bad.
And, while I’m here, I should probably correct something I said a few Saturdays ago, while pushing for this book to come back in front of Nobiwan. I brought up cyberpunk in relation to the book.
I was marginally incorrect in using that term, probably because I don’t actually understand what keeps things like 1984 out of that category. Except that there’s apparently not enough body modification. And probably not nearly enough unreasonable and wacky use of technology in the dystopian future.
There’s not a lot of implanting of incredibly huge barely-the-size-of-a-DVD harddrives being implanted into heads, and there’s not a lot of wild and crazy super-technology, but there’s definitely some fairly realistic dystopian near-future. Especially if you look at it from the point of view of someone who already thinks that all of our rights have gone byebye.
…and now, I’m being distracted by a strangely appropriate Bullshit….
I was going to try to write something about the book, but I’m not good at writing up summaries of books. Once I’ve had a look at the final version [which should be here sometime this month], I’ll see what else I can figure it out.
Cyberpunk as a genre is kind of hard to sum up, but dystopian near future is pretty much it. 1984 is borderline. Minority Report was originally a short story by Philip K. Dick, and I think it qualifies. I think it kind of generally comes down to people getting screwed over by other people with the help of technology.
I’m still looking forward to reading it. Thanks to you, it’s made my summer reading list. That, Leviathan, and research into loopholes out of the smoking ban.
Yeah, that’s actually kinda what I thought — all the dystopian near future and technology helping to fuck things up hard.
And I’m glad I was able to liven up someone’s summer reading. Those laws can get so…musty and weird. Like a room full of dead bugs.