Most science fiction fans are familiar with names like Asimov and Bradbury. How many are familiar with names like Lasser, Weinbaum and Eshbach?
This book of interviews concentrates on the early days of science fiction, during the depression, when a person's imagination was allowed to soar while speculating about the future. Hugo Gernsback, a Luxembourgian immigrant who became a magazine tycoon, founded, in 1926, the first all science fiction magazine called Amazing Stories. David Lasser was one of his editors, whose 1931 book, The Conquest of Space, was the first serious English-language look at travel to the moon. Stanley Weinbaum's classic story, "A Martian Odyssey", was the first sympathetic portrayal of aliens. Lloyd Eshbach started one of the first specialty book publishers, Fantasy Press, in the late 1940s. Up until then, even the best science fiction story had a life of about one month in a magazine.
This book is wonderful. Not only do the interviews with the actual people involved do a great job of bringing back the days of ray guns and alien monsters, this is a much-needed addition to the bookshelf of every science fiction fan. I give it two strong thumbs up.
Greatness in a Nutshell: Core Ideas of Logo Design for Print Media and Web Page, Doreyl Ammons Cain, Seat of Your Pants Visual Media, 1999
The Spy Who Spoke Porpoise, Philip Wylie, Pyramid Books, 1969
Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order, Noam Chomsky, Seven Stories Press, 1999
Framing Youth: Ten Myths About the Next Generation, Mike Males, Common Courage Press, 1999
Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America, Kalle Lasn, Eagle Brook (William Morrow and Co.), 1999
Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, Karen Kingston, Broadway Books, 1999
The Unexpected Salami, Laurie Gwen Shapiro, Algonquin Books, 1999
Toolbox, Fabio Morabito, Bloomsbury USA, 1999
This is a group of twelve short essays that take as their subject things like hammers, oil, string, sandpaper, screws, sponges; some of the inhabitants of the average toolbox. It has been said that one day, tools will become our masters; Morabito aims to divert that threat by giving the tools human characteristics.
Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture, Simon Reynolds, Routledge, 1998
Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side, John Shirley, Mark Ziesing Books, 1998
Starfarers, Poul Anderson, Tor Books, 1998
The Edge of Marriage, Hester Kaplan, University of Georgia Press, 1999
Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say, Douglas Rushkoff, Riverhead Books, 1999
Spirit Fox, Mickey Zucker Reichert and Jennifer Wingert, DAW Books, 1998
Bad Jobs: My Last Shift at Albert Wong's Pagoda and Other Ugly Tales of the Workplace, Carellin Brooks (ed.), Arsenal Pulp Press, 1998
One of the reasons people start their own business, aside from making money, is to realize a dream, to make a difference in the world. Among the first steps is to create a logo, a graphic representation of your business that will catch a person's eye. The right logo can really help a business; the wrong logo will handicap the owner before they even get started. This book takes the reader through the whole logo-creating process. It doesn't just talk about it, it gives the reader plenty of space to find out for themselves.
With twenty years experience in the design and advertising fields, Cain first asks the reader about the purpose of the business. Then comes the creating of a mission statement, a way to reach the vision. Later comes deciding who your customers are, and dealing with differences in perception between the right and left brains. Now it's time to concentrate on shapes and colors and types of pencil strokes. Will the logo be in color or black and white? Will it consist of images or just letters? After the logo is finalized, then comes dealing with designers and printers. Their suggestions can help, and may just save the business owner some money.
This is a very specialized book, but also a very good one. Small, or big, business owners would be well advised to read it.
One day, the President of the United States is shocked to learn that there is a category of CIA files, code named Zed, to which he is not allowed access. They were supposedly authorized by a predecessor to build a wall between the Presidency and the occasional messy, but needed, political assassination. The president is unsuccessful in getting to the bottom of this through regular channels. On an official trip to Buffalo, he personally recruits Grove, and ex-OSS man who was something of a legend in the field, to do some digging for him.
Through some eavesdropping on the head of the CIA, Grove learns about something called Project Neptune which will happen near Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. He buys a house nearby, and sets up shop, not knowing what or when it is. He makes himself known to the locals, including Jerry, the night watchman at a local sea park. An ex-Honolulu cop who is no dummy in the secrecy and investigating departments, Jerry is recruited into the Project Neptune quest. Slowly and painstakingly, the pieces start to come together.
This book is much quieter, and, in many ways more realistic than, say, a James Bond novel. Spying isn't all adventure and daring escapes. Philip Wylie is a veteran writer who certainly knows his way around a novel. For a good old, Cold War, spy novel, check this out.
Neoliberalism, a much used term these days, is a set of economic principles designed by the US and imposed on the rest of the world through the various international financial agencies that the US dominates. The intention is to make it as easy as possible for the big transnational corporations, usually based in America, to maximize their profits, no matter what, and deal with any country that doesn't go along (Chile under Salvador Allende). In the US, after years of corporate PR, neoliberalism has acquired the aura of a Sacred Thing which must not be questioned.
In this latest collection, Chomsky doesn't stop there. While the media and the Clinton Administration proclaim the US as a model for the world, according to UNICEF, the US has the worst record among the major industrial countries in areas like mortality of children under 5 years old. While the Reagan Administration extolled the glories of the free market, it boasted about having given US business more import relief than all its predecessors combined; market discipline for you, but not for me.
This is another fascinating and very well done look at the way the world really works. Don't miss it.
To read the mainstream media, a person would think that America's teenagers are reckless maniacs, getting drunk, stoned, pregnant or murdered by the thousands. Males, who has spent years writing about, and actually talking to, youth, gives a very different answer.
A teen's home situation is a much more reliable indicator of whether or not they will smoke, drink or abuse drugs than peer pressure or pop culture. In 1996, when teens were supposed to be abusing drugs in record numbers, about 100,000 adults were taken to hospital emergency rooms for heroin or cocaine emergencies; in the same year, only 1,000 teens made such a trip. Little-discussed aspects of the teen pregnancy "epidemic" are past sexual abuse of the girl, usually by a family member, and the large number of fathers that are over 20 years old. The media would seemingly rather reprint law enforcement press releases than actually analyze crime statistics. They also tend to lie about crime trends, even when they are going in the proper direction; not stretching the truth, or differing interpretations, but it is closer to saying that black is white and up is down.
This is an eloquent and fascinating look at how badly young people are treated by their elders, filled to overflowing with numbers, graphs and statistics. It is highly recommended.
The author, founder of Adbusters magazine, asserts that American principles of freedom and democracy have been overwhelmed by saturation marketing from the likes of Nike and Philip Morris. These products, fashions and celebrities have become the new American culture. In other words, America is no longer a republic and has become a brand name.
The main battle weapon against the marketers and advertisers is the "meme", which is a piece of information, like a tune, catchphrase, or notion of fashion, passed from brain to brain. The dominant memes in America seem to be "Buy! Spend! Consume!". Against that, boycotts, letter writing and sit-ins will be, at best, marginally helpful. Real change will not occur until alternative memes make their way into the American psyche through areas like zines, public access video and community radio, loosely known as culture jamming.
For anyone concerned about the corporate stranglehold on America, this is an essential survival manual. It is very thought-provoking, and I very highly recommend it.
Feng Shui is the oriental art of harmonizing the flow of natural energy around us to create beneficial effects in our lives. This book concerns one aspect of it, getting rid of clutter in our lives.
The author, an international lecturer on Feng Shui, spends most of the book talking about physical clutter, also called junk. Once the decision has been made that only certain items are staying behind, and everything else is going out the door, wonderful things can happen. The person can suddenly discover new reserves of energy or a better outlook on life; the money made from selling the items doesn't hurt. She also touches on such areas as: what to do with things you swear you will fix someday, inherited clutter, cleaning out your computer hard drive, and completist collectors.
Kingston also looks at mental and spiritual clutter. Don't be so quick to criticize or judge other people. Let go of grievances against others. Catch up on overdue correspondence. While you're at it, give your internal organs a good cleaning. Help your colon get rid of all that unhealthy food you've been eating.
Even if you can't do all of the things mentioned here, doing some of them can only help. This book is short, very easy to read, and, for packrats like me, much needed.
Rachel Ganelli, a neurotic Italian-Jewish New Yorker, is tired of the Big Apple, so she moves to Australia, and hooks up with a middle-level rock band called The Tall Poppies, becoming the semi-girlfriend of Colin, the bass player. One day, while shooting their latest video, Stuart, the drummer, is shot and killed, and it's all caught on tape. Rachel decides that maybe now is a good time to return to New York, especially after her mother, who saw it on CNN, calls and demands her immediate return.
About a month later, Rachel runs into Stuart in a Manhattan coffee shop. It was all a scam, the intention being that the band would ride the resulting wave of publicity up the charts. It worked, to the point where the band is chosen as a last-minute opening act fill in for a couple of dates on an INXS American tour, including one at Madison Square Garden.
Along the way, Rachel and a couple of friends help Stuart get off heroin cold turkey; Rachel gets put on the jury for a murder case right at the time that Colin is in New York, but they do get a conjugal visit; for a time, Rachel's "price" for not blowing the whistle to the Australian authorities is a wedding ring from Colin.
This story is marvelous. Shapiro actually lived in Australia for a year, so she knows how to do the Australian point of view. It's a good rock and roll novel, with a little Woody Allen neurosis included, and is well worth reading.
A few quotes from the book: "Oil is water that has lost its get up and go, its cheeky forward drive." "The point of a knife is radically void of memory and of bonds, it knows nothing at all, it is indebted to no one for anything, it casts no shadow." "String is a dot elongated to the point of obsession, or to put it more precisely, it is a long succession of victims." "A bag stops objects from falling, but unlike a table or shelf, which halts things once and for all, a bag keeps halting them at every instant, since it can't fix them in place, can't offer any guarantees."
Morabito looks at normal things in a slightly off-center way. He finds poetry in places that no one else thinks of looking. He has written a very interesting, but unique, book that will make the reader look at a toolbox in a different way.
Top of Page
Main Page
This book looks at a category of electronic music charcterized by a very fast beat, which started in the mid-1980s, collectively called techno. It also looks at rave culture, where groups of young people would gather, anywhere from basements to abandoned warehouses to open fields. listen to techno, and dance all night.
Techno started in Detroit at the end of the disco era, when disco and hip-hop tracks would be mixed with tracks from the 70s German band Kraftwerk and music from Roland 303 bass machines. From there, it traveled to Chicago, to London (where rave culture really took off), to Manchester, England, all over Europe, to Los Angeles, and back again. Along the way, a seemingly infinite number of variants were born, with names like progressive house, speed garage, acid house, ambient techno, Chicago house, and a northern European working-class variant called gabba.
Reynolds also explores the drug called Ecstasy, seemingly as important a part of the rave experience as the music. It seemed to enhance the effects of the music, but like any drug, take it long enough and the effects are less and less each time, forcing the user into harder drugs to regain that original feeling. A couple of well-publicized deaths, plus the public backlash against stoned teenagers, combined to severely damage, if not destroy, rave culture.
For anyone who has ever been to a rave, or bought a techno CD, this book is an excellent complement. Reynolds does a great job throughout, even making this book very readable for those who know little or nothing about techno and rave culture.
Here is a group of very dark and very weird edgy horror stories that start in the present-day world, but don't always stay there.
One story is about a man who kidnaps famous people, brings them to his remote house, and turns them into living gargoyles. Also included is a story about people who have died from drug abuse rising from the dead. Another tale is about sex, and drugs, and a device called a head iron, which is supposed to give a person the ultimate high. A San Francisco subway train derails, and a couple of bike messengers have to crawl their way over and under dead bodies. A religious confrontation of a sort, including human spontaneous combustion, occurs in the middle of a speed metal nightclub. Other stories involve things like growing body parts in unique parts, and very different types of sex.
"Strange" doesn't even begin to describe these stories. John Shirley travels to places that few, if any, other writers are willing to visit. This book is very much Not for the faint of heart, but it is also very much recommended.
This near-future science fiction story begins when SETI astronomers discover "trails" among the stars, thought to be signs of an advanced civilization.
Man has started to spread out among the stars, but has yet to find any other earthlike planets, so there is great interest in exploring the trails. An advanced starship, called Envoy, is outfitted with an eclectic ten-person crew. The ship can pretty much run itself, so the humans are there for when they reach their destination. The very interesting part is that the trails were discovered in an area approximately 60,000 light years away, so over 120,000 years will pass on earth until they return (through time dilation, about 10 years will pass aboard Envoy).
As they get closer to their destination, the trails become fewer and fewer, then stop altogether, leading to speculation among the crew that the civilization either destroyed itself or, for some reason, gave up on space travel. The humans encounter an intelligent race that has, indeed, turned its back on the stars. Envoy's arrival is not totally welcome, because it leads to unwelcome interest in returning to space among some of the aliens.
This is a vivid, well done story of courage and exploration on a grand scale. It just misses the level of Anderson's Best Work, with the science getting a little overwhelming, but it is still far better than most of what is in the Science Fiction section of the local chain bookstore.
This group of stories looks at seemingly solid marriages that get pushed to the limit because of betrayal, illness, conflict or tragedy.
For example, a wife and mother deals with feelings about her marriage and her husband when he comes home from the hospital after being maimed in an accident. In another story, a man confesses to sympathy for his dying wife's former lover. An older man dying of AIDS goes to a small southern resort to die, and wants the help of the resort owner to hasten the outcome. A woman's best friend dies of cancer, not suddenly, and the woman pretty much emotionally collapses. A couple who run their own catering business have trouble dealing with their son, in his mid-20s, who is something of an emotional screwup. A woman reminisces about her dead mother while cleaning out her mother's closet.
These stories are very quiet, but also very good. Kaplan does a fine job looking at the "in sickness" and "for poorer" parts of the marriage vow. There is lots of insight and somber hope here, but lots of sorrow, too. It is well worth the reader's time.
This book explores the ways that "they", the coercers in society, have of shaping our lives and our futures, generally without our consent. They are the ones who say, for instance, that human beings use only ten percent of their brains; that you can earn $15,000 weekly in your spare time; that Prozac alleviates depression, etc. Everyone has heard such things many times in the past.
Currently, the "science" of coercion has reached almost spooky levels. Shopping malls are designed so that the shopper gets lost in a place where the exits are intentionally far apart and there are no clocks or windows or other ways to judge the passage of time. Sporting events, like pro football games, have turned into one marketing opportunity or corporate sponsorship after another. Under the skin, multi-level marketing schemes (also called pyramid schemes) are hard to distinguish from religious cults. Around the turn of the century, America's first retail art director believed that the retail environment could help lift taboos and give consumers the chance to express themselves through the art of consumption. That person was L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz. Rushkoff also has a lot to say about the World Wide Web and the infamous "cookies".
To quote from the end of this book, "For without our complicity, they [the marketers and advertisers] are powerless. Without us, they don't exist". The first step in stopping these people is to read this fascinating and vital book.
Set in a land where a war among the Immortals has been settled, the "Joyous Reunion" has come about, bringing permanent peace to all; or so they thought. An army is coming from the south, led by powerful mages who practice the forbidden sixth magic of destruction. Their purpose is to commit genocide, if necessary, to rid the world of what they call the Abomination.
It actually is a process where some people, at birth, are spirit linked to an animal born at the same time. The two have something of a telepathic relationship and the human lives much longer than normal. Kiarda is a young woman who was supposed to be spirit linked to a fox at birth. The fox kit was killed, causing her link to turn in on itself. She acquires the ability to turn into a fox, one such episode of which leads to a major misunderstanding which causes an innocent man to be condemned to death. It sends Kiarda on a quest into the heart of the southern forces, who have adopted a scorched earth policy to rid the world of any hint of this type of magic.
Reichert is a veteran writer who certainly knows her way around a novel, and, if this book is any indication, Wingert is a name to watch for in the future. Together they have done a very good job from start to finish.
In the world of employment, there is a huge range from interesting and fulfilling jobs, to mind-numbingly boring, dangerous and otherwise stupid jobs. The stories collected here look at the latter type of job, for which "bottom of the barrel" is sometimes too generous.
One person delivered flyers for two years while dealing with obnoxious homeowners and guard dogs that supposedly love people. A night parking lot attendant, who spends most of his shift reading books, nearly gets robbed. An ice factory worker reveals what really goes into Crushed Party Ice. A female employee at a fabric wholesaler has a male co-worker who insists that he never raped a woman who didn't enjoy it. A phone sex worker tells of bringing men to orgasm while reading Ms. magazine. A caucasian delivers Chinese food to obnoxious white people. A golf course cabana girl sells liquor to golfers in the middle of a Phoenix summer.
Actually experiencing these jobs must have been hell, but reading about them borders on hilarious. Whenever your job gets too much to handle, get this book and read about people who have it even worse.
