How to Mutate and Take Over the World

Rating:
Summary: A very interesting read
Review: Agreed! This is actually a very interesting book with unique style, probably would not be appreciated by the right-wing republican extremists or even baby boomers. This is a book for the college kids who called themselves X generation or whatever. You have to randomly dig into the text and get something out of periodically. Both co-authors sometimes would give the readers an impression that most of the time during their writing, their minds were in a rocky mountain HIGH condition, and full of inspirational thoughts, sometimes rebellious, cynical, anti social, and full of hatred to the corporate world; yet sometimes calm, penetrative, perceptive and philosophic. For example, they have pointed out that in order to meet with the signed contractual publishing deadlines, lot of modern day authors have to use formatted writing technics to actually manufacture a book like a product in a rush. That's why so many books we read nowadays would always look alike: having a good start, then a lousy medium process and finally, a terrible and rushed wrap-up; an ending so focusless that always let readers feel helplessly pissed, being cheated and wanted their money back! I think this book is the collection of both authors' trivial thoughts during their grow-up journey, since they are also middle aged people now, these sometimes ridiculed, twisted ways of looking at life and the world might never be materialized again. It would make this book look like a combined personal diaries that they felt should have to be shown to other generations before they put it away. This is a book that you could flip through randomly but never feel lost, bored, or beign cheated; a far better candid read than the tasteless, aimless, circling-around, all-read-similar "Spenser" series by Robert Parker.

Rating:
Summary: mind-melting - this is what "Postmodern" means
Review: For sheer paranoid frenzy power, this book is best read in turns with Shea & Wilson's "Illuminatus!" trilogy. This is brilliant stuff, I truly believe this is a fine sample of where writing can take us if we give Art free reign. This is one colossal whack on the brain that makes acid look like ginger ale. The complex layering of stories-within-stories here toys with the rational mind, gradually drawing you in and distorting all perception until the barrier between real and not-real starts to bleed, and sorting what's going on from what isn't becomes frightening, difficult, and rediculous. For anyone struggling with literary catchphrases, this book is what they mean when they say "Postmodern." I have two copies, a friend of mine has ten. We take this seriously. Sorta.

Rating:
Summary: mind-melting - this is what "Postmodern" means
Review: For sheer paranoid frenzy power, this book is best read in turns with Shea & Wilson's "Illuminatus!" trilogy. This is brilliant stuff, I truly believe this is a fine sample of where writing can take us if we give Art free reign. This is one colossal whack on the brain that makes acid look like ginger ale. The complex layering of stories-within-stories here toys with the rational mind, gradually drawing you in and distorting all perception until the barrier between real and not-real starts to bleed, and sorting what's going on from what isn't becomes frightening, difficult, and rediculous. For anyone struggling with literary catchphrases, this book is what they mean when they say "Postmodern." I have two copies, a friend of mine has ten. We take this seriously. Sorta.

Rating:
Summary: Oops... missed the Deadline?
Review: Hmm, did r.u. and jude miss the dealine on this one aswell. With the text below the title, "An Exploded Post-Novel", it can certainly make you wonder. The style is definitly wired, a precurser to english usage in the digital age. a cybercultural tomb of email babble. more so that most other books, i feel that 'how to mutate and take over the world' would really depend on what the reader goes into the book for. for my purposes of 'technology/culture' research, it proves an excellent resource. aesthetically, the book is quite beatiful; a variety of topography, a catchy semi-translucent cover-sleeve, the digitally altered photograph of an anonymous head on the cover, etc. etc.. if your into the whole "cypherpunk" ordeal, this book will look good next to your 'techgnosis'...

Rating:
Summary: Oops... missed the Deadline?
Review: Hmm, did r.u. and jude miss the dealine on this one aswell. With the text below the title, "An Exploded Post-Novel", it can certainly make you wonder. The style is definitly wired, a precurser to english usage in the digital age. a cybercultural tomb of email babble. more so that most other books, i feel that 'how to mutate and take over the world' would really depend on what the reader goes into the book for. for my purposes of 'technology/culture' research, it proves an excellent resource. aesthetically, the book is quite beatiful; a variety of topography, a catchy semi-translucent cover-sleeve, the digitally altered photograph of an anonymous head on the cover, etc. etc.. if your into the whole "cypherpunk" ordeal, this book will look good next to your 'techgnosis'...

Rating:
Summary: Hey! I liked it. ;)
Review: Oddly enough, it actually did do what the authors hope it would do: make you think. <BR><P>Okay..maybe they asked for something a bit different. However, it was a change, a shift of the normal point of view. <BR>The style of narration is also interesting... and if anyone has become part of an OL community, it is easy to see how these viewpoints occur.<P>One day, you talk about random boring things, i.e- Books, the perverse, religion..<br>..and then *BOOM!* you talk about philosophy and politics. It's kind of worrying =)<BR><P>However, this book does open your eyes....<BR>All in all, it's a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Strange weird and not to serious
Review: R. U. Sirius and St. Jude have taken us all for a ride. This post-novel is a poke in the eye for want-a-be cyberpunks and cypherpunks. I'm sure the book is not to be taken seriously.

It is a mix of email between the two authors, interspersed with email to their publisher, news stories, book reviews (yes, reviews for a book in the book they review, and very poor ones too!), and interviews. We are left no knowledge of what is real, fake or somewhere inbetween. Some of the interviews (well, one because we see the credits for it at the start) may be real, and as for the editorial assistant Trudy, who knows?

The only clue is a note at the end telling us that the book does make fun of some of their friends, and their only consolation is that it makes fun of the authors as well. Also the Phil Zimmerman defence fund mentioned on page 26 is true, thus leading the reader to believe the rest is complete fabrication.

Where that leaves us is that it is a complete work of fiction. Which I suppose we should expect. As a work of fiction it meanders, walks around, tells tales and really doesn't get us very far. It is interesting as a story telling device, but you need to realise that R. U. Sirius and St. Jude are fictional characters created by each author. They are their online persona's that seem to leak out into the real world every now and then. The book is interesting for its own sake, and that's about it really.

Rating:
Summary: Serious? Nah...
Review: What we're looking at is a brainmovement, a series of thoughts, written down in a violent windstorm of information and data. It's funny as hell. But it's also way beyond vague - we talk about jumping on the information superhighway, well, once you click into the lives of the people on this you start to wonder how much time people actually can use running around and getting completely loaded. As a critique of information overload and the fear of the "people" of a completely accessible medium, the story flows well. The reality and the drug-induced comas blend into a mass of undiscernible information that becomes a dishwasher full of sudsy information. You read this drunk, you read it stoned, you find clippets of it lying around your house as soon as the cat finishes tossing it off of its perch where you left in the hope that the animal might just evolve enough to make some sense out of it, because after three hours straight on a bottle of Jim Beam, you sure as hell can't even find the door to the bathroom, much less figure out where the story's going to go. Not a book for the faint of heart. Also not exactly one that you need to worry about anyone you know stealing - they'll just think you're some geek who gets loaded and tries to envision the reality of cyberspace and instant communication.

Although I have to admit, most of the stuff in the book is almost, borderline cocaine writing mixed with a largish swig of raki (raw Cretian hooch).