Black ICE
Secret Mud
>In article <6979806...@zooid.guild.org> r...@zooid.guild.org (Secret Mud) writes:
>>From: twa...@vax1.umkc.edu
>>The original purpose of the thread was to show that many so-so authors do a
>>quick "hack" job when doing their world building. They blindly add all the
>>cliches of CyberPunk without really thinking about what they're doing.
>>
>>For the most part, black ice makes about sense as those aliens who want our
>>women.
>
>What?? Black Ice, programs that detect an intruder, and send out, thru the
>network, be it phone lines or physical connection to the comptuer,
>electricity, or , a little more fanciful, data so fast that it scrambles the
>brainwaves. Is that so hard to believe? People get electrocuted all the
>time, and no one seems to deny the possibility. Now, as for Black Ice, or
>Artificial Intelligences taking over a "decker"'s mind, now that really does
>sound like fiction.
>
>Jas
Yes, it sounds like fiction--and usually pretty poor fiction if the writer is
just plugging in a Cyberpunk plot 2.1B. All the supercomputers in the world
can pound on my phone line, but if my computer doesn't want to talk to them,
they are out of luck.
Black Ice needs to have things two ways: (1) the link/brain combination can
be understood well enough to fry it, (2) it can't be understood well enough to
prevent any damage.
Why even bother damaging the physical portion of a cowboy? Anyone doing
things in cyberspace will have to have serious resources in the 'virtual
plane'. Why not just get a lock on the cowboy's True Name, SIN, 10-20, etc,
any blow away anything that you can get your access on? No more bank
accounts, net access numbers, phone number, passport, ... the works.
Probably most cyberpunks live on the fringe of life because they lost a
cyberspace encounter, and no live as "blanks".
S.J.Morden
>Message-Id: <920130024...@wwshop.cuc.ab.ca>
>From: pg25...@wwshop.cuc.ab.ca (Paul Gauthier)
>To: S.J.m...@uk.ac.newcastle
>Subject: Black ICE
>Sender: pg25...@wwshop.cuc.ab.ca
>Status: RO
>I was reading your convo on black ICE and thought I'd comment.
>Unfortunately I don't have write access to the newsgroups on this
>system. So, I have to reply via NetMail. Could you also post this
>message for me? And, it's not something I expect to be asking all the
>time.
Sorry this has taken so long - I've been on my honeymoon :-)
Message as follows
_______________________________________________________________________
Black Ice-->> The way I see it, a cyberdeck cannot be designed tofilter
out certain sensations. In order for the DNI to work quickly enough, and
to be able to process all the necessary information, the interface has
to be quite extensive. The interface could not be based on simple
geometric forms as Steerpike suggests; it wouldn't be effective or
useful that way. Thus it would quite easy to send a sensory overload
which could, say, induce a heart attack. It might take a bit more skill
to create the perceptions that could do so, but once you've figured that
out...
Someone mentioned that cyberdecks in Gibson's books are all controlled
by keyboard. Yes, that's true, they do have a keyboard input. But,
netrunning is not controlled entirely from the keyboard. Most of it
seems to be done through direct responses to thought. (Biofeedback
techniques?) I see the keyboard being a form of supplimentary input
only, and maybe there so you can do coding offline.
And, one quick note. I've also noticed a signature referring to the
"abandonati." Well, the Japanese already have a word that describes that
class much better than the artificial and awkward term "abandonati."
It's "eta."
_______________________________________________________________________
>(thanks)
you're welcome
Simes
The milliamp is mightier than the sword!
Floyd Johnson
>Why even bother damaging the physical portion of a cowboy? Anyone doing
>things in cyberspace will have to have serious resources in the 'virtual
>plane'. Why not just get a lock on the cowboy's True Name, SIN, 10-20, etc,
>any blow away anything that you can get your access on? No more bank
>accounts, net access numbers, phone number, passport, ... the works.
>Probably most cyberpunks live on the fringe of life because they lost a
>cyberspace encounter, and no live as "blanks".
That called to mind the short-lived action series "Max Headroom". (I
call it such because people got their asses kicked in every third
episode.) I didn't see the British film "The Max Headroom Story", but
the Lorimar/Telepictures pilot may have approached it.
Apparently set in 2003, (Chris Young's character is a 15-year old born
in 1987), it centers on a world where some sort of socioeconomic
upheaval had taken place. Television is king, often interactive, and a
video camera is almost as dangerous as an automatic weapon, and you
can do virtually anything by computer, even live two lives
simultaneously (Max arose from copying a journalist's mind into a
workstation, only to sneak out into the net, and on the air).
As "blanks" existed in this universe, as well as "fringers", and an AI
did in fact try to do someone in just as Jason Packer suggested, could
"Headroom" have counted as "CP for the masses?"
Floyd Johnson
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ
jes...@yang.earlham.edu
Mud) writes:
[much stuff zapped]
> Yes, it sounds like fiction--and usually pretty poor fiction if the writer is
> just plugging in a Cyberpunk plot 2.1B. All the supercomputers in the world
> can pound on my phone line, but if my computer doesn't want to talk to them,
> they are out of luck.
>
> Black Ice needs to have things two ways: (1) the link/brain combination can
> be understood well enough to fry it, (2) it can't be understood well enough to
> prevent any damage.
>
> Why even bother damaging the physical portion of a cowboy? Anyone doing
> things in cyberspace will have to have serious resources in the 'virtual
> plane'. Why not just get a lock on the cowboy's True Name, SIN, 10-20, etc,
> any blow away anything that you can get your access on? No more bank
> accounts, net access numbers, phone number, passport, ... the works.
Okay. Here's a chance to not only kill a thread that's been boring a
lot of people (myself included, like from day 1), but to start up an
interesting conversation about real issues. See, now we're in McLuhan
territory... Marshall talked about the way that electronic technologies (from
phones to TV to computers-- he seemed to understand well what we're only
starting to cope with now, namely that microchips have this endless ability to
graft any number of machines together into organic wholes, erasing
distinctions) tend to erode privacy and, ultimately, individual identity.
He cited large databases as a major factor in this. To him, this signaled
a sort of historical turning point, a return to the age of tribal
civilization, when individual was ratified by, subservient to, and
submerged in a group consciousness. Everyone wore the tribal mask.
Now look in Gibson's famous trilogy and see if there isn't a bit of that
there. The Matrix is the consciousness of McLuhan's Global Village. In
it, unauthorized (i.e., unmasked) persons cannot move-- their every move
can be watched/listened to. People's allegiances are to corporations,
transnational tribal entities with their own banners and songs and
rituals. "Indies" exist, but are in (implied) constant danger. And then
you have all this stuff with vodoun... what does it mean? If I could bring
in one more theorist...
Julian Jaynes (universally tagged a "crackpot", I know, but I think there's
something to his ideas, so sue me, no flames please) writes about a
similar human history in *The Origin of Consciousness*. He claims that
the shift from tribal to individual identity corresponded with the
development of true consciousness (for which he supplies a very
interesting definition-- if people find it relevant, I'll post more about
it). Before true consciousness became prevalent, he claims, our brain
hemispheres operated mostly independently of one another, separated into a
"god" half (the right lobe) and a "human" half (the left). For the most
part, the "human" was in control; whenever a situation requiring a
decision arose, the person would hallucinate a voice-- a "god"-- telling
him/her what to do, sometimes with accompanying visuals. This voice would
often be the voice of an authority, such as a king, or a loved one, dead
or alive. According to Jaynes, the only remnants of such function left to
the modern world are to be found in such altered states as schizophrenic
process and trances, as in-- you guessed it-- vodoun. In the trance
state, Jaynes says, a vodoun worshipper can experience the god-voices
again for a brief period, simulating the consciousness of an earlier stage
of human history.
In that light, could the presence of vodoun in Gibson's trilogy signify
such a warping of consciousness? Whether or not Gibson had these specific
theories in mind is not what I'm interested in. I just think that it's a
possible reading, to suggest that these technological loa are
manifestations of the more extreme submergings of individual consciousness
in this world background. Something to think about.
To bring it back to ICE: if the main point of such countermeasures is
not to "fry someone's brain", but instead to destroy their electronic
badges of identity, to strip them of their corporate clothing, is this not
consistent with the view that electronics are recreating for us the tribal
world? If the threat of such a metaphorical "death" is enough to keep the
system in line, does this not speak the end of the individual? What do
people think?
--Jesse.
"When I am melting I have no hands, I go into a doorway
in order not to be trampled on. Everything is flying away from
me. In the doorway I can gather together the pieces of my body.
It is as if something is thrown in me, bursts me asunder. Why
do I divide myself into different pieces? I feel that I am
without poise, that my personality is melting and that my ego
disappears and that I do not exist anymore. Everything pulls
me apart... The skin is the only possible means of holding the
different pieces together. There is no connection between the
different parts of my body..."
--from P. Schilder, *The Image and Appearance of the Human Body*
cited by Julian Jaynes in *The Origin of Consciousness In the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind*
Tringham, Neal
> Marshall [McLuhan] talked about the way that electronic technologies (from
> phones to TV to computers-- he seemed to understand well what we're only
> starting to cope with now, namely that microchips have this endless ability
> to
> graft any number of machines together into organic wholes, erasing
> distinctions) tend to erode privacy and, ultimately, individual identity.
> He cited large databases as a major factor in this. To him, this signaled
> a sort of historical turning point, a return to the age of tribal
> civilization, when individual was ratified by, subservient to, and
> submerged in a group consciousness. Everyone wore the tribal mask.
This seems to me to be little more than a classic sixties paranoia, to be
honest. A common fear expressed about mass democracy in its early days
(specifically at the time of the American Revolution) was that it would lead
to the `tyranny of the majority', ie that the majority would vote their
moral principle and self-interest and everyone else would be forced to
conform. In fact large-scale democracy appears to have contributed to
the _opposite_ effect, the splintering of society into a vast number of
competing subgroups (the postmodern paradigm, if you will:-)). [NB I
wouldn't attempt to claim that mass democracy was the _only_ factor
contributing to this loss of social cohesion, but I do believe that, to put
it crudely, the need to `satisfy special interest groups' certainly helped.
Nor do I regard this division of society as a Bad Thing.] Large-scale
availabilty of communications technology seems to me to be analogous---both
in the fears it evoked early in its development, and in the effects it
has actually had. The fact that isolated indivduals can communicate with
each other (relatively) easily and form their own social groups to support
each other's opinions, seems to me have made our culture heterogeneous to
a much greater degree than McLuhan's `giant databases' have made it
homogeneous. Ignoring `tribal consciousness' for the moment, I cannot
seriously persuade myself that the UK in 1992 is as much of a unified
cultural whole (not hole:-)) as it was in 1692. And, personally, I'm
in favour of that...
> Now look in Gibson's famous trilogy and see if there isn't a bit of that
> there. The Matrix is the consciousness of McLuhan's Global Village. In
> it, unauthorized (i.e., unmasked) persons cannot move-- their every move
> can be watched/listened to. People's allegiances are to corporations,
> transnational tribal entities with their own banners and songs and
> rituals. "Indies" exist, but are in (implied) constant danger. And then
> you have all this stuff with vodoun... what does it mean? If I could bring
> in one more theorist...
(much material about bicameral consciousness deleted)
I read the Sprawl trilogy as a description of an evolving society embodying
a large number of internal conflicts, one of which is between increasing
organisation and increasing anarchy. The corporations certainly seem to fit
what you're saying (there's a lot made of how they are now `entities',
evolutionary successors to single entrepeneurs), but the Sprawl is full of
radically fragmented sub-societies (the Black Panthers, the cowboys, the
Lo-Teks...) which have split away from the `consensus society' (to whatever
extent it still exists), as well as complete loners who have no allegiances
beyond the immediate and personal. Gibson also makes the point (several
times) that there are things the Sprawlers (ugh, what a word...) can do
that the corporation people cannot (I think the opposite is also
implied). So (offhand) I would have said that in the Sprawl future any
`global village' consensus has pretty much broken down, to be replaced
by a large number of social groupings ranging from the tiny (Molly:-))
to the huge (Mitsubishi). Whether the future belongs to the dinosaurs or
the mammals was pretty much left open, I think (tho the bizarre FTL rap
at the end of Mona Lisa Overdrive seems to have something to do with the
anarchists transcending everything in the end).
Neal Tringham
A. G. Williams
>On the Black ICE controversy, Jason Packer writes:
>>Why even bother damaging the physical portion of a cowboy? Anyone doing
>>things in cyberspace will have to have serious resources in the 'virtual
>>plane'. Why not just get a lock on the cowboy's True Name, SIN, 10-20, etc,
>>any blow away anything that you can get your access on? No more bank
>>accounts, net access numbers, phone number, passport, ... the works.
>>Probably most cyberpunks live on the fringe of life because they lost a
>>cyberspace encounter, and no live as "blanks".
There was once an episode of the Twilight Zone which concerned just
such a thing. The punishment for a criminal was to have all his bank
accounts etc. frozen, so in electronic terms at least, he ceased to
exist. This was also combined in human terms by the adding of a scar
to his forehead which made all other people ignore him also.
However, the best idea was in a short story where the punishment given
to anyone who committed a computer crime was to have a mental block
implanted in them making them psychologically unable to interact in any
way with a computer, even the simplest McDonald's menucomputer.
BTW, can anyone remember the name of the story?
--
______________________________________________________________
| A.G. Williams | Plus qu'il n'en faut. |
| will...@unix1.tcd.ie | |
|_________________________|____________________________________|
--
______________________________________________________________
| A.G. Williams | Plus qu'il n'en faut. |
| will...@unix1.tcd.ie | |
|_________________________|____________________________________|
jes...@yang.earlham.edu
Well... the Marshall McLuhan of 1968 *was* talking about the "mass",
which I agree was in error. However, the later McLuhan altered his
theories (partly under the influence of new information technologies, such
as Electronic Funds Transfer systems and cable television) to reveal a
very different account of the shape things would assume. In *The Global
Village* (written with Bruce Powers and published in the 'eighties, after
his death), McLuhan makes it very clear that the shape the new "tribalism"
has taken on is exactly what you've described:
> the splintering of society into a vast number of
> competing subgroups (the postmodern paradigm, if you will:-)).
Alvin Toffler, understanding things from a more economic/technological
standpoint, said some of the same things: that the electronic market
reinforces diversity, the creation of subcultures, etc., in a variety of
ways. And look: as information capitalism penetrates further into the
backwaters of the world, there is more and more a sense of tribal
loyalties being "reawakened", exactly as McLuhan said they would be. This
is the apparent but illusory "contradiction" between the two tremendous
social drives going on right now: Globalization and Localization.
Thus it is that as transnational trading blocs like the EEC are set up,
leaving no borders to slow the traffic of data, goods, and human beings,
subgroups within the structure are attempting to use the shift to address
their own interests and needs-- the Catalans, the Bretons, the Basques,
etc... (see Toffler's *Powershift* especially.)
>> Now look in Gibson's famous trilogy and see if there isn't a bit of that
>> there. The Matrix is the consciousness of McLuhan's Global Village. In
>> it, unauthorized (i.e., unmasked) persons cannot move-- their every move
>> can be watched/listened to. People's allegiances are to corporations,
>> transnational tribal entities with their own banners and songs and
>> rituals. "Indies" exist, but are in (implied) constant danger. And then
>> you have all this stuff with vodoun... what does it mean? If I could bring
>> in one more theorist...
> (much material about bicameral consciousness deleted)
>
> I read the Sprawl trilogy as a description of an evolving society embodying
> a large number of internal conflicts, one of which is between increasing
> organisation and increasing anarchy. The corporations certainly seem to fit
> what you're saying (there's a lot made of how they are now `entities',
> evolutionary successors to single entrepeneurs),
--important point. I recall how in *Count Zero*, the noticable trend
seemed to be away from even oligarchical clans of *individually* wealthy
people... Virek was an anomaly... there was a line in there about the
disintegration of Freeside being part of a move towards true corporatism,
under which there would be no Straylights, only more homes for "Mass Man".
> but the Sprawl is full of
> radically fragmented sub-societies (the Black Panthers, the cowboys, the
> Lo-Teks...) which have split away from the `consensus society' (to whatever
> extent it still exists), as well as complete loners who have no allegiances
> beyond the immediate and personal. Gibson also makes the point (several
> times) that there are things the Sprawlers (ugh, what a word...) can do
> that the corporation people cannot (I think the opposite is also
> implied). So (offhand) I would have said that in the Sprawl future any
> `global village' consensus has pretty much broken down, to be replaced
> by a large number of social groupings ranging from the tiny (Molly:-))
> to the huge (Mitsubishi).
You're still interpreting "tribal" as "homogenized", a "consensus"
system, etc., which I think is not necessarily the case-- take for example
the tribal warfare going on in Yugoslavia right now. Also, maybe I need
to explain my interpretation of the term "Global Village": I think what it
really means is that the world has become extremely small all of a sudden.
That we are inevitably now in each other's laps (and faces) all over the
world. This has consequences for things like warfare: at some level,
"hot" warfare using the most advanced weaponry has become untenable,
because the most advanced weaponry (nuclear, biological, and chemical) is
too powerful for the effects to be contained. Chernobyl went in
everyone's milk jugs. The Global Village means not peaceful homogeneity
but a high-volume society, with everyone screaming to be heard at once,
everyone demanding their lousy proverbial ten minutes of video time... and
often adopting a pattern of response to the noise, usually along the lines
of a willful deafness, a cool shrug, a why-bother attitude that can handle
the thousands of detatched reports of massacre, genocide, abomination...
like soldiers falling asleep on the battleground...
(pant, gasp!) Okay, enough about that. You get my idea?
> Whether the future belongs to the dinosaurs or
> the mammals was pretty much left open, I think (tho the bizarre FTL rap
> at the end of Mona Lisa Overdrive seems to have something to do with the
> anarchists transcending everything in the end).
This last bit is mysterious but interesting. Mind elaborating?
Thanks again! My god, this is actually a really interesting conversation!
--Jesse.
jes...@yang.earlham.edu
I went and found the quote from *Count Zero* that I was thinking of.
[Andrea talking with Marly, their place]
"...But when your Herr Virek dies, finally, when they run
out of room to enlarge his vat, whatever, his business interests
will lack a logical focus. At that point, as our man in Nice [a
theorist] has it, you'll see Virek and Company either fragment or
mutate, the latter giving us the Something Company and a true
multinational, yet another home for capital-M Mass Man." She wiped
her plate, rinsed it, dried it, and placed it in the pine rack
beside the sink. "He says that's too bad, in a way, because there
are so few people left who can even see the edge."
"The edge?"
"The edge of the crowd. We're lost in the middle, you and I. Or
I still am, at any rate."
--pg. 101 in the lowly
paperback edition
So I remembered it slightly skewed. I *think* my point stands though.
The last bit reminded me of Don DeLillo's obsession in *Mao II* with
crowds: someone in there says that the future belongs to crowds...
--Jesse.
Tringham, Neal
>
> Well... the Marshall McLuhan of 1968 *was* talking about the "mass",
> which I agree was in error. However, the later McLuhan altered his
> theories (partly under the influence of new information technologies, such
> as Electronic Funds Transfer systems and cable television) to reveal a
> very different account of the shape things would assume. In *The Global
> Village* (written with Bruce Powers and published in the 'eighties, after
> his death), McLuhan makes it very clear that the shape the new "tribalism"
> has taken on is exactly what you've described:
>
> > the splintering of society into a vast number of
> > competing subgroups (the postmodern paradigm, if you will:-)).
>
> Alvin Toffler, understanding things from a more economic/technological
> standpoint, said some of the same things: that the electronic market
> reinforces diversity, the creation of subcultures, etc., in a variety of
> ways. And look: as information capitalism penetrates further into the
> backwaters of the world, there is more and more a sense of tribal
> loyalties being "reawakened", exactly as McLuhan said they would be. This
> is the apparent but illusory "contradiction" between the two tremendous
> social drives going on right now: Globalization and Localization.
> Thus it is that as transnational trading blocs like the EEC are set up,
> leaving no borders to slow the traffic of data, goods, and human beings,
> subgroups within the structure are attempting to use the shift to address
> their own interests and needs-- the Catalans, the Bretons, the Basques,
> etc... (see Toffler's *Powershift* especially.)
I agree with all this _except_ the idea that `tribal loyalties are
reawakened' by the `electronic market'. The upsurge in nationalism we've
seen recently (and mostly in Europe) seems to me to be far more a result
of fairly traditional political and economic changes (this may well be what
Toffler said in
_Powershift_, incidentally---I haven't read it---but the start of your
excerpt above didn't really leave me with that impression). In the East
we've seen the lid taken off on all the old antagonisms in a situation
where there is nothing like enough to go round (and this latter may well
be the most important aspect, IMO). In the West it strikes me that something
more subtle is occurring. Economically, many of these `new old' regions now
feel they can make it on their own, after centuries of not really having
a chance to survive independently in the world market. Politically, the
atmosphere is at least sympathetic. But both of these things seem to me to
be essentially the result of a _cultural_ shift: the `New Europe' is, after
all, all about diversity (the official EC word is `subsidiarity', I believe,
which goes some way towards explaining why so many English people blanch
at the thought of having to implement---or indeed understand---EC
directives:-)). By and large, the old powers are willing to let their old
satellites go (admittedly partly because those satellites are now little
more than a nasty economic drain on the motherland, but still...). In
some cases (the UK and Gibraltar, for example) they're positively
_desperate_ to get rid of them...:-) The big countries are also willing
to play mother to the little ones, at least for a while, and pay for them
to develop viable industries. In the West, then, I'd say we're seeing
an essentially _cultural_ shift towards diversity that has little to do with
modern communications as such. It's also worth remembering that, when you
consider where the _real_ power goes, the EC is _much_ more centripetal
than it is centrifugal.
I _do_ believe that 'the global village' tends to create a diverse society
of many subcultures, incidentally, but I suspect that most groups that
appear in this way are entirely new, made up of individuals who were
too geographically separated or culturally damned under the old order to
be able to form their own microcultures. Thus gays and feminists, for example.
One characteristic of these groups is that (as you might expect) they are
very international, something they share with another type of new subculture---
the group that could have appeared in a pre-media age, but has only formed
in response to some particular set of modern circumstances (such as the
Greens). These groups, appearing in an intensely communicative society, often
owe some of their particular shape to the global media and communications
technologies that existed when they were young. Thus (to cut a _very_ long
winded piece mercifully short) the Greens are international in a way
that the essentially nineteenth century social democratic movements are
not (though the latter are catching up. Slowly).
(Pant. Pant. Pause to massage my typing fingers.)
I write:
> > but the Sprawl is full of
> > radically fragmented sub-societies (the Black Panthers, the cowboys, the
> > Lo-Teks...) which have split away from the `consensus society' (to whatever
> > extent it still exists), as well as complete loners who have no allegiances
> > beyond the immediate and personal. Gibson also makes the point (several
> > times) that there are things the Sprawlers (ugh, what a word...) can do
> > that the corporation people cannot (I think the opposite is also
> > implied). So (offhand) I would have said that in the Sprawl future any
> > `global village' consensus has pretty much broken down, to be replaced
> > by a large number of social groupings ranging from the tiny (Molly:-))
> > to the huge (Mitsubishi).
>
> You're still interpreting "tribal" as "homogenized", a "consensus"
> system, etc., which I think is not necessarily the case-- take for example
> the tribal warfare going on in Yugoslavia right now.
I don't really understand this. In what sense is a group tribal if
it doesn't share things that the outside world does not have? In Yugoslavia
(to put things _very_ crudely, with apologies to any Yugoslavians reading),
many of the Croats seem to have a `last defenders of the enlightened
West against the barabarian totalitarian onslaught from the Communists/East'
mentality, and many of the Serbs seem to have a `last protectors of the great,
but tragically misunderstood and oppressed, Serbian people from all thos
who would destroy them' mentality. Both these strike me as essentially
tribal in nature (and yes, I'm aware it's far more complex than that, and I know
this is _by no means_ good anthropology).
>Also, maybe I need
> to explain my interpretation of the term "Global Village": I think what it
> really means is that the world has become extremely small all of a sudden.
> That we are inevitably now in each other's laps (and faces) all over the
> world. This has consequences for things like warfare: at some level,
> "hot" warfare using the most advanced weaponry has become untenable,
> because the most advanced weaponry (nuclear, biological, and chemical) is
> too powerful for the effects to be contained. Chernobyl went in
> everyone's milk jugs. The Global Village means not peaceful homogeneity
> but a high-volume society, with everyone screaming to be heard at once,
> everyone demanding their lousy proverbial ten minutes of video time... and
> often adopting a pattern of response to the noise, usually along the lines
> of a willful deafness, a cool shrug, a why-bother attitude that can handle
> the thousands of detatched reports of massacre, genocide, abomination...
> like soldiers falling asleep on the battleground...
> (pant, gasp!) Okay, enough about that. You get my idea?
>
Pretty much. And I agree, to a large extent. Have you read Saul `oh my God,
I'm the last heir of the European Enlightenment and I can't hear myself think
for everyone screaming on my radio' Bellow on this one? (all right, I know,
a snide comment. Apologies to any Bellow fans etc---I think he's a good writer,
honest).
> > Whether the future belongs to the dinosaurs or
> > the mammals was pretty much left open, I think (tho the bizarre FTL rap
> > at the end of Mona Lisa Overdrive seems to have something to do with the
> > anarchists transcending everything in the end).
>
> This last bit is mysterious but interesting. Mind elaborating?
Well, it's a very long time since I read the book, so don't depend
on _any_ of this. But as I recall, at the end of _Mona Lisa_ Molly
and some other characters (the Finn?) are driving around in a car, and
one of the AIs says something about `I'm in contact with [supply astronomical
catalogue reference', whereupon they all say `gee whiz! let's go there!'
(all paraphrasing done intentionally, for essentially malicious reasons). This
struck me as a classic sf transcendental riff (as in almost any Robert
Silverberg novel you care to name), in which the protagonists who have
spent the whole book slogging through the metaphorical blood and mud get
their reward by being transcended to a different plane, where they can
travel to star X and talk to the alien AI, escape the mega-corporations
or whatever (and note that the ending doesn't suggest that _corporations_
will be doing any of this). At the time, I remember thinking that this meant
that _Mona Lisa_ definitely had to be the last Sprawl book, ever. But like
I say, it's a long time since I read the book and I could have mangled my
memories pretty effectively by now.
Right, off to bed and a well earned rest, I think...
Cheers
Neal Tringham