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Boogerhead
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quote:
Originally posted by Splitcoil:

So yeah, I've read it. And it's the business.


Loan it to me?


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When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross -Sinclair Lewis
 
Posts: 17656 | Location: my happy place. | Registered: February 17, 2004Edit or Delete MessageReport This Post
InfinityCircuit
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Whenever I read "Hollis Henry", my brain changes the letters around to read "Henry Rollins".

*nope, no aged punk-rockers here, oh no*



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"As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior orals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying."
 
Posts: 732 | Location: Sierra Vista, AZ | Registered: October 19, 2006Edit or Delete MessageReport This Post
Memetic Engineer
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quote:
Originally posted by hurtstotouchfire:
It's not looking good.


Thomas M. Wagner seems to be an experienced reviewer, but not primarily of cyberpunk fiction - his interests (or commercial contracts) cover a wider set of science fiction and fantasy books. I actually agree wholeheartedly with some of his other reviews, however, these often bear no real relationship to the peculiar "star rating" with which they are tagged.

He seems to show an ambivalent mixture of respect and resentment towards William Gibson and other cyberpunk writers.

For some reason he seemed to expect Spook Country to be a contemporary version of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four which would magically make historical sense of the "post 9/11, post Iraq" society, something which it is unlikely that any novel could achieve at the moment, given that most of the primary historical sources are still secret.

Bearing all this in mind, that fact that he comments on the cast of interesting characters, and on William Gibson's page turning story telling and witty mastery of language, and the fact that he enjoyed reading Spook Country, this is actually a very positive book review.


Spook Country blog & London CyberPunk tourist guide
 
Posts: 95 | Location: London | Registered: April 16, 2007Edit or Delete MessageReport This Post
Noirjyre
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quote:
Ultimately, though, Spook Country amounts to little more than thinking-person's escapism.



Yeah, thinking people don't need an escape every now and then- Roll Eyes


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It's a bad recording-
 
Posts: 3440 | Location: Island closest to hell- | Registered: January 24, 2006Edit or Delete MessageReport This Post
TwiliteMinotaur
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Make historical sense out of the present?

"I just try to make it accessible."


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Posts: 3277 | Location: Honolulu Hawaii | Registered: July 06, 2006Edit or Delete MessageReport This Post
Marshdrifter
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quote:
Originally posted by Splitcoil:
So yeah, I've read it. And it's the business.

This needs to go on the cover somewhere.


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tenderness or humanity in fanaticism.
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Posts: 6914 | Location: Oisoconsing | Registered: March 26, 2003Edit or Delete MessageReport This Post
UberDog
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quote:
Originally posted by Memetic Engineer:
quote:
Originally posted by hurtstotouchfire:
It's not looking good.


Thomas M. Wagner seems to be an experienced reviewer, but not primarily of cyberpunk fiction - his interests (or commercial contracts) cover a wider set of science fiction and fantasy books. I actually agree wholeheartedly with some of his other reviews, however, these often bear no real relationship to the peculiar "star rating" with which they are tagged.

He seems to show an ambivalent mixture of respect and resentment towards William Gibson and other cyberpunk writers.

For some reason he seemed to expect Spook Country to be a contemporary version of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four which would magically make historical sense of the "post 9/11, post Iraq" society, something which it is unlikely that any novel could achieve at the moment, given that most of the primary historical sources are still secret.

Bearing all this in mind, that fact that he comments on the cast of interesting characters, and on William Gibson's page turning story telling and witty mastery of language, and the fact that he enjoyed reading Spook Country, this is actually a very positive book review.
Hey there, Thomas M. Wagner!
 
Posts: 7971 | Location: The Doghouse (again) | Registered: February 20, 2003Edit or Delete MessageReport This Post
UberDog
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I have to say, I don't regard the opinion of a primarily SF reviewer as I would a literary critic.

People who read Shadowrun novels have little to tell me about art.
 
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colin
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Roll Eyes


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You have to give up.
 
Posts: 11505 | Location: Silicon Valley (not Japan) | Registered: May 28, 2003Edit or Delete MessageReport This Post
Justy
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SF as a genre is much concerned with self-criticism, and literary critics so often deal with SF incorrectly, more interested in denigrating SF rather than actually seeing it for what it is.

And again, I cry from the rooftops: Read Delany!

Considering that I think Fredric Jameson (a big ol' SF nerd, I've discovered), a few of the academics who have posted and run about doing either Master's theses or Doctoral dissertations, and me are the only ones who have evidenced any interest at all in Pattern Recognition, I won't hold my breath for an immediate reaction from the literary critic community on Spook Country in the same way, say, there's already a concerted academic effort underway to figure out Pynchon's Against the Day.


»» "Forget infinity. I've got books waiting for me to read them." — colin
»»"Speculative novels of last Tuesday." — William Gibson
 
Posts: 4870 | Location: Knoxville, TN, USA | Registered: January 12, 2003Edit or Delete MessageReport This Post
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