After hating Chapterhouse: Dune, I put off reading this one until now. Boy, was I wrong.
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William Gibson coined the term cyberspace and turned SF inside-out in the 1980s with the original Cyberpunk Trilogy. Idoru, his mid-nineties thriller, looks at the emerging future. It contains some exceptional writing, interesting concepts, and a plausible (though satiric) world, but will likely prove most engaging to people who have not read Gibson’s other work.

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Title: Cryptonomicon

Author: Neal Stephenson

Original Publication Date: May 1999

ISBN: 0-380-97346-4

Cover Price:
$19.25 U.S. (hardcover)
$7.99 U.S. (paperback)
$10.99 Canadian (paperback)

Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Having arrived late to the Bureau42 staff, I was unaware that we have never reviewed the great nerd novel of the last century’s end, Neal Stephenson’s 900+ page work, the title of which literally translates as “the Book of Hidden Names.”

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The “big three” utopian novels are generally listed as Zamyatin’s
We, Orwell’s 1984, and Huxley’s Brave
New World. I’ve read the other two before (although I don’t
believe I’ve reviewed them), but this was my first read of Huxley. How
does he stand up to the competition?
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I was asked to review this book by Fiziko who had recieved a request for it. He asked me because he knew I was a fan of the series and thought I might like to review it. Here is certain proof that “fan of the series” doesn’t mean “fan of every book”.
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The ALA has compiled (as they do every year) a list of the 100 most challenged and banned books.

Help mark the week by reading a banned genre title. Suggestions:

• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
• Carrie, The Dead Zone, or Cujo by Stephen King
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• James and the Giant Peach or The Witches by Roald Dahl
• The Earth’s Children Series by Jean M. Auel

There are probably others, but I’m not recognizing them. Maybe I should do this when I’m awake…

He’s an author that many of our readers enjoy, and Slashdot
users are interviewing him. If you haven’t already checked it out,
you can see the forum here.
For the sake of those unfamiliar with Slashdot interviews, that link
is to a forum where people can post questions they want to see
him answer. Other readers vote on them, and the highest scoring
questions get sent along. The answers will come some time
later, but we’ll keep an eye out for them and point you to those,
too.

Ursula K. LeGuin wrote an ambiguous utopia with non-linear story
structure. Does it work?
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This novel was brought to us by a man who wrote his own epitaph: “God damn you all, I told you so.”
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Author: Robert J. Sawyer

Original Publication Date: February 2003

ISBN: 0-312-87691-2

0-765-34675-3

Cover Price:
$17.47 U.S. (hardcover)
$6.99 U.S. (paperback)
$9.99 Canadian (paperback)

Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

In the second book of The Neanderthal Parallax, contact becomes commonplace between our earth and an alternate one where Neanderthals have established civilization.

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