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| Singularity: An Online Review of BooksSpring 2004
Eastern Standard Tribe
Is it better to be smart or happy? If you read the author’s debut novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, then you already know that he is an immensely talented writer – quirky, humorous, edgy and brimming with the kind of future ideas that are keeping the genre fresh. His sharp writing and creativity have produced another superb novel in Eastern Standard Tribe. Borrowing a few tricks from Wm. Burroughs, and inventing a few of his own, Doctorow tales a magnificently complex tale of humanity in the deceit-ridden near future, where instantaneous wireless communications and omnipresent computer systems are the warp and weft that make up the fabric of everyday life. Art Berry, the protagonist, is brilliantly portrayed as the interface designer who is on one hand a defacto industrial spy – screwing those he works for in the name of his Tribe. He lives in London, trying to maintain his cover as a double-agent while working with his compatriot, Fede, against the interests of a corporation based in a European time zone. Things start to happen to Art almost immediately, as he begins an erratic romantic relationship with another American, Linda, by running into her with his car. When Art thinks up a clever idea for the sharing and distribution of music, all the paper walls begin to collapse and Art must question the loyalties of those he thought most true. Unfortunately, what goes around comes around in the karmic way his partner and girlfriend make use of Art’s revolutionary ideas. One last comment, the gifted way Cory Doctorow portrays Art as he sits atop the sanatorium, contemplating homebrew lobotomies and the difference between being smart vs. being happy – well, it is some of the most vivid writing I have read this year, bordering on genius, and ringing true to those of us who have also had the hamster wheel spinning in our head. Highly recommended.
About the Author
PIXEL EYE
A past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, a Hugo and Nebula award nominee for his short fiction, and the author of several distinguished scholarly works in the field of media studies, Paul Levinson has already demonstrated a unique perspective on the future in such novels as The Silk Code, Borrowed Tides, and The Consciousness Plague. Now, in THE PIXEL EYE—his wisest, most important novel yet—he reminds us that the future is always shaped by the present. New York City, the next decade: terrorism is more threatening then ever; skyscrapers are a cherished, defiant statement; underground concourses have multiplied because of the sense of security they provide; law enforcement and civil liberties groups clash over the proper boundary between public safety and personal freedom. That's the tenor of the times when NYPD forensic detective Dr. Phil D'Amato is called in to investigate an urgent case — squirrels missing from Central Park! It sounded like a joke, but Phil soon discovers it's anything but, since a new telecom technology can put implants into the brains of living squirrels to translate what they are seeing into computer-viewable images. But who's behind this surveillance breakthrough? Federal agencies…or terrorists? Phil's latest adventure pits personal loyalties against public responsibilities, privacy against freedom, security against animal rights, all against a backdrop of a near- future, post-9/11 New York City that is completely recognizable, even with its new generation of advanced cellular phones, free-standing holograms, tunneling technologies, transport systems and forensic computers. The Pixel Eye offers a vision of a future we may all soon be living in… More Praise For The Pixel Eye
Paul Levinson's science fiction in Analog has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards, and he won the Locus Award for Best First Novel of 1999 for The Silk Code (Tor; October 1999). He lives in White Plains, NY.
Sixty-five million years ago, aliens transplanted Earth's dinosaurs to the moon of a gas-giant world. Now, intelligent saurians—the Quintaglios—have emerged in Robert J. Sawyer's science fiction classic FAR-SEER: BOOK ONE OF THE QUINTAGLIO ASCENSION. The Face of God is what every young saurian learns to call the immense, glowing object which fills the night sky on the far side of the world. Young Afsan is called to distant Capital City to apprentice with Saleed, the court astrologer. But when the time comes for Afsan to make his coming-of-age pilgrimage and gaze upon the Face of God, his world is changed forever—for Afsan is the Quintaglio counterpart of Galileo. He must convince his people of the truth about their place in the universe before tidal forces rip the dinosaurs' new home apart. So begins Robert J. Sawyer's classic trilogy, the Quintaglio Ascension, an early masterpiece by the latest winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel. PRAISE FOR ROBERT J. SAWYER
Robert J. Sawyer is one of only 16 writers ever to win both the Hugo Award, in 2003 for Hominids, and the Nebula Award in 1995 for The Terminal Experiment. He also won the 2003 Seiun Award for Illegal Alien and the 2003 Aurora for his novelette “Ineluctable.” Sawyer was born in Ottawa and lives in Mississauga, Ontario.
Recommended in Hardcover:
A NEW VAMPIRE THRILLER FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TOMB AND CREATOR OF REPAIRMAN JACK "FAR OUT, FRESH, AND GRIPPING." Kirkus Reviews on Midnight Mass In MIDNIGHT MASS, the fall of the Soviet Union has provoked vampires to leave their Eastern European homes. Soon vampires have begun to spread across the continent, then the world, turning whole populations into vampires-or human cattle. Having overrun India, the Far East, and the great cities of North and South America, the forces of Night are now spreading into the countryside to consolidate their conquest. In a town on the New Jersey shore, the vampires have just arrived, along with their human henchmen, the cowboys, who round up human cattle for the overlords in return for the promise of eternal life-later. For the vampires wish only a few of their own kind to rule, and feed. The rest of humanity are to be helpless herds, the source of the blood of life. Falsely accused of abuse, Father Dan is drunk in a basement waiting for the end. His superior has betrayed the local Catholic congregation and become a vampire. Sister Carolyn has become a formidable killer of cowboys and vampires. Dan's niece, escaped from the conquest of New York, has made her way south to find him. Brought together by Rabbi Zev Wolpin who is shaken by the vampires' fear of the cross and holy water, they plan their resistance. Against all odds, they discover that there just might be a way for humanity to fight back. But first they will have to kill the vampire king of New York. F. PAUL WILSON ON VAMPIRE NOVELS
About the Author
Author Leon Wagener's "passages.. .put the reader in the capsule." —BookPage Journalist Leon Wagener interviewed Neil Armstrong's family and friends, including astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and gained access to NASA's files in order to create the inspiring true story of one of America's greatest heroes. ONE GIANT LEAP is the first ever biography of the first man to ever walk on the moon. On July 20, 1969 the entire world stopped. It was a day in which a man who grew up on a farm without electricity would announce, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." hi this, the first ever biography of Neil Armstrong, Leon Wagener explores the man whose walk on the moon was considered a miracle by many of those watching on their black and white television sets. And whose retreat back to a farm in his native Ohio soon after the last ticker tape confetti fell, has caused many to view him as a reclusive hermit. This is the true story of a national hero, whose life-long quest to walk on the moon truly mirrors our best selves, an American who braved incredible danger daily over a long career, finally achieving what seemed impossible, proving forever that man can reach for the stars, and succeed. Relying on hundreds of interviews with family and friends of the astronaut, plus generous access to the NASA files, Leon Wagener explores the life of one of America's true heroes. ONE GIANT LEAP is a book filled with extraordinary adventure, and even greater achievement. Praise for ONE GIANT LEAP
Recommended SF Classics:
Back in print for the first time in ten years, this original novel stands among the finest of Charles de Lint's early works. In THE WILD WOOD, Eithnie is a young painter who was acclaimed by the art world until the critics started noticing that her work had lost the animating passion that had set her apart from the crowd. She returns to her cabin in Canada's remoteWoods, hoping to find a place where she can seek solitude and focus on her art. At first, Eithne's muse remains elusive, but then beautiful and disturbing creatures start slipping into her sketches unbidden. The following days bring strange visitors bearing cryptic messages that indicate that she may be bound by a promise made in a forgotten, magical childhood. The world of Faerie is clearly reaching out to Eithne for help, and her ability to figure out what they need may mark the difference between their survival... and their doom. MORE PRAISE FOR CHARLES DE LINT
Charles de Lint is the author of a myriad of evocative novels and short stories, including Moonheart, Memory and Dream, Forests of the Heart, The Onion Girl, and the World Fantasy Award-winning Moonlight and Vines. He currently lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife, the artist MaryAnn Harris. To learn more about Charles de Lint and his work, visit his website at: www.charlesdelint.com
Boat of a Million Years Now in trade paperback, the landmark epic by one of the greatest SF writers of the century Others have written SF on the theme of immortality, but in The Boat of a Million Years, Poul Anderson made it his own. Early in human history, certain individuals were born who live on, unaging, undying, through the centuries and millennia. We follow them through over 2000 years, up to our time and beyond—to the promise of Utopia and the challenge of the stars. A milestone in modern science fiction and a New York Times Notable Book on its first publication in 1989, this is one of a great writer's finest works.
The author of innumerable classics of fantasy and SF, including Tau Zero, The Broken Sword, Fire Time, and the Dominic Flandry tales, POUL ANDERSON was awarded the Grand Master Nebula in 1997. He died in 2001.
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