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The Escapist
The Escapist is set in an indeterminate future. Space travel seems to exist, but most of the action takes place on Earth. And there's plenty of action, too. From page one, the book races along with scarcely a pause for breath, and by the time you've finished you've been around the world, met numerous bizarre competing factions, and uncovered the plot behind the mysterious Mind Invasions. The storyline takes in locations as far afield as Egypt, Malaysia, Israel, Las Vegas, New York, and London. It almost seems like a travelogue of all the places the author has been in his life, except seen through a warped lens of cyberpunk fiction.
In fact, the story seems almost arbitrary, like it was written as a stream of consciousness. Think Beat Generation, but penned by a Jack Kerouac who's fascinated by computers rather than drugs, jazz and driving. Bentley Dean is carried along by the increasingly frantic stream of events, each one hitting him sideways. All is revealed at the end, but you still get the feeling that many situations occur with no rhyme or reason -- a bit like real life, only with more explosions.
The ideas about future technology in The Escapist can vary from insightful to mundane. The central theme of cryogenic sabbaticals is rather amusing, though. These could be described as "holidays on ice." And though this is clearly a cyberpunk novel, not much of it actually takes place in cyberspace --that's more of a recurring theme in the background. Most of the action occurs in the flesh. This is maybe a good thing, as the novel's description of using virtual reality to explore the human mind is a bit 20th century, perhaps as a deliberate lampoon of how dated films like The Lawnmower Man seem today.
But that doesn't really matter. Most of the time, this is a very funny book. It's full of one-liners which take the present day and twist it to its logical extremes, so you can see just how ridiculous it is. The moon, with its low gravity, becomes a refuge for the overweight. Pandas are saved from extinction by being genetically re-engineered to like eating hamburgers. A strip club is named after Pee-Wee Herman. Bentley buys a fashionable suit made of paper, only to find it too noisy for creeping around at night.
Some of these ideas will have you laughing out loud, although a few of the gags are very much for the geeks in the audience, like the Windows Bar and Grill which takes three attempts to get your order right. There are also plenty of embedded cultural references for film buffs to spot, including HAL, Yoda and even James Bond quotations. You cant help feeling at times that the plot is just there to serve the jokes.
But the book also has a serious side. There's a deeper theme about artificial intelligence, and each chapter is headed by a quasi-philosophical statement. Some of these will really get you thinking, and some are deliberately silly, just to catch you out. If you're interested in the whole question of whether or not computers could ever think like us, and what that would mean, theres food for thought here, hidden among the humour. The Escapist is a book which just doesn't stop hitting you with idea after idea, some of them serious and some intended entirely for darkly comic relief.
The Escapist's main fault is just this -- it tries to do too much in too few pages. It's so fast that at times you have trouble keeping up, and sometimes you wish the characters would just slow down and admire the scenery. And if you need a truly sympathetic character to relate to in your novels, you might find Bentley Dean is just too mean. He's also too much like a cross between James Bond and Kevin Mitnick. But if you have a perverse streak, and a penchant for satire, you'll like The Escapist. You may even wish it was a bit longer.
As well as being available in printed form, The Escapist can also be bought as a PDF direct from the website. And since the novel is published under a Creative Commons license, once you've got hold of one of these PDFs, you can share it around and print it out as much as you like. The cover art is well worth seeing on a real book, though -- it has an evocative mystery all of its own.
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This reveiw doesn't make me want to get it, I'm sure of that though.
My other car is a Popemobile
Could someone actually provide some good novels that take place in Cyberspace, or are closely involved?
Books such as SnowCrash and Neuromancer were great but other 'cyberpunk' books i read have very little to do with cyberspace and more to do with the dystopian future. Yes yes i know thats the cyberpunk theme, but really i want books that involve hacking etc that wont cost 80 bucks.
Reading this review is like seeing too many previews from a movie! you know you've seen all the good thing and it's pretty pointless to go see the movie.
In this case read that book!
In my humble opinion, I find that any serious book with comedic relief or vice versa tends to have plot line issues. I will go ahead and read this one only because it appeals to my taste, but I'm not sure if I will enjoy it... Its either Serious or funny, not both.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
O'Reilly has a number of good books that satisfy that requirement.
They arrested the code dudes in an operation sweeping the entire city. My Pocket Assistant beeped impetuously as Rodriguez dialled the tip-off pager number. Something heavy was going down. Nobody used those digits unless it was a dire emergency. I flipped the cover off the Phoenix handheld and studied the holographic touch screen. The message flashed across in chiselled 3D text:
Reading that doesn't fill me with any desire to read farther. I prefer my fiction to be about the people and the plot, not the gadgets and the buzzwords.
" Bentley Dean. He brings a certain charm to being a hacker with a cold-blooded killing streak." "
Sounds like a ripoff of Howard Dean, but a lot nicer.
To read or not to read and that's the question... Hell I think it's funny that a hacker with a cold-blooded killings habits or whatsoever. I am a hacker and I hack people up for a living. There may be a catch here eh?
May
"antihero" == "not remarkable", "not heroic".
An antihero would be a milquetoast everyman who doesn't do heroic things, or who has every good thing he tries to do turn out badly.
An example: "The cover art is well worth seeing on a real book, though -- it has an evocative mystery all of its own."
Care to describe that "evocative mystery" for us? I'm surprised that a review would mention something like that instead of just describing it. IMHO, this "review" reads more like a sales pitch, dancing around everything but saying nothing.
stuff |
Where is Stanislaw Lem when you need him?
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
"But you still can't help liking Bentley Dean. He brings a certain charm to being a hacker with a cold-blooded killing streak."
Yeah, there's nothing more charming than "being a hacker with a cold-blooded killing streak." Seriously, it's a real hit with the ladies and it's great for parties. I would know...I mean I wouldn't know. Shoot! They're on to me!
[sirens and breaking glass]
*escapes*
So, I agree: Sounds like a big "skip" to me. Which is too bad -- I've been looking for some new SciFi to read ever since I finished reading through the various works of Vernor Vinge earlier this year.
I read the Dan Simmons "Hyperion" series and found it extremely unsatisfying (a strong start followed by weaker and weaker storytelling). Read "Forge of God" by Greg Bear and it was decent, although the sequel was, in my opinion, lousy. I read "Forever War" by Joe Haldeman and found it entertaining enough, although "Forever Peace" was a struggle to even finish. Also read through a couple of other one-hit-wonder authors whose second and third books were rather Wachowski Brothers, if you catch my meaning.
I don't really know where to go from here. Once you polish off the classics and the hits, you're left with a couple of shelfs of books at Barnes and Noble that all have interesting looking covers and rave reviews on the back, but probably aren't all that good...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
.. the first thought that came to my mind was that this is a book about vi, the editor.
First, the protaginists name, Bentley Dean, leads me to believe that a prequal will at some point be writeen about this man's previous career in the adult film industry.
Two, this book is trying to be a movie. Morris cunningly creates a universe where space travel seems to exist, but most of the action takes place on Earth so he can have a future, cyber-punk, technothriller action movie without the big budget requirements that a space travel flick would demand.
Three, one area I wish the book would have explored more was Bentley Dean's (shudder) emotional side; what is driving this wonderful and delightfully animated character? Clearly he's been hurt in the adult film industry... used by so many men... that you'd think this subject matter would lay an interesting foundation and rationale for Dean's cold-blooded killing streak. I can understand how the author wouldn't want to cover some of the details of Dean's exploitation as they may be too close to some of his own experiences in the underground Mexican adult film industry.
One thing is clear, without RTFB I was able to see just how ridiculous it is and provide insightful karma-building comments to the rest of the community. I was however thrilled to read that
So, got out and buy it, spread it like a weed, and when you're done reading it feel free to read another wonderful book that is slightly more coherent and literarily pure.
If you are that good of a hacker, you aren't going to be spending $80 on anything
Where were you when the voynix came?
Greg Egan is a coder who writes SF. People sometimes complain that it's too technical, but the Slashdot crowd should enjoy it. In particular, I can recommend Permutation City and Schild's Ladder for big helpings of cyberspacey goodness.
set in the future. Check out Travis' other novel.
"a hacker with a cold-blooded killing streak" - killed the whole idea of reading this book. It gave me the same feeling as when I heard Vin Deisel was going to be in a kids movie, it's just too far of a stretch for my imagination to take.
Ave Molech Setting
So does anyone have a link for the PDF? I'd be interesting in reading something for the next three hours or so.
I really like this book, but since it was written in the 70's, the "hacking" may not be what you expect. However, this brings up a problem. Because these books have to envision a "cyberspace" of the future, it often ends up being more like the "holodeck" in Star Trek. And realistic "hacking" is really boring to read, even when writer knows anything about the subject. Have you tried the wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
The best cyberpunk novel I have found is reality. My grandson tipped me off to the hellholes that are the GameFAQs.com discussion forums, so I started reading the postings there out of curiosity. Indeed, what I found there startled me.
The moderators were your average schoolyard bullies. The thugs who attack innocent people in the night. I'm thinking more along the lines of Clockwork Orange here. Not just physical attacks, but they partake in the worst sort of psychological perversions.
They are the stereotypical "cyberpunks": nerdy teens with the mentality of 12 year olds who are physically unable to be anything of importance in the non-Internet world, thus they become the punks of the Internet. And their presence really destroys the quality of the forums. But while the quality of the forums as a place for discussion is shitshot, the entertainment value rises immensely.
The best part is that I don't have to chip out a pence to read such novelry. The GameFAQs forums take the best of cyberpunk novels and combine them with an ever-changing reality.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Anybody?
Antihero
A main character in a dramatic or narrative work who is characterized by a lack of traditional heroic qualities, such as idealism or courage.
Antihero is someone like scoobydoo who runs at the first site of danger.
Tragic Hero
A literary character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on a tragedy
Tragic Hero's (classic Macbeth) A hero who is villanious because he believes the end justify the means.
Ave Molech Setting
How about some Isaac Asmiov's foundation novels or frank herbert''s dune or man of two worlds (funny) or the whipping star and the dosadi experiment,destination void just to name a couple.
I am left with the distinct impression that there cannot be much depth (or character development) in the 167 pages that comprise this book. By the time you load it "full of one-liners" and punny place names all you probably have left is room for a dash of seriousness.
The story seems almost arbitrary...tries to do too much in too few pages
Virtual reality...artificial intelligence...technology ranging from insightful to mundane. And more explosions. Yea. Is the author hoping for a movie-rights deal?
One, your review does not encourage me to run out and grab this book. Two, why did you give this an 8?
There are plenty of books out there that are both short and good but, based upon your review, it seems that the author should have spent more time exploring one theme in a modicum of detail than attempt to pass off a screen-play treatment as a novel.
As well as being available in printed form, The Escapist can also be bought as a PDF direct from the website. And since the novel is published under a Creative Commons license, once you've got hold of one of these PDFs, you can share it around and print it out as much as you like.
This smacks of self- or vanity-publishing particularly when combined with the fact that "Ad Libbed, Ltd.", the listed publisher, has no web-presence that I could easily find. Sometimes self-publishing is the right way to go - most of the time it means you couldn't get anyone else to pick up your stuff. Based upon your review, it seems the reader would have been better served had the author turned his novella into a serial short and got it published in a sci-fi magazine or something.
My kids picked up a Johnny Mnemonic audio book at a garage sale. It was an audio recording of a novelization of the screenplay, not written by Gibson. I kinda remembered liking the movie version with Keanu Reaves, so I listened to it on my commute for two ... agonizing ... days.
What you quoted could have been an excerpt from that, except for the first-person narrative and no reference to anything Japanese.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
No matter what the topic the only replies are negative. Grow the fuck up people.
If you're either looking for cyberpunk books to read, or have expert opinions about the genre, head over tow riters_and_works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk#Cyberpunk_
This book, The Escapist was self-published here. This site actually has an interview w/ the author (or hack whichever you prefer). Here are a few choice tidbits from the interview. My comments are added in italics
/.?
...send me some money...viral marketing ...
...I've had one review on a popular computing news website as well so far. Oh really, and where would you find editors of a popular computing news website lazy enough to publish said review... oh... sorry, silly question
What is the Escapist about?
It's an epic, picaresque tale, which I've somehow managed to squeeze into 168 pages. which the author later revealed took him 13 years to write... roughly 13 pages per year on the average.
Why did you decide to self publish your book?
I had tried sending The Escapist to a few agents. I'm sure if I'd carpet bombed all the relevant agencies I would eventually have found representation and some form of publishing deal. Sure you would have... well considering what they publish... you acutally might have But it could have taken ages, and I was confident my book was good enough for prime time. By prime time... you mean posting your own review on
You've taken a Creative Commons license. Why did you do that?
How are you going to market your book?
Well, I hope someone likes it. Read the PDF, burn a copy... to a CD or otherwise... and send this guy some money, but not enough to make him think about writing a follow up.
HAcker/murderer/killer/dark humour.
That's a fantasy book not a cyber punk novel!
That's a pretty simplistic example.
Now, you want a real anti-hero, try on the character of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (author: Stephen R. Donaldson). That guy was a fantastic anti-hero.
I found it interesting that the website that is selling the book, http://pabd.com/, has a featured interview with this author on their front page. Makes me wonder whether this review is legit, or just a lame attempt at guerilla marketing.
read once.
The book was called "Gone To Be Snakes Now" and I wish I still had a copy or could find a copy.
It was utterly incomprehensible to my then young mind. Either the writing was an act of wanton arboricide or it was as brilliant as 'The Iluminatus Trilogy" which I encountered later in my lfe and was able to appreciate.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I was going to mention it if you didn't.
e /jul04/0704far.html
And everything else he wrote. One of the only authors whose material I reread often. The most recent of his short stories
"fast times at fairmont high" and the following free online story cover alot of his more recent consensual reality ideas, absolutely brilliant.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeatur
When you have an account, you can just submit. There is nothing funnier than seeing someone criticizing another person only to make a fool of his self in the process
You mean himslef? XD
I actually purchased Atlanta Nights and my wife and I read much of it out loud. It's hilarious.
This book....
As a fine art graduate student, I know something about art. That cover looks like what any 17-year old kid with access to softcore pr0n images and photoshop could produce in about 15 minutes.
stuff |
from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihero
"In literature and film, an anti-hero is a central or supporting character that has some of the personality flaws and ultimate fortune traditionally assigned to villains but nonetheless also has enough heroic qualities or intentions to gain the sympathy of readers or viewers. Anti-heroes can be awkward, obnoxious, passive, pitiful, or obtuse--but they are always, in some fundamental way, flawed or failed heroes. In this use, the term tragic hero is sometimes used."
A more conscise definition would be: A protagonist who does not fit the accepted hero archetype.
So while an antihero is not *necessarily* evil, a villian who is the protagonist of the story would be an antihero.
"Be afraid to die until you have won some victory for humanity" -Horace Mann
They are omnivorous and enjoy eating meat - that is how they are trapped in the wild. They are too slow and ponderous to obtain it themselves usually. The real issue is that they HAVE to have bamboo as part of their diet - it is a food source they cannot live without.
But yeah, they LOVE meat.
No, you are completely wrong. Wikipedia has a great entry on the subject. But Wikipedia more or less agrees with every other description I have encountered going back many years. In fact, claiming 'Anti-hero=average person protagonist' is so far from correct that I suspect you are deliberately misinforming rather than making a mistake.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
...The Escapist (http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku= 12-882) from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It's a great book, you should read it...(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/ -/0312282990/ref=pd_sxp_f/002-6535993-6624867?v=gl ance&s=books)
Stanislav Blingstein wrote:
>
> Cyberpunk just got a whole lot darker...
> The main character, Bentley Dean, is more than
> just an anti-hero: he seems to enjoy being bad.
That's all we need, nerds who think being an asshole is cool.
... fiction and I'd recommend s/he reads "Storming the Reality Studio" to get a handle on it. Its dark. It always has been, always will be.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
What drives me nuts about most sci fi, and one of the big reasons I stopped reading sci fi for a long time, is how they absolutely insist on putting little "look, it's future technology, see" signifiers on absolutely everything. Characters in sci fi novels never just take a piece of toast out of the toaster which, the writing somehow casually reveals, is for some dumb reason based on nanotechnology. No, they take a piece of toast out of the NanoToast.
It's like all the authors seem to be trying really hard to outline differences between the present and future in a casual and subtle way, so as to make the future seem simultaneously alien but immediate and real... but then they do it so bluntly and unsubtly it's just painful, jarring, and entirely anathemic to the idea of suspension of disbelief. And then they make this even worse by slapping stupid brand names on everything, brand names that would never catch on in real life. Like, "Phoenix handheld". Or "holographic touch screen". In a future where PDAs had holographic touch screens, nobody would ever, ever call them this except the manuals for the actual PDAs. We'd just call them screens.
Nobody in normal fiction insists on mentioning the brand name of every single product that passes before the reader, or adding adjectives to every object to make to note some specific new technology of the last ten years which they utilize. Why must science fiction? It's like trying to watch a movie where all the characters are walking around with NASCAR-style logos plastered all over their clothing.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
For Christ's sake.
Could we please (and by "we", I mostly mean "you") stop complaining about grammar until we are innocent ourselves?
I seriously do not care, but:
"Antihero" in your sentence is missing an article; add an "an". "Scooby Doo" is a proper noun and thus requires capitalization. You use the wrong form of "sight".
Next, "Tragic Hero" is also missing an article. The article following the parentheses should not be capitalized. The word "villanious" really wants to be the word "villainous". Finally, "justify" does not agree with its third-person subject, "the end"; it should be "justifies".
I am a graduate student of English and I mispell words, too, whether through haste, substance abuse, distraction, whatever. Sometimes I use the incorrect words. Generally, though, when I try to lord my knowledge over someone, I try to be as correct as possible.
My point? Let he who is without blame...
If I want to read something to escape from boring old life, I would read a Star Trek novel. Now that's escapist fiction. Some of it good, much of it bad, but it's a rose-colored, feel-good reality that takes me away from the pain of life.
Eventually (probably in a few decades) the new meaning comic books invented for "anti-hero" may have become prevalent enough that is becomes accepted as a standard definition. Currently it only exists in subculture.
If you want to prove I'm wrong, please site an actual academic source.
I could smell trouble. It was a palpable feeling, right down to my bones. I sensed it in the steam and heat of the night, waiting, watching. And it told me to get the hell outta dodge. As I breathed quietly to myself in the pits of the alleyway, I listened. The cops kept on, their sirens dopplering in the distance. I knew my boys were getting picked off one by one. But not me. Getting caught was for noobs, and I trust my instincts. I'm no noob.
If reality was hackable, I'd be the devil.
A rolling stone grows no moss.
I could write this shit and barely even touch the keyboard - it just writes itself.
OBBookPlug :
If you enjoy a *good* solo spy novel - read Quiller. He's an abosolute joy, and a truly well-imagined spy.
This Alien Shore - C.S. Friedman
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=1 2-882
Is the person submitting this review working for the author? It reads more like an advertisment than a review.
Damn. K&C is a great book, and I was hoping someone would try their hand at "The Escapist", the fictional 1930s comic book described in it.
Now some hack has used the name for cyberpunk, a genre that's clearly showing its stretch marks. And is showing them much earlier than, say, 1930s comic books.
(Sigh.)
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Real Lawrence Sanders _The Tommorow File_. The characters don't explain their all their jargon, but it's obvious by context where it came from, occasionally from old-timers who resist the neologisms. It's much like the language of Luna in _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_: never explained in total detail, but comprehensible, nonetheless.
Bosses "rule" subordinates, "love", of course, means money, to "use" someone means to "to have sex with" them, and so forth...
People don't shake hands at business functions, they "palm slide". There are a few other futurisms quietly embeded in the text, and it's an amusing, if overly bright and cheery, view of the future. I particularly liked the addictive recreational drug that was still a total market failure until they improved the packaging.
Read it: it's fluff, but it's worth an evening's amusement. I read it one night during high school, and it evidently made some sort of an impression.
--
AC
Not exactly cover-to-cover, though.
Movies, I can take just about anything -- hell, I liked Hackers (think I was drunk the first time I saw it).
Books, I don't exactly have rigid standards for, but this book just wasn't that great. I mean, I even gave Digital Fortress (0-312-99542-3) some leeway, and it was okay.
PS: The dude does it with a fat chick in zero-G. Yes, thank you for that mental image.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
or, read /. at a -1.
And watch the hilarity ensue.
This tough-but-fair reviewer apparently shares an e-mail address with the fabulous novelist James Morris, widely hailed author of The Escapist. I'm sure this is merely a coincidence and not the result of someone so completely lame that he had to review his own book in order to get anyone to say something positive about it.
I've seen two volumes of 'The Escapist' comics out there, and there might be more now. The one I read was pretty good -- they created a whole false history of 'The Escapist' comics, with different artists and writers doing pieces from different points in that history.
Great hunk of burning shit. Don't bother.
Antihero: A protagonist who lacks one or more of the conventional qualities attributed to a hero. Instead of being dignified, brave, idealistic, or purposeful, the antihero may be cowardly, self-interested, alienated, or weak. Although instances of the antihero are sprinkled throughout literature since ancient times -- for instance, Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605) and Byron's Don Juan (1819-24) -- the antihero in the current sense is essentially a twentieth-century character. Their antiheroism tends to reflect the spiritual or social afflictions of modern man and woman -- atheism, loneliness, mistrust of authority, disillusionment with Western ideals. Posing a satiric or frank contrast to traditional portrayals of idealized heroes and heroines, antiheroes are figures of moral and psychological waywardness, and also of social and ethical criticism. Their oppositional nature stems not simply from within, but from the interaction of self and society; hence their failings point to themselves and to the worlds they inhabit. Modern examples range from Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (1949) to the sex-crazed Jewish adolescent in Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint (1969).
From "Handbook of Literary Terms: Literature, Language, Theory." X.J. Kennedy et al. 2005.
By Vernor Vinge
It really satisfies that requirement.
And it was written before the term cyberspace even existed !!!
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I'd have to disagree with you. Antihero is not defined as an "average person." There are many antiheros in literature who would be anything but average. The central notion of the antihero is the lack of some heroic qualities, which is not the same as saying they are average.
I referenced a literature book over here because you wanted something more academical than Wikipedia. People could rightly apply "antihero" to some renditions of Batman, and that character is anything but average.
nt
Try Corewar @ www.koth.org - rec.games.corewar
Not to be confused with The Escapist
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
And next year, for Heinlein's 100th birthday in June, SR comes out with the last Heinlein book,
- Variable Star
, which is finishing from an extensive outline left By Heinlein.Skip the new trendy post-cyber BS, and pick up Robinson's Telempath or Callahan's Key. Or better yet, the Stardancers trilogy, co-written with his wife Jeanne. These are true sci-fi novels that are enjoyable and inspiring. And no doubt influential for reasons that are less than obvious.
Full disclosure: I am a fan.
"We're millions of miles from earth, inside a giant white face, what's impossible?"
The entire genre of "cyberpunk" fiction seems designed to cater to the stereotypical slashdotter, speaking in 'leet' and being a dick to people via the Internet.
While I suppose there is a market for such material, it certainly doesn't add anything to the literary sphere of our culture.
The last thing we need is for people to abuse the Internet, and speak in bastardized, acronymical english, to be glorified in novel form.