Rating: 
Summary: A dense bundle of millennial memes!
Review: Have you ever looked at how the events in your life are unfolding and discovered in yourself the unshakable conviction that there are no coincidences? After reading "Ecstasy Club," you may look back on your discovery of the book as an integral element in a larger pattern; a pattern so seamless that you cannot see it as just an orderless juxtaposition of "random events." Rushkoff uses this tale of cyber-savvy twenty-somethings who commandeer an abandoned piano factory and turn it into a wired commune and rave cult headquarters as a vehicle for infecting the reader with a virulent set of consciousness-transforming memes. It's okay if you don't know what a meme is. You'll have an intuitive understanding after you've read "Ecstasy Club." Rushkoff doesn't stop to explain memes, the significance of novelty, Ericksonian hypnosis, the attractor at the end of time, or really much of anything. If you're already familiar with these concepts, you'll get a warm self-satisfied glow as you think, "Nobody's going to get all these references." If you're encountering these concepts for the first time as you read "Ecstasy Club" you'll experience the electrifying thrill of discovering that the world is a far stranger and more wonderful place than you'd previously realized, and you'll think "Wow!"
Rating:
Summary: A dense bundle of millennial memes!
Review: Have you ever looked at how the events in your life are unfolding and discovered in yourself the unshakable conviction that there are no coincidences? After reading "Ecstasy Club," you may look back on your discovery of the book as an integral element in a larger pattern; a pattern so seamless that you cannot see it as just an orderless juxtaposition of "random events."
Rushkoff uses this tale of cyber-savvy twenty-somethings who commandeer an abandoned piano factory and turn it into a wired commune and rave cult headquarters as a vehicle for infecting the reader with a virulent set of consciousness-transforming memes. It's okay if you don't know what a meme is. You'll have an intuitive understanding after you've read "Ecstasy Club."
Rushkoff doesn't stop to explain memes, the significance of novelty, Ericksonian hypnosis, the attractor at the end of time, or really much of anything. If you're already familiar with these concepts, you'll get a warm self-satisfied glow as you think, "Nobody's going to get all these references." If you're encountering these concepts for the first time as you read "Ecstasy Club" you'll experience the electrifying thrill of discovering that the world is a far stranger and more wonderful place than you'd previously realized, and you'll think "Wow!"
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING! ... for some
Review: I have read this book more then a mounth ago and I am still shocked by it. some readers will find this book boring, hard to understand and unrealistic. But for those who get into the story, it is like a philosofic book about the culture and the human been. Rushkof's thoughts about the society are original and exciting!
Rating: 
Summary: Sex, Drugs and Social Reprogramming
Review: I haven't read anything else by Rushkoff but I have to say that I enjoyed this book immensely. What you get for your [money] is: Insight into the rave (and other) subculture(s); conspiracy theories (from the Philadelphia Experiment to a not so subtlely masked version of the scientologists); a full education pertaining to the effects of experimental, mind-effecting drugs; graphic depictions of group sex; an introduction to social programming and its effects; and a glimpse into the idea of consciousness evolution. This is like Robert Anton Wilson's _Prometheus Rising_ written as fiction. If the concepts are new to you, you may be left behind (or may be forced to reread) but I don't think this stuff is too far out of anyone's grasp. Just remember that all of this stuff isn't fiction. Many people believe in some of these concepts and live these types of lifestyles, it's just that most people aren't aware they exist. My favorite line in the book is, "... the kind of thing that everyone talks about doing when they're in college, but then never does because they get swept away in the current of real life's events." (That's paraphrased a bit) Been there, done that?
Rating: 
Summary: Cyberia : Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace - Fiction Remix
Review: I just finished the reading of this book and it was not an easy job to do so. While reading it, I had this feeling of reading about the things described somewhere else...then it came to my mind - this is the Cyberia in fiction coating and Douglas is selling me the same stuff again! Yeah, I would not mind, if only he would add some extra stuff, I like him and his work, but all that he succeeded to deliver apart from his usual views on the rave and techno revolutionaries and their lifestyle was really artificial plot. So here is my advice to you - if you want to read about the alternative culture, lifestyle and opinions of GenX, buy other books by Rushkoff, they are amazing and full of interesting views and information. If you want to read a decent novel, a literary work with some artistic value, forget about Douglas Rushkoff and try something by Douglas Coupland. Rushkoff is a great author of non-fiction, but unless he shows us more talent and creativity in his new novel (titled Bull?), he will have to stay in his cup of tea for good, his own and also ours. To reach out from there, into the realm of high art, he must be armed with better sword then a poorly written novel, a novel which gives the readers the ecstasy only in its title.
Rating:
Summary: There's a lot here
Review: I liked this book a lot. I was surprised and pleased that a non-fiction type like Rushkoff was able to write dense, interesting fiction. There is a lot in this book worth contemplating. No, I am not going to go out and build a visionquest machine, but the concepts invoked were at least evocative. And I think Rushkoff's recurring metaphor of the feedback loop serves as an enlightening way to integrate all the disparate topics in the book. Rushkoff explores the fluidity of reality, especially social reality. Is all reality social reality? And he demonstrates how attempts to change social reality are as intrinsically totalitarian as efforts to maintain the consensus (everyday) reality. The author seems to ultimately opt for consensus reality. But, fantastic (?) conspiracy theories aside, "Ecstasy Club" does a great job of depicting the often subtle techniques of social influence that create a "reality", whether it be our everyday reality or the alternative conciousness exposed by the members of the E Club. I am left wondering how "real" is an everyday reality that requires such effort to maintain.
Rating:
Summary: all the little tidbits of what's real and what isn't
Review: I really enjoyed this book, even with the small little snags here and there, the slowness at the beginning, and Zach's doubt which was annoying sometimes (at least the doubt of himself - I'm not sure how real it was). But the ideas were great fun, it was neat to see how the author Douglas Rushkoff blended ideas of psychedelic science and quantum physics and fictionalized versions of psychedelic celebrities (like versions of John Lilly and Terence McKenna) and included morphonic resonance and meme warefare and the idea that there really isn't good and evil just a want for other. These are all ideas I've either run across or thought about. I enjoyed seeing them played with in a story. I thought the ending rocked, and all the little tidbits of what's real and what isn't. And how consensual reality is manipulated, or can be. The CIA experiments were a lot like the ones they said the Cosmotologists (Scientologists-a play on them, huh?) and the gov't did on psychics with ... in the 50s-60s. Sure, a lot of the book is also pop psychology and pop psychedelica, but it was fun reading. And the rave ideology was interesting, even though I'm not certain the energy should be attempted to be directed, I like the idea of it coalescing much more.
Rating: 
Summary: more hype than spin
Review: I was a little disappointed when it was all said and done. I admit that I read the book in like two sittings (which I rarely do), but I guess that can be attributted to two things. First, that I kept thinking that it would get better. Rushkoff is a good writer, but his non-fiction is much more worthwhile in my opinion. I got tired of hearing watered down excerpts of his non-fiction work (Cyberia & Media Virus both much better and entertaining than this) interspursed throughout the book. Second, that the material was too much fluff. There are some great insights and perspectives offered that are both noteworthy and entertaining but in the end it was too much like a Hollywood movie that spoon feeds you every little plot twist in moronic detail. It doesn't surprise me to have just learned that (oh my gosh) Mr.Rushkoff has done just that, slated it for the theaters, but watch your wallet's 'cause with the likes of William Gibson hyping this book the movie is bound to be another "Johnnie Neumonic" another study in mediocrity.Don't get me wrong I enjoy Mr.Rushkoff's work in the non-fiction arena and I think the novel thing was something he probably had to try. Yet, I grew accustomed to the depth of the subject matter in his previous works and had I not read them first perhaps I would have been more satisfied. All and all nice try but not a real winner in my opinion
Rating:
Summary: Very Insightful Look Into Raves And Beyond
Review: i was one of those guys who wanted to play with things that were harmful to me when i was a kid, but never got around to it. once i grew up a little, i became one of those guys who wanted to go to rave parties, but i was too busy NOT going. in my recent resurgence of curiousity, i figured i would pick up the ecstacy club and have a look. what i found was a very interesting depiction of sex, drugs, trance, rave parties, orgies, squatting and tons of acts of stupidity on the parts of various nicely fleshed out characters. i dont remember the main character's name, but he's the smartest one out of a group of drug addled twenty-somethings who want to transcend the mortal plane though drugs and parties...and make a bunch of money along the way hosting these parties. there is a character named duncan who THINKS he's the smartest one in the group, so naturally he becomes the arrogant "cult" leader. the main character just wants two things - to leave this life behind and to make duncan's girlfriend lauren his own. and this is the struggle until more obstacles come up out of nowhere to threaten our players. i liked the story though i had no idea where it was going somewhere after midway through. new challenges arise as new characters are introduced and it just seemed for a while there that there was no end in sight until a particularly far-fetched final act checks in. it could all have been a believable story if not for the last fifty pages or so. check it out if you are bored of salinger and hemingway.
Rating:
Summary: Well written, but too "trippy" at times
Review: Just finished reading this after a long bus ride home. I'd never read anything by Rushkoff before, so I was open for anything. Why do so many sci-fi authors have to deal with time travel and the "evolution of the soul". It's really getting old, guys. The descriptions of the hippy-like ecstasy club and Rushkoff's prose are really excellent. I thouroughly enjoyed this novel and i hope that Rushkoff gets some more written soon.
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