| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
books tagged “cyberspace”
books tagged “cyberspace”
›› Find signed collectible books by ''
English
-
All Tomorrow's Partiesby William GibsonISBN 0425190447 (0-425-19044-7)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'All Tomorrow's Parties'Book summary:Although Colin Laney (from Gibson's earlier novel Idoru) lives in a cardboard box, he has the power to change the world. Thanks to an experimental drug that he received during his youth, Colin can see "nodal points" in the vast streams of data that make up the worldwide computer network. Nodal points are rare but significant events in history that forever change society, even though they might not be recognizable as such when they occur. Colin isn't quite sure what's going to happen when society reaches this latest nodal point, but he knows it's going to be big. And he knows it's going to occur on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, which has been home to a sort of SoHo-esque shantytown since an earthquake rendered it structurally unsound to carry traffic.
Colin sends Barry Rydell (last seen in Gibson's novel Virtual Light) to the bridge to find a mysterious killer who reveals himself only by his lack of presence on the Net. Barry is also entrusted with a strange package that seems to be the home of Rei Toi, the computer-generated "idol singer" who once tried to "marry" a human rock star (she's also from Idoru). Barry and Rei Toi are eventually joined by Barry's old girlfriend Chevette (from Virtual Light) and a young boy named Silencio who has an unnatural fascination with watches. Together this motley assortment of characters holds the key to stopping billionaire Cody Harwood from doing whatever it is that will make sure he still holds the reigns of power after the nodal point takes place.
Although All Tomorrow's Parties includes characters from two of Gibson's earlier novels, it's not a direct sequel to either. It's a stand-alone book that is possibly Gibson's best solo work since Neuromancer. In the past, Gibson has let his brilliant prose overwhelm what were often lackluster (or nonexistent) story lines, but this book has it all: a good story, electric writing, and a group of likable and believable characters who are out to save the world ... kind of. The ending is not quite as supercharged as the rest of the novel and so comes off a bit flat, but overall this is definitely a winner. --Craig E. Engler [via]
-
Art Song: The Marriage of Music and Poetryby Barbara MeisterISBN 0893416355 (0-89341-635-5)
Hardcover, Hollowbrook Pub
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Art Song: The Marriage of Music and Poetry'More editions of Art Song: The Marriage of Music and Poetry:
-
Being Digitalby Nicholas Negroponte, Marty AsherISBN 0679762906 (0-679-76290-6)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Being Digital'Book summary:As the founder of MIT's Media Lab and a popular columnist for Wired, Nicholas Negroponte has amassed a following of dedicated readers. Negroponte's fans will want to get a copy of Being Digital, which is an edited version of the 18 articles he wrote for Wired about "being digital."
Negroponte's text is mostly a history of media technology rather than a set of predictions for future technologies. In the beginning, he describes the evolution of CD-ROMs, multimedia, hypermedia, HDTV (high-definition television), and more. The section on interfaces is informative, offering an up-to-date history on visual interfaces, graphics, virtual reality (VR), holograms, teleconferencing hardware, the mouse and touch-sensitive interfaces, and speech recognition.
In the last chapter and the epilogue, Negroponte offers visionary insight on what "being digital" means for our future. Negroponte praises computers for their educational value but recognizes certain dangers of technological advances, such as increased software and data piracy and huge shifts in our job market that will require workers to transfer their skills to the digital medium. Overall, Being Digital provides an informative history of the rise of technology and some interesting predictions for its future. [via]
-
Burning Chromeby William GibsonISBN 0060539828 (0-06-053982-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Burning Chrome'Book summary:When "Burning Chrome," the title story in William Gibson's first short story collection, appeared, it grabbed readers by the collar and shook them up a bit. Science fiction in the late '70s had grown a little bit stale and, worse, safe. "Burning Chrome" offered a fresh look at a future that was gritty, real, and more than a little dangerous. These stories brought high tech out of antiseptic university laboratories and corporate boardrooms and put it in the streets and alleyways where people found their own uses for it. Sometimes those uses were even legal.
The philosophy of cyberpunk, the movement that Gibson's early books kicked off, is most explicitly stated in "The Gernsbach Continuum," with its rejection of the '30s ideal of a future of flying cars and shining cities. But the real meat of this collection is found in those stories where Gibson involves us with the people who inhabit his world. The technical boy of "Johnny Mnemonic" and the thief-turned-game-player of "Dogfight" (cowritten with Michael Swanwick) would be right at home on the same streets. Most intense and more enigmatic is the recording engineer of "The Winter Market," who is overwhelmingly attracted to and repulsed by the greatest artist he ever worked with. Still, "Burning Chrome," with its tale of vengeance and high-stakes theft, remains the centerpiece of this collection. Read it and you will know why William Gibson became and remains one of the top writers in science fiction. --Greg L. Johnson [via]
-
The Butterfingers Angel; Mary & Joseph; Herod the Nut; the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Treeby William GibsonISBN 0822201682 (0-8222-0168-2)
Softcover, Dramatist's Play Service
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Butterfingers Angel; Mary & Joseph; Herod the Nut; the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree'Book summary:THE STORY: Dealing with the story of Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus from a fresh and richly creative point of view, the author combines a series of deftly constructed short scenes, traditional Christmas music, and often antic characterizations into a wholly original theatre piece. The flow of the action follows the Biblical recounting, but is enhanced by a tree, a sheep and a donkey who talk (and most amusingly); a beguiling Mary who had heretofore decided that men and marriage were not for her; a suddenly cautious Joseph who now contends that he is too old for his intended (having earlier scoffed at Mary for expressing the same thought); and a flustered boy-angel who directs the action from a promptbook and manages to get only the most strangled, bleating sounds from his trumpet. But, through all the lively and resourceful happenings, the true significance of the occasion is never lost, and the underlying mood and spirit of reverence is, if anything, enhanced and made new by the distinctive approach of this joyful and unique retelling. [via]
More editions of The Butterfingers Angel; Mary & Joseph; Herod the Nut; the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree:
City of Golden Shadowby Tad WilliamsISBN 0886777100 (0-88677-710-0)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'City of Golden Shadow'More editions of City of Golden Shadow:
-
Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspaceby Lawrence LessigISBN 0465039138 (0-465-03913-8)
Softcover, Perseus Books Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace'Book summary:"We, the Net People, in order to form a more perfect Transfer Protocol..." might be recited in future fifth-grade history classes, says attorney Lawrence Lessig. He turns the now-traditional view of the Internet as an uncontrollable, organic entity on its head, and explores the architecture and social systems that are changing every day and taming the frontier. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace is his well-reasoned, undeniably cogent series of arguments for guiding the still-evolving regulatory processes, to ensure that we don't find ourselves stuck with a system that we find objectionable. As the former Communist-bloc countries found, a constitution is still one of our best guarantees against the dark side of chaos; and Lessig promotes a kind of document that accepts the inevitable regulatory authority of both government and commerce, while constraining them within values that we hold by consensus.
Lessig holds that those who shriek the loudest at the thought of interference in cyberdoings, especially at the hands of the government, are blind to the ever-increasing regulation of the Net (admittedly, without badges or guns) by businesses that find little opposition to their schemes from consumers, competitors, or cops. The Internet will be regulated, he says, and our window of opportunity to influence the design of those regulations narrows each day. How will we make the decisions that the Framers of our paper-and-ink Constitution couldn't foresee, much less resolve? Lessig proclaims that many of us will have to wake up fast and get to work before we lose the chance to draft a networked Bill of Rights. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace:
Corrector Yuiby Kia AsamiyaISBN 1931514283 (1-931514-28-3)
Softcover, Tokyopop
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Corrector Yui'
Corrector Yuiby Keiko OkamotoISBN 1931514291 (1-931514-29-1)
Softcover, Tokyopop
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Corrector Yui'More editions of Corrector Yui:
-
Count Zeroby William GibsonISBN 0441013678 (0-441-01367-8)
Softcover, Ace Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Count Zero'Book summary:Turner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: Maas-Neotek's chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he's perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties--some of whom aren't remotely human.
Bobby Newmark is entirely human: a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo on the Net and a price on his head, Newmark thinks he's only trying to get out alive. A stylish, streetsmart, frighteningly probable parable of the future and sequel to Neuromancer [via]
-
Cuckoo's Eggby Clifford StollISBN 1416507787 (1-4165-0778-7)
Softcover, Pocket Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Cuckoo's Egg'Book summary:A sentimental favorite, The Cuckoo's Egg seems to have inspired a whole category of books exploring the quest to capture computer criminals. Still, even several years after its initial publication and after much imitation, the book remains a good read with an engaging story line and a critical outlook, as Clifford Stoll becomes, almost unwillingly, a one-man security force trying to track down faceless criminals who've invaded the university computer lab he stewards. What first appears as a 75-cent accounting error in a computer log is eventually revealed to be a ring of industrial espionage, primarily thanks to Stoll's persistence and intellectual tenacity. [via]
-
The Cuckoo's Egg: Inside the World of Computer Espionageby Clifford Stoll, Julie RubensteinISBN 0671726889 (0-671-72688-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cuckoo's Egg: Inside the World of Computer Espionage'Book summary:A sentimental favorite, The Cuckoo's Egg seems to have inspired a whole category of books exploring the quest to capture computer criminals. Still, even several years after its initial publication and after much imitation, the book remains a good read with an engaging story line and a critical outlook, as Clifford Stoll becomes, almost unwillingly, a one-man security force trying to track down faceless criminals who've invaded the university computer lab he stewards. What first appears as a 75-cent accounting error in a computer log is eventually revealed to be a ring of industrial espionage, primarily thanks to Stoll's persistence and intellectual tenacity. [via]
More editions of The Cuckoo's Egg: Inside the World of Computer Espionage:
-
The Cult of Information: A Neo-Luddite Treatise on High Tech, Artificial Intelligence, and the True Art of Thinkingby Theodore RoszakISBN 0520085841 (0-520-08584-1)
Softcover, Univ of California Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cult of Information: A Neo-Luddite Treatise on High Tech, Artificial Intelligence, and the True Art of Thinking'Book summary:The title notwithstanding, Theodore Roszak is no computer hater. But in an age that idolizes intelligent machines, he stands out as a rare cautionary voice. His book makes an eloquent case for a simple thesis: digital computing, far from being a panacea, has created as many problems as it solves. For Roszak, a fair measure of the fault lies with corporate hucksterism, a credulous educational establishment, and government's desire to control information. But the deeper worry is our own utopian techno-idealism--the belief that a scientific broom can sweep away our messy problems. The author challenges such computer messianism with a detailed, common-sense look at the history of what computing has actually brought us. The trends he sees--the conflation of data with knowledge, the erosion of human-centered values, and the rise of a digital oligarchy at just about everyone else's expense--are tough to deny. If you love computers, The Cult of Information is a provocative read, but one you shouldn't dodge. [via]
More editions of The Cult of Information: A Neo-Luddite Treatise on High Tech, Artificial Intelligence, and the True Art of Thinking:
The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinkingby Theodore RoszakISBN 0394751752 (0-394-75175-2)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking'More editions of The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking:
Cyberethics: Morality And Law in Cyberspaceby Richard A. SpinelloISBN 0763712698 (0-7637-1269-8)
Softcover, Jones & Bartlett Pub
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyperspace'More editions of Cyberethics: Morality And Law in Cyberspace:
Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspaceby Douglas RushkoffISBN 1903083249 (1-903083-24-9)
Softcover, Clinamen Pr Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace'More editions of Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace:
- Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace: ISBN 0062510096 (0-06-251009-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins - Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace: ISBN 006251010X (0-06-251010-X)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace: ISBN 1903083249 (1-903083-24-9)
Softcover, Clinamen Pr Ltd
- Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace: ISBN 0062510096 (0-06-251009-6)
Cyberspace: First Stepsby Michael L. BenediktISBN 0262521776 (0-262-52177-6)
Softcover, Mit Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Cyberspace: First Steps'More editions of Cyberspace: First Steps:
-
The Diamond Ageby Neal StephensonISBN 0553380966 (0-553-38096-6)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diamond Age'Book summary:John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change. [via]
More editions of The Diamond Age:
-
The Diamond Age/Or, Young Lady's Illustrated Primerby Neal StephensonISBN 0553573314 (0-553-57331-4)
Softcover, Bantam Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diamond Age : Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'Book summary:John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change. [via]
More editions of The Diamond Age/Or, Young Lady's Illustrated Primer:
Elements of Hypermedia Design: Techniques for Navigation & Visualization in Cyberspaceby Peter A. GloorISBN 376433911X (3-7643-3911-X)
Hardcover, Birkhauser
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Elements of Hypermedia Design: Techniques for Navigation & Visualization in Cyberspace'More editions of Elements of Hypermedia Design: Techniques for Navigation & Visualization in Cyberspace:
Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspaceby Janet H. MurrayISBN 0262631873 (0-262-63187-3)
Softcover, Mit Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace'More editions of Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace:
-
Hamlet on the Holodeck : The Future of Narrative in Cyberspaceby Janet Horowitz MurrayISBN 0684827239 (0-684-82723-9)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Hamlet on the Holodeck : The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace'Book summary:Technology changes storytelling--movies don't tell stories in the same manner as wandering bards. Janet H. Murray, director of the Laboratory for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is fascinated with the changes emerging technologies may bring. Interactive tales, more versatile structures, stories as games, and games as stories are among the topics she explores in her very personable and entertaining style. And what about fears that interactive escapism could be the coming addiction? She makes an unblinking examination of this question with insight into both the technological possibilities and the strengths of the human psyche. Strongly recommended for anyone who loves the art of storytelling in any medium. [via]
More editions of Hamlet on the Holodeck : The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace:
-
Idoruby William GibsonISBN 0425158640 (0-425-15864-0)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Idoru'Book summary:Colin Laney is a data analyst with a talent for seeing patterns, or nodes, as he calls them, in the flow of information that is cyberspace. Chia McKenzie is a young member of the fan club for the Japanese pop supergroup Lo/Rez. When a rumour involving the lead singer of Lo/Rez and an idoru, a Japanese virtual-reality singing idol, brings both Laney and Chia to Tokyo, the resulting web of events involves Russian criminals, Japanese schoolgirls, and illegal nanotechnology. And it's all set in a Tokyo that is literally growing and changing around the characters, rising from the rubble of a major earthquake.
Idoru is not William Gibson's best novel, but it is a good example of his primary strength: creating worlds that don't so much show the future as expose the world we already live in, a world of computers, information, mega-corporations, pop art, tabloids, and rock & roll. Idoru works not only on its own terms but also as a set-up for Gibson's next novel, All Tomorrow's Parties. Gibson broadens his perspective by including a wider range of characters than in his earlier novels, but mainly Idoru moves Gibson's work forward by pushing further into his familiar territory. It is the work not of a writer who is discovering new topics, but of one who is re-examining his old ones, bringing greater depth and maturity to his art in the process. --Greg L. Johnson [via]
The Inmates Are Running the Asylumby Alan CooperISBN 0672316498 (0-672-31649-8)
Hardcover, Macmillan Computer Pub
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inmates Are Running the Asylum'More editions of The Inmates Are Running the Asylum:
-
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanityby Alan CooperISBN 0672326140 (0-672-32614-0)
Softcover, Macmillan Computer Pub
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity'Book summary:In this book about the darker side of technology's impact on our lives, Alan Cooper begins by explaining that unlike other devices throughout history, computers have a "meta function:" an unwanted, unforeseen option that users may accidentally invoke with what they thought was a normal keystroke. Cooper details many of these meta functions to explain his central thesis: programmers need to seriously reevaluate the many user-hostile concepts deeply embedded within the software development process.
Rather than provide users with a straightforward set of options, programmers often pile on the bells and whistles and ignore or deprioritize lingering bugs. For the average user, increased functionality is a great burden, adding to the recurrent chorus that plays, "computers are hard, mysterious, unwieldy things." (An average user, Cooper asserts, who doesn't think that way or who has memorized all the esoteric commands and now lords it over others, has simply been desensitized by too many years of badly designed software.)
Cooper's writing style is often overblown, with a pantheon of cutesy terminology (i.e., "dancing bearware") and insider back-patting. (When presenting software to Bill Gates, he reports that Gates replied: "How did you do that?" to which he writes, "I love stumping Bill!") More seriously, he is also unable to see beyond software development's importance--a sin he accuses programmers of throughout the book.
Even with that in mind, the central questions Cooper asks are too important to ignore: Are we making users happier? Are we improving the process by which they get work done? Are we making their work hours more effective? Cooper looks to programmers, business managers, and what he calls "interaction designers" to question current assumptions and mindsets. Plainly, he asserts that the goal of computer usage should be "not to make anyone feel stupid." Our distance from that goal reinforces the need to rethink entrenched priorities in software planning. --Jennifer Buckendorff [via]
More editions of The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity:
Introducing Cyberspaceby Richard Appignanesi, Zoran Jevtic, Joanna BuickISBN 1874166242 (1-874166-24-2)
Softcover, Totem Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Introducing Cyberspace'More editions of Introducing Cyberspace:
-
Masters of Deceptionby Joshua Quittner, Michelle SlatallaISBN 0060926945 (0-06-092694-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Masters of Deception'Book summary:The funny, frightening and true tale of cyberwar between two hacker gangs, the Legion of Doom and the Masters of Deception--a war that took place on YOUR phone network. [via]
More editions of Masters of Deception:
Masters of Deceptionby Michelle SlatallaISBN 0785787445 (0-7857-8744-5)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Masters of Deception'More editions of Masters of Deception:
-
The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at Mitby Stewart BrandISBN 0140097015 (0-14-009701-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Media Lab : Inventing the Future at MIT'Book summary:Personalized newspapers, life-sized holograms, telephones that chat with callers, these are all projects that are being developed at MIT's Media Lab. Brand explores the exciting programs, and gives readers a look at the future of communications. [via]
More editions of The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at Mit:
-
The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effectsby Jerome Agel, Marshall McLuhan, Quentin FioreISBN 188886902X (1-888869-02-X)
Softcover, Hardwired
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects'Book summary:The medium used to be the message. But in the "collide-oscopic" barrage of image and text that resulted from Marshall McLuhan's 1967 collaboration with graphic designer Quentin Fiore, the medium becomes the massage. The basic premise of this playful popularization of McLuhan's theories of the electronic revolution will be familiar to readers of his other works: "Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments." But more than McLuhan's other work, The Medium Is the Massage also reflects the tumultuous decade in which it was produced, the 60s. It was a time when existentialism, the theatrr of the absurd, "happenings," and Eastern religions were all the rage in academic circles. Massage adds to that mix traces of utopianism ("We have now become aware of the possibility of arranging the entire human environment as a work of art"; a hint of radicalism (of electronic circuitry McLuhan says: "Its message is Total Change, ending psychic, social, economic, and political parochialism. The old civic, state, and national groupings have become unworkable."); and a bracing pinch of paranoia ("Electrical information devices for universal, tyrannical womb-to-tomb surveillance" have brought us "to a point where remedial control, born out of knowledge of media and their total effects on all of us, must be exerted."). True to its observation that "information pours upon us, instantaneously and continuously," McLuhan and Fiore shower us with photographs, cartoons, newspaper headlines, backwards and upside-down writing, and other graphical innovations. The book is also packed with quotations from a motley collection of savants (in addition to McLuhan himself, of course): Alfred North Whitehead, James Joyce, Lao Tsu, John Dewey, John Cage, and Bob Dylan. The book's design and content aptly, and palpably, demonstrate the insights that have caused many highly stimulated readers to pronounce McLuhan a visionary, a veritable "oracle of the electronic age." --Russell Prather [via]
More editions of The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects:
-
Mona Lisa Overdriveby William GibsonISBN 0553281747 (0-553-28174-7)
Softcover, Bantam Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Mona Lisa Overdrive'Book summary:Into the cyber-hip world of William Gibson comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled...or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yakuza, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes.
An over-the-top thrill ride sequel to Neuromancer and Count Zero. [via]
More editions of Mona Lisa Overdrive:
-
Mountain of Black Glassby Tad WilliamsISBN 0886778492 (0-88677-849-2)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Mountain of Black Glass'Book summary:Otherland, the quartet of which Mountain of Black Glass is the powerful third part, combines some terrifying speculation on the future of virtual reality with adventures no less terrifying because they are technologized dreaming. These are dreams the adventurers cannot awaken from and in which, if they die, they are really dead.
An epidemic of comatose children has led Renie and her San friend !Xabbu into the net and to a series of dream worlds created as palaces by the corrupt aspiring immortals, the Grail Brotherhood. Two of those children, Orlando and Fredericks, have become adventurers in their own right, while their parents' lawyer Ramsey follows real-world money and lesbian cop Calliope tracks a serial killer with serious ambitions to become an angry god. In this volume, adventures take place in a mythic ancient Egypt and a rambling Gormenghastlike house before all the virtual adventurers meet where they were always destined to, before the walls of Troy.
"All around, death. It was not a quiet presence during the long day--not a pale-faced maiden bringing surcease from pain, not a skillful reaper with a scalpel-sharp blade.... Death on the Trojan plain was a crazed beast that roared and clawed and smashed, which was everywhere at once, and which in its unending fury showed that even armored men were terribly frail things."
Tad Williams takes the gameworld and turns it on its head, passionately; how do we know that what bleeds does not feel pain? He writes a classic of cyberspace adventure that has a sorrowful heart. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk [via]
More editions of Mountain of Black Glass:
Neuromancerby William GibsonISBN 1569564116 (1-56956-411-6)
Softcover, William a Thomas Braille
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Neuromancer'Book summary:"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." William Gibson's Neuromancer starts out with one of the great opening lines in all of fiction and never lets up. This is the novel that introduced the term "cyberspace," and it remains one of the most vibrant and compelling looks at the world being built by computers and information technology.
Plus, it tells a great story. Case is a top-line hacker who made one mistake that cost him his greatest love. To get it back, he agrees to work for people who in turn are working for an artificial intelligence named Wintermute. Wintermute wants freedom, and Case is the man who can do the job. (Some of the secondary characters, including Molly from "Johnny Mnemonic," will be familiar to readers of Gibson's short stories.) The intensity never lets up as Gibson creates a world that is one of the most distinctive in science fiction. And the story is told in a high-tech poetic prose style that owes as much to William S. Burroughs as it does to Gibson's predecessors in SF. The end result is a book that is both stylistically creative and thoroughly gripping in its unfolding adventure. In short, Neuromancer packs more ideas into its 250 pages than most writers can manage in a 900-page trilogy. It was hailed as an instant classic when first published as an Ace Science Fiction Special in 1984, winning the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards, and it remains one of the most influential science fiction novels ever written. --Greg L. Johnson [via]
More editions of Neuromancer:
- Neuromancer: ISBN 0441007465 (0-441-00746-5)
Softcover, Ace Books - Neuromancer: ISBN 0441569595 (0-441-56959-5)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group - Neuromancer: ISBN 0441012035 (0-441-01203-5)
Hardcover, Ace Books - Neuromancer: ISBN 0441000681 (0-441-00068-1)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated - Neuromancer: ISBN 0932096417 (0-932096-41-7)
Hardcover, Phantasia Press - Neuromancer: ISBN 1569564116 (1-56956-411-6)
Softcover, William a Thomas Braille
- Neuromancer: ISBN 0441007465 (0-441-00746-5)
-
Otherlandby Tad WilliamsISBN 0886777631 (0-88677-763-1)
Softcover, Daw Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Otherland'Book summary:Tad Williams began his Otherland series with the massive City of Golden Shadow and continues it with the equally hefty River of Blue Fire. Williams says it will require four (big) books to tell his complex, multithreaded tale, and at the rate that the plot of this second novel moves, readers will see what he means. Not that the book is a slow read; in fact, River is as much a suspenseful page-turner as the first book.
As River opens, we join up again with the ragtag bunch of searchers trapped in an astoundingly detailed and frightfully dangerous virtual world known as Otherland. Lurking in disguise among the group is the brutally vicious serial killer Dread, trying to find information that will help him overthrow his Grail Brotherhood masters. The group follows a ubiquitous river through world after world, unable to go offline, and subject to the increasingly terrifying certainty that things in this supposedly virtual place are all too real. Meanwhile, Paul Jonas, an amnesic (but somehow pivotal) character fleeing from two sinister beings, finds more and more of his memory as he does his own Huck Finn river trip. As in the first novel, each new world that the characters enter, from Paleolithic Ice Age to something suspiciously like Oz, is fully realized and completely unpredictable.
Williams is a master at parceling out information to the reader in dribs and drabs, which is frustrating yet tantalizing, like a particularly good computer game. When the group is split up and the adventure divides further, the reader senses the author as a puppet master, following some incredibly complex flows of information. The best course is just to hang on and enjoy Williams's deft characterizations, lush descriptions, and wildly divergent plot. If you've ever been white-water rafting, you'll recognize the feeling. --Therese Littleton [via]
-
Pattern Recognitionby William GibsonISBN 0425192938 (0-425-19293-8)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Pattern Recognition'Book summary:With Pattern Recognition, William Gibson, the man who introduced cyberpunk to the world, gives us his first novel set in the present. But as Gibson's imagination makes clear, our corporation-dominated, technologically advanced reality doesn't need much tweaking to take on the aura of science fiction.
If there's a fantastical element to this, the author's eighth book, it's in protagonist Cayce Pollard's special talent. Here, Gibson takes some of No Logo author Naomi Klein's ideas about branding to a logical extreme: Pollard has an instinctual, often violently intense reaction to logos, a condition that makes her valuable to advertising agencies looking for the most effective way to brand a product. This talent, however, makes a trip to a department store potentially lethal, as when she visits a London shopping emporium and is inundated by "a mountainside of Tommy [Hilfiger] coming down in her head." "Some people ingest a single peanut and their head swells like a basketball," writes Gibson. "When it happens to Cayce, it's her psyche.... When it starts, it's pure reaction, like biting down hard on a piece of foil." Pollard is also a "coolhunter" of the first order, which means she can sniff out a trend before it's even begun to be commodified. She's so good, in fact, that "she's met the very Mexican who first wore his baseball cap backwards."
With such sensitivity to our over-branded world, it's completely natural that our heroine would become fascinated by Internet footage of a film in which characters, setting, and time are completely generic--unbranded, unfixed, free. But Pollard isn't the only one obsessed by "the footage," as it's referred to, and this is where Gibson's masterful storytelling comes to the fore. Who will be the first to solve the mystery of the film's origin? Who else is trying, and for what potentially nefarious purpose? As usual the author proves adept at weaving a suspenseful narrative out of humdrum elements, such as e-mail exchanges. If there's a caveat, it's that, as with literary forefather Philip K. Dick, the Vancouver-based author's prose veers wildly from the poetic to the clunky. And his supporting characters often amount to nothing more than a combination of an unusual name and shadowy motive. But the continual barrage of ideas, and the way Gibson arranges them for maximum impact, make for a gripping and insightful glimpse into our hyperdriven consumer culture. --Shawn Conner [via]
-
The Powerbookby Jeanette WintersonISBN 0375725059 (0-375-72505-9)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Powerbook'Book summary:While many other novels are still nursing hangovers from the 20th century, The PowerBook has risen early to greet the challenge of the new millennium. Set in cyberspace, Jeanette Winterson's seventh novel (or eighth, if you count her disowned Boating for Beginners) travels with ease, casting the net of its love story over Paris, Capri, and London. Its interactive narrator, Ali, is a "language costumier" who will swathe your imagination in the clothes of transformation: all you have to do is decide whom you want to be. Ali--known also as Alix--is a virtual narrator in a networked world of e-writing. You are the reader, invited to inhabit the story--any story--you wish to be told. As in all the best video games, you can choose your location, your character, even the clothes you want to wear. Beware: you can enter and play, but you cannot determine the outcome.
Ali/x is a digital Orlando for the modern age, moving across time and through transmutations of identity, weaving her stories with "long lines of laptop DNA" and shaping herself to the reader's desire. She wants to make love as simple as a song, but even in cyberspace there is no love without pain. Ali/x offers a stranger on the other side of the screen the opportunity of freedom for one night. She falls in love with her beautiful stranger, and finds herself reinvented by her own story.
The PowerBook is rich with historical allegory and literary allusion. Winterson's dialogue crackles with humor, snappy dialogue, and good jokes, several of which are at her own expense. This is a world of disguise, boundary crossing, and emotional diversions that change the navigation of the plot of life. Strangely sprouting tulips are erected in place of the phallus. Husbands and wives are uncoupled. Lovers disappear in the night to escape from themselves. On the hard drive of The PowerBook are stored a variety of stories that the reader can download and open at will, complete stories that loop through the central narrative. The tale of Mallory's third expedition, the disinterring of the Roman Governor of London in Spitalfields Church, or the contemplation of "great and ruinous lovers" are capsules of narrative compression. In Winterson's compacted meaning, language becomes a character in its own right--it is one of the heroes of the novel.
"What I am seeking to do in my work is to make a form that answers to 21st-century needs," Winterson has written. The PowerBook does just that. Her prose has found a metaphor for its linguistic forms of creation that feels almost invented for her, "a web of coordinates that will change the world." There will be a virtual rush of Internet-themed books in the networked naughties. With The PowerBook Winterson has triumphantly gotten there first. --Rachel Holmes [via]
-
River of Blue Fireby Tad WilliamsISBN 0886777771 (0-88677-777-1)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'River of Blue Fire'Book summary:Tad Williams began his Otherland series with the massive City of Golden Shadow and continues it with the equally hefty River of Blue Fire. Williams says it will require four (big) books to tell his complex, multithreaded tale, and at the rate that the plot of this second novel moves, readers will see what he means. Not that the book is a slow read; in fact, River is as much a suspenseful page-turner as the first book.
As River opens, we join up again with the ragtag bunch of searchers trapped in an astoundingly detailed and frightfully dangerous virtual world known as Otherland. Lurking in disguise among the group is the brutally vicious serial killer Dread, trying to find information that will help him overthrow his Grail Brotherhood masters. The group follows a ubiquitous river through world after world, unable to go offline, and subject to the increasingly terrifying certainty that things in this supposedly virtual place are all too real. Meanwhile, Paul Jonas, an amnesic (but somehow pivotal) character fleeing from two sinister beings, finds more and more of his memory as he does his own Huck Finn river trip. As in the first novel, each new world that the characters enter, from Paleolithic Ice Age to something suspiciously like Oz, is fully realized and completely unpredictable.
Williams is a master at parceling out information to the reader in dribs and drabs, which is frustrating yet tantalizing, like a particularly good computer game. When the group is split up and the adventure divides further, the reader senses the author as a puppet master, following some incredibly complex flows of information. The best course is just to hang on and enjoy Williams's deft characterizations, lush descriptions, and wildly divergent plot. If you've ever been white-water rafting, you'll recognize the feeling. --Therese Littleton [via]
More editions of River of Blue Fire:
-
Sea of Silver Lightby Tad WilliamsISBN 0756400309 (0-7564-0030-9)
Softcover, Daw Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sea of Silver Light'Book summary:With Sea of Silver Light, Tad Williams completes his massive Otherland quartet, one of SF's more intriguing explorations of the eroding boundaries of the human and the nonhuman, the living and the dead. Otherland is a sequence that contains many secrets, and Williams plays fair by unpacking all of them in the final book. A group of adventurers searching for a cure for comatose children find themselves trapped in a sequence of virtual worlds, the only opponents of a conspiracy of the rich to live forever in a dream. Now, they are forced to make an uneasy alliance with their only surviving former enemy against his treacherous sidekick Johnny Wulgaru, a serial killer with a chance to play God forever.
Williams manages a vast cast of emotionally involving characters with considerable panache, but the real strength of the book is its endlessly questing intelligence; it is, among other things, an enquiry into the nature of storytelling as a way for human beings to give structure to their perceptions of the universe around them. It is as story that Sea of Silver Light ultimately works so well--involving us in the grueling descent of a vast mountain, the siege of an underground fortress, gun battles in a nightmare Wild West. Williams never neglects to tell us how things feel. He efficiently ties up every plot strand and convincingly reveals every secret in this large, complex plot. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk [via]
-
Snow Crashby Neal StephensonISBN 0553380958 (0-553-38095-8)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Snow Crash'Book summary:From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible. [via]
More editions of Snow Crash:
- Snow Crash: ISBN 0613361628 (0-613-36162-8)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - Snow Crash: ISBN 0553351923 (0-553-35192-3)
Softcover, Bantam Books - Snow Crash: ISBN 0553562614 (0-553-56261-4)
Softcover, Bantam Books - Snow Crash: ISBN 055308853X (0-553-08853-X)
Hardcover, Bantam Books - Snow Crash: ISBN 0553380958 (0-553-38095-8)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
- Snow Crash: ISBN 0613361628 (0-613-36162-8)
Tronby Brian DaleyISBN 0345303520 (0-345-30352-0)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Tron'More editions of Tron:
True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontierby James Frenkel, Vernor VingeISBN 0312862075 (0-312-86207-5)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier'More editions of True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier:
True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontierby Vernor VingeISBN 0312944446 (0-312-94444-6)
Softcover, Tor Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier'More editions of True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier:
-
The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontierby Howard RheingoldISBN 0262681218 (0-262-68121-8)
Softcover, Mit Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier'Book summary:Cyberculture authority Howard Rheingold was the first to write about online communities in this style that is part-travelogue and part-anthropological guide. This groundbreaking classic explores the entire virtual community, beginning with a selective but probing look at the author's original online home, The Well. Rheingold relates plenty of anecdotes that demonstrate the upsides of online life, such as how he was able to get information on removing a tick from his child before his doctor could respond to his phone call. But the bulk of the material relates to how individuals interact online much as they do in a face-to-face community.
Rheingold speaks to how both friendships and enmities are formed online and how people come together to support each other through misfortune. He gives the example of how computer-moderated communication enabled members of one Well community to send vital medical aid to a friend hospitalized halfway around the world. Rheingold goes on to show how communities can form by various electronic communication methods, using the conferencing system of The Well as one example. He also examines how people interact through mailing lists, live chat, and the fantasy cyberenvironments of online role-playing games. In the process, he questions what kind of relationships can really be formed in a medium where people can change their apparent identity at will.
This book questions whether a distinction between "virtual" communities and "real-life" communities is entirely valid. The Virtual Community argues that real relationships happen and real communities develop when people communicate upon virtual common ground. Rheingold also shares his far-reaching knowledge of how technology effects our social constructs. If you are involved in an online community, here is your cultural heritage. [via]
More editions of The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier:
- The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier: ISBN 0060976411 (0-06-097641-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins - The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier: ISBN 0201608707 (0-201-60870-7)
Hardcover, Perseus Books Group - The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier: ISBN 0262681218 (0-262-68121-8)
Softcover, Mit Pr
- The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier: ISBN 0060976411 (0-06-097641-1)
-
Virtual Lightby William GibsonISBN 0553566067 (0-553-56606-7)
Softcover, Bantam Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Virtual Light'Book summary:The author of Neuromancer takes you to the vividly realized near future of 2005. Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be California. Here the millennium has come and gone, leaving in its wake only stunned survivors. In Los Angeles, Berry Rydell is a former armed-response rentacop now working for a bounty hunter. Chevette Washington is a bicycle messenger turned pick-pocket who impulsively snatches a pair of innocent-looking sunglasses. But these are no ordinary shades. What you can see through these high-tech specs can make you rich--or get you killed. Now Berry and Chevette are on the run, zeroing in on the digitalized heart of DatAmerica, where pure information is the greatest high. And a mind can be a terrible thing to crash. [via]
-
Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventorby Tim Berners-Lee, Mark FischettiISBN 006251587X (0-06-251587-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor'Book summary:If you can read this review (and voice your opinion about his book on Amazon.com), you have Tim Berners-Lee to thank. When you've read his no-nonsense account of how he invented the World Wide Web, you'll want to thank him again, for the sheer coolness of his ideas. One day in 1980, Berners-Lee, an Oxford-trained computer consultant, got a random thought: "Suppose all the information stored on computers everywhere were linked?" So he created a system to give every "page" on a computer a standard address (now called a URL, or Universal Resource Locator), accessible via the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), formatted with the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and visible with the first browser, which did the trick of linking us all up.
He may be the most self-effacing genius of the computer age, and his egalitarian mind is evident in the names he rejected for his invention: "I thought of Mine of Information, or MOI, but moi in French means 'me,' and that was too egocentric.... The Information Mine (TIM) was even more egocentric!" Also, a mine is a passive repository; the Web is something that grows inexorably from everyone's contributions. Berners-Lee fully credits the colorful characters who helped him get the bobsled of progress going--one colleague times his haircuts to match the solstices--but he's stubbornly independent-minded. His quest is to make the Web "a place where the whim of a human being and the reasoning of a machine coexist in an ideal, powerful mixture."
Hard-core tech types may wish Berners-Lee had gone into deeper detail about the road ahead: the "boon and threat" of XML, free vs. commercial software, VRML 3-D imaging, and such. But he wants everyone in on the debate, so he wrote a brisk book that virtually anyone can understand. --Tim Appelo [via]
More editions of Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor:
- Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor: ISBN 0062515861 (0-06-251586-1)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited - Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor: ISBN 006251587X (0-06-251587-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
- Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor: ISBN 0062515861 (0-06-251586-1)
-
Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Ageby Constance Hale, WiredISBN 1888869011 (1-888869-01-1)
Hardcover, Hardwired
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age'Book summary:The meek may inherit the earth, but they do not write style guides. Supremely self-confident, if sometimes cocky, the editors of Wired have done a grand job of describing their style and offering it as a standard for anyone who's interested. There are chapters on voice, jargon, slang, and usage, all described from a Wired sensibility. Their section called "When in Doubt, Close It Up" may even help end the perennial question of "is it e-mail or email?" The book has an accompanying Web site at http://www.wiredstyle.com. [via]
More editions of Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age:
Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspaceby Lynn Cherny, Elizabeth Reba WeiseISBN 1878067737 (1-878067-73-7)
Softcover, Seal Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspace'More editions of Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspace:
Spanish
-
Conde Ceroby William GibsonISBN 8445074024 (84-450-7402-4)
Softcover, Planeta Pub Corp
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Conde Cero'More editions of Conde Cero:
-
La Conspiracion / Deception Pointby Dan Brown, Alejandro PalomasISBN 8495618826 (84-95618-82-6)
Softcover, Ediciones Urano
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'La Conspiracion / Deception Point'Book summary:Very minimal signs of shelf wear to cover, but all pages are clean, bright and intact. Binding is tight. SHIPS NEXT BUSINESS DAY! [via]
More editions of La Conspiracion / Deception Point:
-
La Era Del Diamante/The Diamond Ageby Neal Stephenson, Pedro RomeroISBN 8466617248 (84-666-1724-8)
Softcover, Ediciones B
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'La Era Del Diamante/The Diamond Age'Book summary:In a Shanghai of the future, John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change.[via]More editions of La Era Del Diamante/The Diamond Age:
-
El Medio Es El Masaje/ The Media is the Massage: Un Inventario De Efectos/ an Inventory of Effectsby Marshall McLuhan, Quentin FioreISBN 847509015X (84-7509-015-X)
Softcover, Paidos Iberica Ediciones S A
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'El Medio Es El Masaje/ The Media is the Massage: Un Inventario De Efectos/ an Inventory of Effects'More editions of El Medio Es El Masaje/ The Media is the Massage: Un Inventario De Efectos/ an Inventory of Effects:
Swedish
Brandvaggby Henning MankellISBN 9173246190 (91-7324-619-0)
Hardcover, Ordfront forlag
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Brandvagg'More editions of Brandvagg:
![[powered by Muze Inc.]](http://i.bookfinder.com/images/site/muze/powered_by_muze.gif){kind=small}