Jun. 27th, 2012

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William Gibson - Virtual Light (Penguin)


Virtual Light by William Gibson


I actually stared this book a few months back and got as far as the fifth chapter. Then for some reason I mislaid it. I only started picking up on this after completing the Zafon book and been reading it in the garden yesterday and finished this morning.. I have read his books before , particularly Neuromancer and Count Zero, as I have been a fan of the cyberpunk side of sci-fi for years. Mona Lisa was the last one I read a couple of years back.

Virtual Light is a thrilling read, not quite a tour-de-force as the story is almost incidental in places, the characters forgettable compared to those in Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive - but for once, that is not the point. Virtual Light demonstrated Gibson's uncanny ability to see through the fog of the present and show us the future as it is. The neoliberal agenda is all set out in there for anyone to read, in precise detail and gruesome technicolor. Reads like the history of 2010, but was written in 1992.

Virtual Light, about a pair of virtual reality glasses and San Francisco after the next big quake. Rydell and Chevette are brilliant inventions, and a near-future world where people live in shanty towns on the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge and vehicles have alarms that tell people to 'back the f**k off' .

This book was written in 1992-93. Reading it now from the perspective of 2012 gives you a shock. How could Gibson so accurately have drawn our present when it was his future? Late in the story, he describes a place that went downhill "when the Euromoney went away..." and I shuddered. SF is not supposed to be predictive, but what seemed like a dystopian vision in 1993 reads like a techno-thriller now - indeed, an inattentive reader might think of it as a contemporary novel

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Jun. 27th, 2012 01:01 pm
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Well i did my usual stint at Sittingbourne midday. Forenoon the weather was sunny and hot by by midday it had decidedly gone indistinct and cloudy despite being warm.

My first embarkation was in Faversham to get some pipe shag and sell some books.I did my usual short free train ride for that and went from there by bus to Siitngbourne for a single fare and gave the bus driver a tenner but he had no change on him, so i ended up with a free bus ride.

After my hour being stuck in an office i then took the train to Rainham to my secret record shop where i get my freebies. Picked up thirteen albums and eight singles.

Picture 091

Frankie Beverly & Maze - s/t (Capitol)
Luther Vandross - Give Me The Reason (Epic)
Peaches - Pick The Crop (Capricorn)
Bobby Thurston - Check Out The Groove (Epic 12" 45)
Tony Bennett - I Left My Heart In San Francisco (CBS)
Stan Kenton - Kenton's West Side Story (Capitol)



Picture 092

Various - Can't Start Dancon' Stiff Sounds (Sounds Mag. LP)
Stan Kenton - Greatest Hits (Capitol)
Gladys Knight * The Pips - Best Of (Buddah)
Various - Larger Than Life (Warner Bros.)
Shalamar - Friends (Solar)




Picture 093

.. and a couple of BBC Records -

Unique Hancock
40 Years of Television Comedy Spectacular


The singles are a rag bag bunch but did get the Dead Kennedys "Too Drunk To Fuck" punk classic in picture sleeve.
jazzy_dave: (Default)
Okay these are the eight 45's i got from that Rainham shop today, all ex gratis.

Jazzy d0733


Sheila B Devotion - Spacer (Carrere)
Thw Who - I Can't Expalin (MCA)
The Wonder Stuff - On The Rpes EP (Far Out)
Dead Kennedys - Too Drunk To Fuck (Cherry  Red)
George Kotsonis - Love Theme From the Aphrodite Inheritance (BBC)
Balaam and The Angel - I'll Show You Something Special (Virgin)
Alan Price Set - I Put A Spell On You (Decca)
Bad Company - Can't  Get Enough (Island)

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