Liberty and Culture Vol. 23, No. 2 Winter 2005 The Probability Broach: The Graphic Novel 2005 Prometheus Award Nominees Reviews of books by Bruce Balfour, Ken MacLeod, F. Paul Wilson, Mark Tier & Martin H. Greenberg, Jasper Fforde, William Gibson, Michael Z. Williamson Prometheus Volume 23, Number 2, 2005 like an alternate-reality fiction. eviews Nobody’s perfect. Gibson did forsee the pulsating-pixel The newsletter of the R shape of things to come in this landmark Libertarian Futurist Society Neuromancer work, which blends adventure, romance, By William Gibson murder, mystery, conspiracy, sex, drugs, Editor Ace Books, 2004: $25 rock ‘n roll and dystopian fable. Anders Monsen Reviewed by Michael Grossberg With its pellmell pacing and surreal in- tensity, Neuromancer was the first book Cover Artist Science fiction doesn’t have to predict to win sci-fi’s triple crown: the Hugo, Scott Bieser the future accurately to be visionary, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards. Contributors but it helps. A clue to its enduring appeal can be Michael Grossberg In Neuromancer, first published in found within the title, which contains the Max Jahr 1984, William Gibson wove a glitteringly word “romance.” Despite Gibson’s gritty William H. Stoddard dark web of words that seduced readers tone and cautionary slant, Neuromancer Fran Van Cleave with a plausible vision of artificial intel- revels in its romance with technology— David Wayland ligence and the emerging world wide especially the possibilities of blending Web—where the boundaries between between man and machine. body and machine have been irrevocably Gibson also brilliantly explores the blurred. complex interface between technology Letters and Submissions: The 20th anniversary edition, which and psychology, politics and culture in Anders Monsen includes an amusing afterword by sci- his suspenseful story of Case, a “console 501 Abiso Ave fi writer Jack Womack about Gibson’s cowboy” exiled from a virtual-reality San Antonio, TX 78209 explosive impact on the “cyberpunk” Internet by a revengeful employer’s [email protected] movement, confirms Neuromancer as maiming surgery. one of the past generation’s most influ- Surviving by his impaired wits in Subscriptions & Advertisements ential books. a drug-infested Asian ghetto, Case is Libertarian Futurist Society More than any other author, Gibson tempted by the possibility of escaping the 650 Castro St. Suite 120-433 became the godfather of the Internet, “prison of one’s flesh” and reinhabiting Mountain View, CA 94041 which his novel foreshadowed as a the Web when he meets Molly, a beautiful [email protected] virtual-reality arena where hackers, hired assassin whose caress is dangerous Basic Membership: $25/yr. ($30 int'l) joyriders, entrepreneurs and outlaws because of the scalpel blades that slide Full Membership: $50/yr. can prosper—or die. from beneath her burgundy nails. Talk Sponsors: $100/yr. His gritty dystopian adventure— cas- about a femme fatale. Benefactors: $200/yr. cading through a computerized virtual- Beyond its cool characters and absorb- Subscriptions: $20/yr. ($25 int'l) reality network for crime, punishment, ing story, the novel has endured because All memberships include one-year redemption, fun and profit— boasts one of the “neon shudder” of Gibson’s lan- subscriptions. of the great opening lines in sci-fi history: guage. Even as human an act as sexual “The sky above the port was the color climax assumes an almost alien glow, Classified ads: 50 cents/word, 10 percent off for multiple insertions. of television, tuned to a dead channel.” “flaring blue in a timeless space, a vast- Display ad rates available. All checks (Gibson second-guesses that line in ness like the matrix, where the faces payable to the Libertarian Futurist his self-deprecating new introduction, were shredded and blown away down Society which apologizes to readers too young hurricane corridors.” to be familiar with the sight of 1950s-era Gibson’s later novels—including Prometheus © 2005 the Libertarian TV static.) Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Futurist Society. The LFS retains a So what if Gibson confesses in the Burning Chrome, Virtual Light and non-exclusive license to republish introduction that he didn’t anticipate most recently, Pattern Recognition—fol- accepted articles on its Web site; all the ubiquity of cell phones or the col- low in the kaleidoscopic footsteps of other rights revert to the contributor. lapse of the Soviet Union, which now Neuromancer but don’t approach its Letters and reviews are welcome. arguably makes his novel seem more visceral impact. Bylined articles are strictly the opinion of the writer and do not Cover and back page art: Panels from The stream-of-consciousness style necessarily reflect the opinion of the The Probability Broach: The Graphic owes something to Prometheus Hall of LFS members. Novel. Reprinted with permission from Fame award-winner Alfred Bester (The the artist, Scott Bieser. Stars My Destination, The Demolished Page 2 Volume 23, Number 2, 2005 Prometheus Man), while the vivid street slang ap- Earth. Kendra joins the Freehold military, The Well of Lost Plots proaches the gang argot of Anthony and here Williamson turns neo-con. By Jasper Fforde Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, a Hall First, on the military training, which Viking, 2003 of Fame finalist in recent years. most of the time seems designed to con- ISBN 0-670-03289-1 Nor did Gibson invent the now-ex- temporary specifications for people with Reviewed by Anders Monsen hausted term of “cyberpunk,” a literary little self-discipline. No, the drill sergeant style and movement that perhaps gener- doesn’t spray the troops with tear gas Jasper Fforde’s The Well of Lost ated more hype, debate and misinterpre- and make them sing the Marine’s Hymn, Plots (TWOLP) is the third novel in his tation than any other sci-fi trend of the but he comes insultingly close. Second, Thursday Next literary detective series. past generation. when they finally go to war—about a Readers who pick up this book as their hundred pages later—Kendra and her Meanwhile, his distinctive vision was first foray into the world of Fforde will fellow freedom fighters find themselves inverted and vulgarized by The Matrix find the going rough and confusing. torturing prisoners for information. film trilogy, which demonized the Web Experienced Ffordians will find TWOLP Apart from the fairly obvious point amusing and inventive, adding new lay- as something to escape from. that this is not libertarian, and an ex- Much of Neuromancer’s visual and ers to an already unique world. tremely unreliable way to obtain factual Following on the heels of The Eyre verbal vocabulary would be reflected information, is this something people and developed in the works of Bruce Affair (2001) and Lost in a Good Book will be “forced” to do hundreds of years (2002), TWOLP finds Next hiding inside Sterling, John Shirley, Lewis Shiner, Vic- in the future? When we have ships span - a book on a character exchange program. tor Milan (a Prometheus Award winner ning lightyears in a week, won’t we have Next’s book-jumping skills first surfaced for The Cybernetic Samurai) and Neal better truth-detection than torture? Actu- in The Eyre Affair, a wonderfully hu- Stephenson (a Prometheus finalist in ally, I would argue that we have better recent years for Cryptonomicon and truth-detection than that now. It’s called morous first novel. Fforde added to this up for consideration this year for the drugs and brain-scans. So this is worse alternate world in the sequel, Lost in a latest prequel novels in his Baroque than a failure of imagination, it’s either Good Book, where Next moved deeper Cycle), among others. (Vernor Vinge, willful ignorance, or a shameful attempt into the realities of fiction. She joined Ju- another Prometheus winner, also de- to justify inhumane treatment with an risfiction, which polices the BookWorld. serves credit for predicting the Internet, expired utilitarian argument. TWOLP delves further into the alternate for his novella “True Names” predates And if you think that’s bad, wait till reality of BookWorld, where literary Neuromancer.) you get to the part about Freehold nuk- characters are real and operate with Two decades later, though, the cy- ing Minnesota, along with other parts motives that sometimes deviate from the berpunk “movement” is all but dead. of the world. The reason? A weak plot expectations of the books’ readers. Nevertheless, long live Neuromancer. device to ratchet up suspense, married to There’s little here that directly deals (This is an expanded and revised review that the pathetic logic that nobody on Earth with liberty except for the meandering appeared in The Columbus Dispatch.) overthrew these grasping socialist rul- quest to discover who’s killing fictional ers, so therefore everyone remaining on characters and threatening Next’s life in Earth shares equally in the guilt of their BookWorld. Throughout this investiga- Freehold evil behavior. So we can nuke them all tion Next uncovers a possible link behind By Michael Z. Williamson with impunity. Interestingly, those set- the upgrade to the next Book Operating BAEN, 2004: $6.99 tlers who left Earth for Freehold because System to UltraWord™. ISBN: 0743471792 they couldn’t overthrow the grasping Reviewed by Fran Van Cleave Billed as a solution to the demise of socialist rulers seem to see no logical original fiction by adding a new sensory contradiction here. Freehold starts out promisingly, with literary experience, UltraWord™ is re- Finally, the “Freehold’s” awarding the heroine, Sgt. Kendra Pacelli, going vealed instead as “the power to change of medals at the end of the book, rather AWOL from her U.N. Peacekeepers unit everything” in fiction. As the architect of than land or other real property for heroic to the Freehold of Grainne after being this idea states, “I get one hundred per- unjustly accused of theft.