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heh- I really like a comment I read on the back of one of the Jeff Noon books: "An episode of Scooby-Doo directed by William Burroughs".
Just as an aside - a warm-hearted and subtle take on the whole cyber genre, which I’d really like to recommend, is a book called ‘Halo’ by Tom Maddox, a mate and co-writer of Gibson’s, which is a kind of head-hurting-meditation-on-AI meets love-story (awwwww).
Central to the action is a kind of orbital man-made biosphere thing, at the heart of which is a Gaia-like AI mind with a god-like level of awareness (and there’s lots of fascinating monologues where it ponders it’s own existence). It encourages the semi-sentient AI-based electronic assistants, which almost everyone owns in the mid 21st century, and that oil the wheels of human existence, to become more self-aware, artistic and to pursue their own ends. The woman scientist who helped design the vast supermind thing is trying to keep her ex-partner (also some kind of cyber-scientist type) alive in a VR simulation by this supermind, which guides the humans and AIs onwards into more of a symbiosis, and beyond the mental/emotional boundaries of both.
But it’s also got quite a music/fashion sensibility, like Gibson, and enthusiasm for everyday stuff, like when the personal AI assistants of two of the main characters meet up in virtual reality to plan their lives behind their backs and it tells you what clothes they’re wearing and fags they’re smoking.
Whoops - think I might have over-egged the pudding a bit on this one- trust me guys, it's a good read. I now feel like one of those parka-clad D&D enthusiasts from Fry & Laurie that stand outside Forbidden Planet and talk over-excitedly while spitting everywhere.
It’s hard to find in print now but is available [url= http://www.foo.ro/books/Halo.html]here[/url]
Maddox apparently co-wrote the X-files episode with Gibson, the one that has Moulder reading porn and being attacked by kung-fu kicking nurses in a psychiatric hospital (or so I read - haven’t seen the episode)
Anyone else come across this?? |
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. Completely different style from Gibson's. 
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