Friday, September 21, 2007

Spook Country

Spook Country is the latest novel from William GibsonFlag of Canada. I love the fact that this is a science fiction novel set in the past, in this case 2006. There is a wonderful follow up article where Mr. Gibson discusses that science fiction is not about predicting the future but a reflection of the present day. Which is something that I feel most people don't really get.

Spook Country is a double entendre which refers to the current state where the Spooks (CIA, FBI, DHS, etc.) seem to be running the country and GPS driven art where you can only see the Spooks if you have the GPS and a URL. You can really see from it's humble beginnings where the art could evolve into a number of channels that we could all tune into to overlay our own "reality". This concept is wonderfully expanded in John C Wright's The Golden Age trilogy.

The novel proceeds along telling the story from multiple points of view each one with their own plot threads that eventually begin to interweave their way to a satisfying conclusion.

Hollis Henry, former indie rocker now freelance journalist is writing a story on a new art form that exists only in virtual reality, Bobby Chombo, a GPS software specialist who provides the software that enables the virtual reality art, is tracking a mysterious cargo container that drops on and off the grid, Agent Brown is tracking a young criminal named Tito who he hopes will lead him to the cargo.

This was a real quick read for me and I highly recommend it. Especially if you are a fan of the afore mentioned Golden Age trilogy.

Misc:

Cory Doctorow reviews Spook Country.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Casanova Volume 1: Luxuria

I'm a huge fan of Matt Fraction's work with Ed Brubaker on The Immortal Iron Fist so I decided to pick up the first trade of Casanova Volume 1: Luxuria.

What a strange ride! Let me see if I can sum it up. The series introduces you to Casanova Quinn who is the quasi criminal son of the head of his world's top cop. Then a pan dimensional baddie kidnaps him to impersonate his counterpart on another world where Casanova Quinn is his father's right hand man in law enforcement. At this point this really got weird but wonderfully enjoyable as Fraction skewers spy novels and time travel.

I can't really do it justice so listen to the Around Comics guys interview Matt.

Gabriel Ba's art and muted colours are bang on for this title.