Mar 11, 2010 20:24
Why do I like this book so much? I'll let John Clute say it for me:
First: How can a genuine storyteller, given the obvious fact that only bad worlds are storyable, possibly contrive to talk about a Landscape which is a place to stay? Second: Who among us trying to create sustainable worlds could possibly care about stories, which never depict them? - John Clute (Fantastika in the World Storm, 2007)
This is that book. Folks are happy and optimistic and acting to make things better and succeeding and it's great. Even when things fall off the rails, it's due to the emergence of the characters' respective inner assholes, not because failure and entropy are inevitable. The leads (and hell, even the bad guys) are inventing and creating, transforming the human narrative with their brilliantly ridiculous ideas. Society are forging ahead full-circle to humanity's tribal origins, mediated by cutting-edge DIY awesomery. So what if Suzanne was a massive hypocrite? Lester is fine with it because he is that kind of guy and this is that kind of book. People forgive friends because life is good and life is short and fuck it all anyway.
The moral of the story is that bubbles are not a bad thing and even when they burst? They shower the world with fireworks.
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“I’d be delighted.” Death talked like someone who’d learned to talk by being a precocious reader. He over-pronounced his words, spoke in complete sentences, and paused at the commas. Sammy knew that speech pattern well, since he’d worked hard to train himself out of it. It was a geek accent, and it made you sound like a smart-ass instead of a sharp operator. You got that way if you grew up trying to talk with a grown-up vocabulary and a child’s control of your speech-muscles; you learned to hold your chin and cheeks still while you spoke to give you a little precision-boost. That was the geek accent.
That not only describes my childhood but my adulthood too. Fuck.
thinkwank,
books,
makers,
cory doctorow,
rampant awesome