Web of Angels

Rating:
Summary: Better than the future
Review: Amazing that John M. Ford wrote this in 1980!

What an astonishing piece of imagination. If it's possible to predict the future (or at least the hip parts of it), Ford has done just that.

Hackers as outlaws and criminals, what a concept. I don't know how anyone can read this book and not come away enthralled and awed.

Memorable characters enmeshed in a plot that does not let down for a paragragh.

A must-read for anyone with the slightest interest in sci-fi or future tech.

Rating:
Summary: I'm Prejudiced...
Review: I actually read this book before it was submitted [having 'Mike' live with me helped], and was disappointed that he was asked to take a great deal of the meat out of the story. As the model for Sharon Rose, i wasn't thrilled to be killed off, either [he didn't warn me, either, & kept insisting in act that he'd 'save' her in the final cut].

It's the earliest cyberpunk story - written *before* there was such a term - but if he had the power, i'd suggest he re-releade it *with* the 'good stuff' added back in. I wouldn't insist that he save Sharon - this time i'm warned - but his dishonesty flaws what could've been a better book. Maybe even he realized it, because this book doesnt sing the way the unpublished MS did...

Rating:
Summary: A precursor to CyberPunk - it's CyberGothik.
Review: I am still amazed that noone else has ever given John Ford his due. This book is, as of now, the only title by him I have ever read. It is, however, one of the best SF books I've ever read (on a par with Dune), and certainly a far better construct of the wired far future that anything the CyberPunks were able to create. If you liked Steinbeck's "Tortilla Flat" better than Hemingway's "Snows of Kilamanjaro", you'll like "Web Of Angels" far more than "Mona Lisa Overdrive" or "Islands in the Stream". This book is what inspired Rucker, Sterling, and Gibson. And maybe Jean Michel Jarre as well