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books tagged “virtual reality”
books tagged “virtual reality”
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Accelerandoby Charles StrossISBN 0441014151 (0-441-01415-1)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Accelerando'Book summary:Expanding upon his award-winning short story cycle from the pages of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Charles Stross-author of such revolutionary science fiction novels as Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise-delivers the story fans have been anticipating with Accelerando, a novel destined to change the face of the genre.
For three generations, the Macz family has struggled to cope with the rampant technological achievements that have rendered humans near obsolete. And mankind's end encroaches even closer when something starts to dismantle the nine planets of the solar system in an effort to annihilate all biological lifeforms. [via] -
All Tomorrow's Partiesby William GibsonISBN 0425190447 (0-425-19044-7)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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› 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]
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Altered Carbonby Richard MorganISBN 0345457684 (0-345-45768-4)
Softcover, Del Rey
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Altered Carbon'Book summary:In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a persons consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or sleeve ) making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.
Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats existence as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning. . . .
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via] -
Art Song: The Marriage of Music and Poetryby Barbara MeisterISBN 0893416355 (0-89341-635-5)
Hardcover, Hollowbrook Pub
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The Barsoom Projectby Larry Niven, Steven BarnesISBN 0441167128 (0-441-16712-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Barsoom Project'Book summary:Welcome to Dream Park-an amusement park where nothing is what it seems-except murder. [via]
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Blow Me Downby Katie MacalisterISBN 0451216393 (0-451-21639-3)
Softcover, Signet Eclipse
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Blow Me Down'Book summary:[via]In the Internet game of "Buckling Swashes," two die-hard enemies find themselves comrades at arms against a merciless rival, and discover that-on the virtual high seas and in real life-love can tame the most fearsome of pirates.
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Burning Chromeby William GibsonISBN 0060539828 (0-06-053982-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› 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]
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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
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› 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]
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Capacityby Tony BallantyneISBN 0553589296 (0-553-58929-6)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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City of Golden Shadowby Tad WilliamsISBN 0886777100 (0-88677-710-0)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Count Zeroby William GibsonISBN 0441013678 (0-441-01367-8)
Softcover, Ace Books
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› 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]
Dervish Is Digitalby Pat CadiganISBN 0312876564 (0-312-87656-4)
Softcover, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom
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The Descent of Anansiby Larry Niven, Steven Barnes, Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress)ISBN 0523485425 (0-523-48542-5)
Hardcover, Tor
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Descent of Anansi'Book summary:It's the American Revolution all over again. But this time it's a ragtag band of space colonists vs. the United States. And the fate of the world hangs by a thread--200 miles above the earth.[via]More editions of The Descent of Anansi:
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The Diamond Ageby Neal StephensonISBN 0553380966 (0-553-38096-6)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› 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]
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The Diamond Age/Or, Young Lady's Illustrated Primerby Neal StephensonISBN 0553573314 (0-553-57331-4)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› 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]
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Donnerjackby Roger Zelazny, Jane LindskoldISBN 0380770229 (0-380-77022-9)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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Dream Parkby Larry Niven, Steven BarnesISBN 0441167306 (0-441-16730-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dream Park'Book summary:Book club edition, 341 pages. The train sat rigid as a steel bar, poised in midair above its magnetic monorail track, disgoring passengers into Dallas station. [via]
Eastern Standard Tribeby Cory DoctorowISBN 0765310457 (0-7653-1045-7)
Softcover, Tor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Eastern Standard Tribe'Book summary:Cory Doctorow is one of those rare writers able to envision a future that is entirely believable, one we may wake up to tomorrow morning. Doctorow's prescience is largely a result of his passion for new technologies. Not only is he an established SF writer, he's also a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a co-editor of the popular tech culture website Boing Boing. Doctorow practically mainlines the future, and readers will feel at home in the future he presents in his second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe, because it's built out of familiar things: megacorporations, social networking services, instant messaging, and GPS devices. The technology and social trends in Eastern Standard Tribe are always the next generation of what exists now, but only just, as if they're simply the latest version rather than an entirely new operating system.
The book tells the story of Art, a member of the Eastern Standard Tribe, a Friendster-like society made up of people who share the same sleep schedule. Art works undercover for EST in England, performing various acts of corporate sabotage, but his life is changed when he falls in love with Linda, a woman who steps into the path of his car to earn some insurance money. Along with Fede, a paranoid EST co-conspirator, they get caught up in an intrigue involving music file-sharing, which eventually results in Art being committed to a sanitarium, where he narrates the book in flashbacks.
Eastern Standard Tribe is a hyper, caffeine jolt of a book, as biting and satirical as it is hopeful and utopian. Doctorow depicts a world that, like Schrödinger's cat, is caught in a moment of impossible simultaneity, torn between two possible futures. Will the profit motive continue to rule the world? Or will society embrace new technologies that serve the masses rather than the corporations? You'll have to open the book to find the answer. --Peter Darbyshire [via]
The Extremesby Christopher PriestISBN 0446676454 (0-446-67645-4)
Softcover, Grand Central Publishing
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Feedby M. T. AndersonISBN 0763622591 (0-7636-2259-1)
Softcover, Candlewick Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Feed'Book summary:This brilliantly ironic satire is set in a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy.
Anderson gives us this world through the voice of a boy who, like everyone around him, is almost completely inarticulate, whose vocabulary, in a dead-on parody of the worst teenspeak, depends heavily on three words: "like," "thing," and the second most common English obscenity. He's even made this vapid kid a bit sympathetic, as a product of his society who dimly knows something is missing in his head. The details are bitterly funny--the idiotic but wildly popular sitcom called "Oh? Wow! Thing!", the girls who have to retire to the ladies room a couple of times an evening because hairstyles have changed, the hideous lesions on everyone that are not only accepted, but turned into a fashion statement. And the ultimate awfulness is that when we finally meet the boy's parents, they are just as inarticulate and empty-headed as he is, and their solution to their son's problem is to buy him an expensive car.
Although there is a danger that at first teens may see the idea of brain-computers as cool, ultimately they will recognize this as a fascinating novel that says something important about their world. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell [via]
Feersum Endjinnby Iain M. BanksISBN 1857232356 (1-85723-235-6)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Feersum Endjinn'Book summary:In a future where the ancients have long since departed Earth for the stars, those left behind live complacent lives filled with technological marvels they no longer understand. Then a cosmic threat known as the Encroachment begins a devastating ice age on Earth, and it sets in motion a series of events that will bring together a cast of original characters who must struggle through war, political intrigues and age-old mysteries to save the world. (B 4worned, 1 oph Banx' carrokters theenx en funetic inglish, which makes for some tough reading but also some innovative prose.) [via]
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Flow My Tears, the Policeman Saidby Philip K. DickISBN 067974066X (0-679-74066-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said'Book summary:The product of a secret government experiment in genetic enhancement, Jason Taverner is a pop idol beloved by millions--until one day, all records of his identity inexplicably disappear. Suddenly, no one seems to recognize him, and in a police state, having no proof of your existence is as good as a death sentence. [via]
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Gemini Gameby Michael ScottISBN 0816742715 (0-8167-4271-5)
Softcover, Troll Communications Llc
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Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspaceby Janet H. MurrayISBN 0262631873 (0-262-63187-3)
Softcover, Mit Pr
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Hamlet on the Holodeck : The Future of Narrative in Cyberspaceby Janet Horowitz MurrayISBN 0684827239 (0-684-82723-9)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› 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]
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Heir Apparentby Vivian Vande VeldeISBN 0152051252 (0-15-205125-2)
Softcover, Harcourt Childrens Books
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Idlewildby Nick SaganISBN 0451212061 (0-451-21206-1)
Softcover, New Amer Library
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Idoruby William GibsonISBN 0425158640 (0-425-15864-0)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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› 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]
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Killobyteby Piers AnthonyISBN 0441444253 (0-441-44425-3)
Softcover, Putnam Berkley
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Killobyte'Book summary:With the magic of Killobyte, a wheelchair-bound cop stands and fights an army of sorcerers, a heartbroken girl heals her pain through role-playing, and a mystery player satisfies his urge to kill. Reprint. NYT. [via]
The Metaphysics of Virtual Realityby Michael HeimISBN 0195092589 (0-19-509258-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr on Demand
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality'Book summary:Computers have dramatically altered life in the late twentieth century. Today we can draw on worldwide computer links, speeding up communications by radio, newspapers, and television. Ideas fly back and forth and circle the globe at the speed of electricity. And just around the corner lurks full-blown virtual reality, in which we will be able to immerse ourselves in a computer simulation not only of the actual physical world, but of any imagined world. As we begin to move in and out of a computer-generated world, Michael Heim asks, how will the way we perceive our world change?
In The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Heim considers this and other philosophical issues of the Information Age. With an eye for the dark as well as the bright side of computer technology, he explores the logical and historical origins of our computer-generated world and speculates about the future direction of our computerized lives. He discusses such topics as the effect of word-processing on the English language (while word-processors have led to increased productivity, they have also led to physical hazards such as repetitive motion syndrome, which causes inflamed hand and arm tendons). Heim looks into the new kind of literacy promised by Hypertext (technology which allows the user to link audio and video elements, the disadvantages including disorientation and cognitive overload). And he also probes the notion of virtual reality, "cyberspace"--the computer-simulated environments that have captured the popular imagination and may ultimately change the way we define reality itself. Just as the definition of interface itself has evolved from the actual adaptor plug used to connect electronic circuits into human entry into a self-contained cyberspace, so too will the notion of reality change with the current technological drive. Like the introduction of the automobile, the advent of virtual reality will change the whole context in which our knowledge and awareness of life are rooted. And along the way, Heim covers such intriguing topics as how computers have altered our thought habits, how we will be able to distinguish virtual from real reality, and the appearance of virtual reality in popular culture (as in Star Trek's holodeck, William Gibson's Neuromancer, and Stephen King's Lawnmower Man).
Vividly and entertainingly written, The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality opens a window on a fascinating world that promises--or threatens--to become an integral part of everyday life in the 21st century. As Heim writes, not only do we face a breakthrough in the technology of computer interface, but we face the challenge of knowing ourselves and determining how the technology should develop and ultimately affect the society in which it grows. [via]More editions of The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality:
Mirby Alexander BesherISBN 0684830876 (0-684-83087-6)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Mona Lisa Overdriveby William GibsonISBN 0553281747 (0-553-28174-7)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› 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]
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Mountain of Black Glassby Tad WilliamsISBN 0886778492 (0-88677-849-2)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› 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]
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Neuromancerby William GibsonISBN 1569564116 (1-56956-411-6)
Softcover, William a Thomas Braille
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› 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)
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Night Roomby E. M. GoldmanISBN 0670858382 (0-670-85838-2)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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Old Twentiethby Joe HaldemanISBN 0441013430 (0-441-01343-0)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Old Twentieth'Book summary:The passengers aboard the starship Ad Astra spend most of their time on the thousand-year journey to Beta Hydrii within the virtual reality of twentieth-century Earth. There, they can experience nostalgia for the hardship of a life they've since evolved beyond.
But when people inside the virtual reality chamber start to die, engineer Jacob Brewer finds himself face-to-face with a sentient machine obsessed with humanity. It has put itself in charge of the ship. And it wants to talk to Jacob... [via]-
Otherlandby Tad WilliamsISBN 0886777631 (0-88677-763-1)
Softcover, Daw Books
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› 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]
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Palace : A Novel of the Pinchby Katharine Kerr, Mark KreighbaumISBN 055357373X (0-553-57373-X)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Palace : A Novel of the Pinch'Book summary:Bestselling author Katharine Kerr joins with Mark Kreighbaum to present a vivid, alluring and terrifying world of the future. They call it Palace, the capital of a planet located in a region of space known as the Pinch. Here a bitter Lep outcast has been hired to murder two humans: Arno, the son of the Master of the Cyberguild, and Vida, a young woman destined for sensual slavery in the Pleasure Sect. Arno is on the track of strange anomalies in the Map, the cyberspace repository of knowledge. And Vida has powers that could change Palace forever. As Arno goes into hiding to escape the assassin, Vida seeks refuge at Government House, the corrupt center of authority, where betrayal is a way of life and death. [via]
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Permutation Cityby Greg EganISBN 0752816497 (0-7528-1649-7)
Softcover, Orion
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Permutation City'Book summary:The good news is that you have just awakened into Eternal Life. You are going to live forever. Immortality is a reality. A medical miracle? Not exactly.
The bad news is that you are a scrap of electronic code. The world you see around you, the you that is seeing it, has been digitized, scanned, and downloaded into a virtual reality program. You are a Copy that knows it is a copy.
The good news is that there is a way out. By law, every Copy has the option of terminating itself, and waking up to normal flesh-and-blood life again. The bail-out is on the utilities menu. You pull it down...
The bad news is that it doesn't work. Someone has blocked the bail-out option. And you know who did it. You did. The other you. The real you. The one that wants to keep you here forever.
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Point of Honorby Dorothy J. HeydtISBN 0886777917 (0-88677-791-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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River of Blue Fireby Tad WilliamsISBN 0886777771 (0-88677-777-1)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› 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]
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Sea of Silver Lightby Tad WilliamsISBN 0756400309 (0-7564-0030-9)
Softcover, Daw Books
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› 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]
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The Sherwood Gameby Esther M. FriesnerISBN 0671876414 (0-671-87641-4)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sherwood Game'Book summary:1st edition 1st printing paperback, fine [via]
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Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolutionby Howard RheingoldISBN 0738208612 (0-7382-0861-2)
Softcover, Basic Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution'Book summary:From Tokyo to Helsinki, Manhattan to Manila, Howard Rheingold takes us on a journey around the world for a preview of the next techno-cultural shift-a shift he predicts will be as dramatic as the widespread adoption of the PC in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s. The coming wave, says Rheingold, is the result of super-efficient mobile communications-cellular phones, personal digital assistants, and wireless-paging and Internet-access devices that will allow us to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime.From the amusing ("Lovegetty" devices in Japan that light up when a person with the right date-potential characteristics appears in the vicinity) to the extraordinary (the overthrow of a repressive regime in the Philippines by political activists who mobilized by forwarding text messages via cell phones), Rheingold gives examples of the fundamentally new ways in which people are already engaging in group or collective action. He also considers the dark side of this phenomenon, such as the coordination of terrorist cells, threats to privacy, and the ability to incite violent behavior.Applying insights from sociology, artificial intelligence, engineering, and anthropology, Rheingold offers a penetrating perspective on the brave new convergence of pop culture, cutting-edge technology, and social activism. At the same time, he reminds us that, as with other technological revolutions, the real impact of mobile communications will come not from the technology itself but from how people use it, resist it, adapt to it, and ultimately use it to transform themselves, their communities, and their institutions. [via]
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Snow Crashby Neal StephensonISBN 0553380958 (0-553-38095-8)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› 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)
Synnersby Pat CadiganISBN 1568581858 (1-56858-185-8)
Softcover, Thunder's Mouth Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Synners'Book summary:In Synners, the line between technology and humanity is hopelessly slim. A constant stream of new technology spawns crime before it hits the streets; the human mind and the external landscape have fused to the point where any encounter with "reality" is incidental.[via]-
Tea from an Empty Cupby Pat CadiganISBN 0812541979 (0-8125-4197-9)
Softcover, Tor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tea from an Empty Cup'Book summary:Two-time Arthur C. Clarke Award winner for Best Novel, Pat Cadigan is the Queen of Cyberpunk for the brilliance of her ideas, the genius of her near-future extrapolations, and the beauty of her writing. No one else has explored and illuminated the mind-machine interface with the keen and relentless intelligence she demonstrates in her novels Mindplayers, Synners, Fools, and the long-awaited Tea from an Empty Cup. Her fourth novel is a perceptive, fascinating, witty SF mystery of artificial reality, whose paradoxical name perfectly defines its nature: an immaterial world of pure sensation, where, by legal mandate, everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden.
The hazards of Artificial Reality are spilling into the real world--people vanish and solitary gamers are found slain in sealed AR booths. The young woman Yuki, child of a Japan destroyed before her birth, enters AR as the new assistant to the mysterious celebrity Joy Flower, but with her own agenda: to find Tom Iguchi, her missing beloved, who never was her lover but had been one of Joy's Boyz. The hard-boiled homicide detective Dore Konstantin stalks the virtual streets of post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty seeking a serial killer who may have murdered eight gamers from inside AR itself. But how do you find missing or hidden persons in a world where nothing is as it seems? The two plot lines subtly converge as fact and fantasy, murderer and victim, as well as understanding and identity invert in a virtual universe where the dangers are real and ever-present, and you can be anything or anyone but yourself. --Cynthia Ward [via]
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Virtual Lightby William GibsonISBN 0553566067 (0-553-56606-7)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› 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]
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Virtual Realityby Howard RheingoldISBN 0671778978 (0-671-77897-8)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Virtual Reality'Book summary:Imagine being able to "walk" into your computer and interact with any program you create. It sounds like science fiction, but it's science fact. Surgeons now rehearse operations on computer-generated "virtual" patients, and architects "walk through" virtual buildings while the actual structures are still in blueprints. In Virtual Reality, Howard Rheingold takes us to the front lines of this revolutionary new technology that creates computer-generated worlds complete with the sensations of touch and motion, and explores its impact on everything from entertainment to particle physics. [via]
Vurtby Jeff NoonISBN 0312141440 (0-312-14144-0)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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Carbono Alteradoby Richard MorganISBN 8445075047 (84-450-7504-7)
Softcover, Planeta Pub Corp
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Conde Ceroby William GibsonISBN 8445074024 (84-450-7402-4)
Softcover, Planeta Pub Corp
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La Era Del Diamante/The Diamond Ageby Neal Stephenson, Pedro RomeroISBN 8466617248 (84-666-1724-8)
Softcover, Ediciones B
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› 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:
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