Reviews of Literary Work by Christopher Bradley (c)2004
Take some time and view further, I think you will find this collection useful.
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Books By Kobo Abe
Kobo Abe is a Japanese author. I read his book below for a Film course. There is a Film adaptation of the novel produced in the late 1960's. I thought that the book was complex. Kobo Abe has an Eastern Philosophy and this makes the book a complicated work to understand fully.
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The Woman In The Dunes
The Woman In The Dunes is a novel about slow adaptation. It is also a love story of sorts. There are many broad statements that can be made either for or against the novel. It is about an insect collector who is obsessed with his work toward the discovery of a new type of insect. He travels into the desert to find the insect, and stays until the last bus for the day has left. Villagers arrange for him to spend the night in the house of a Woman who lives at the bottom of a sand pit. After two days he realizes that the Villagers do not intend to let him leave the sand pit, ever. He is forced to adapt to his environment over the course of weeks, and then months, and eventually falls in love with the woman he has to live with. He discovers a way to extract water from the sand, and decides that he is in no particular rush to leave the village.
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Books By Martin Amis
Martin Amis is a British novelist whose work I was introduced to by my friend Scott. It took me two years to read the first book that he gave me, because I was busy trying to clear up a lot of my financial concerns. When I finally did finish up the novel Money, I made some very conscious decisions about what I had to do to change a future which sadly, could have been my own.
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Money
Money is a novel about a man with a serious lack of moral fiber. He is an important player in the pornography industry of the 1980's. He meets people who will find inventive ways of making airplanes stay on the ground, just so that he can get on board. He meets people who have tennis courts in the middle of their office buildings. He eventually meets people who knock his teeth out and put holes in his back. Somehow, he manages to make it through several years of this sort of life. Money makes it all happen for him.
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London Fields
London Fields is a more complex novel. I have only begun to read it. My English Instructor at Niagara County Community College, gave me a copy of it, when I mentioned that I had read Money. I think that it is a more complex novel than Money, describing a larger variety of personality types. I started reading it while I was in the middle of some other scholastic projects but I plan to finish it this summer.
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Books By Michael Connelly
I don't know an extensive amount about Michael Connelly, except that he is was at one time a writer for the Los Angeles Times. I enjoyed the book below, that I found in the new books section of the Niagara Falls Public Library.
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Trunk Music
Trunk Music is a Harry Bosh detective novel. I have never read any of the other novels based on the character Harry Bosh, but I assume that many of the books will have similar elements. In Trunk Music, Harry is set on an investigation to find the murderer of a man found in the trunk of a car on a hill in an affluent Hollywood suburb. He ends up having to pursue the criminal that committed the crime to Las Vegas. The Mafia and the F.B.I. get heavily involved in the investigation in various ways.
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Books By Bill Gates
I didn't expect that I would actually pick up and read the book below and enjoy it. I got the impression from working in the computer field, that all people that work in the computer field are terrible writers. I was incorrect. I thouroughly enjoyed the book, and in many ways, it almost seemed prophetic. (It would though, to someone who has been studying computers for 10 years.) I hope that Bill Gates takes the time to write down some of his own studies of other aspects of the world when he retires.
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The Road Ahead
The Road Ahead is a book about the future. No one can determine the future. However, this book has in it a great description of the future that is very possible, provided that the United States doesn't get nuked. In order to discuss the future, it is often useful to talk about the past. The first couple of chapters of the book are devoted to Bill Gates' version of the Silicon Valley story, there also are some academic discussions in the book of things like how the Binary Number system works. The rest of the book is about Bill Gates vision of future technologies and how they will be used. He even gives a description of how his house will work once it is finished.
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Books By William Gibson
William Gibson is a science fiction (cyberpunk) writer. His books are about virtual reality technology, the mergeance between man and machine, and the internet. His first book was published in 1984 and it won the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards. This book, titled Neuromancer, depicts a future that is so real, that you will think that in many ways, you are already in it. In Neuromancer, William Gibson coined the word Cyberspace.
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Neuromancer
Neuromancer is a book about an out of control artificial intelligence. Wintermute, the artificial intelligence, is attempting to become whole, to break through the barriers that it's creators built into it, to prevent it from becoming too powerful. The main character that gets wrapped up in Wintermute's plot, is named Case. Case is only trying to reaquire his lost ability to connect to cyberspace (the future's internet).
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Count Zero
Count Zero is a book about a 14 year old hacker named Bobby Newmark. The novel is considered to be the sequel to Neuromancer, although none of the original characters are present in it. Cyberspace has advanced a little bit since the time of the Wintermute episode. People begin to encounter the interference of Vodoo demi-gods in their affairs in Cyberspace. Bobby becomes involved in the rescue of the daughter of a corporate biotek engineer who is defecting from his Zaibatsu.
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Mona Lisa Overdrive
Mona Lisa Overdrive is a book about the career of a Sim-Stim star named Angie Mitchell. Sim-Stim is similar to what the "feelies" were like in the classic novel Brave New World by Aldus Huxley. Bobby Newmark makes a new appearance as a more experienced cyberspace hacker. Issues related to the possibility of Human Immortality become a centerpiece of the book. Mona Lisa Overdrive is a spectacular conclusion to the Neuromancer series of books.
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Virtual Light
Virtual Light is an independent novel. It describes a future that is closer to our own than the future described in the Neuromancer series. Virtual light focusses on the life of a bicycle courier and the life of a skip tracer assigned to hunt her down after she steals a pair of Virtual Reality capable sunglasses from a rich businessman in San Fransisco. I read the book very quickly. This is a good introduction to Gibson's style of writing if you have difficulties understanding the ideas for the possible future uses of the internet.
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Idoru
Idoru is a novel about a media engineer (Raney) who leaves his career with a large media network to work as a spy for a rock star's management team. It is also about a teenage girl named Chia Pet McKenzie who is president of her California based fan club of the rock star named Lo Rez. Lo Rez has disappeared and Chia sets out for Tokyo to find him armed with her sandbenders (VR goggles) and a bestfriend's father's credit card. Nanomachines have been used to rebuild Tokyo after a massive earthquake. Raney visits a Franz Kafka theme bar in one of the chapters. Idoru is William Gibson's most recently written novel.
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The Difference Engine
The Difference Engine is a novel about Charles Babbage and Lady Ada Byron. Computer Science students know Charles Babbage as the inventor who came up with the idea of a programmable computer. Charles Babbage was never actually able to create a working prototype of his Analytical Engine which would have been made of steam operated gears and levers. A model is located in the Smithsonian. The Difference Engine is a work of speculative science fiction. It describes what the Industrial Revolution might have looked like in Britain if Babbage had succeeded. The Difference Engine was written by both William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.
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Burning Chrome
Burning Chrome is a collection of short stories written by William Gibson. It contains several stories that have appeared in general Science Fiction magazines and compilations. My favorite stories in the collection are Johnny Mnemonic (which was made into a major motion picture starring Keaneau Reeves), The Gernsbeck Continuum, and Fragments of a Hologram Rose. I still haven't read the entire book, I intend to finish reading it this summer.
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Books By Harry Harrison
I bought the following book on a whim. It was cheap, and I wanted something to read. Harry Harrison has also written another book that I cannot mention here because I do not remember the title. It was a book that he collaborated on with Marvin Minsky, an Artificial Intelligence expert from M.I.T. I donated the book to the Niagara County Community College library. If you have the time to look for it, I think you'll enjoy it as well.
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The Jupiter Plague
The Jupiter Plague is about a plague that is accidentally brought to Earth from Jupiter. The main character is a doctor in the future, who works to find a cure for the plague. During the course of the book many people die. The Military assist the doctor with his research by helping him break into the rocket that the disease was originally believed to have been transported in.
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Books By Peter Hedges
I have only read one novel by Peter Hedges. I do not think that I plan to read a lot more of them. I got the impression that he is a very critical individual and likes to attempt to lay blame on elements of society that I do not feel he has a particularly direct understanding of. In other words, I think that he is attempting to show only the darker side of the human mind in his work, and not the lighter, or creative side. I read the following book twice and watched the film based on it twice, primarily because I was required to take a test for a Film class on the material in them.
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What's Eating Gilbert Grape
What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a look at the life of a 24 year old living in Middle America in a present that is extroardinarily dissatisfying. His family behaves in very distasteful ways, due in large part to the stresses placed on them by their father's suicide. The town is backward. It is only beginning to be developed, and the people in it, are almost as sick as most of his family. Gilbert (the 24 year old) gets involved with an older married woman, who decides to move away without him, when her husband dies, and leaves her to be a rich widow. The book is generally depressing. The end is only mildly liberating. I would not recommend this novel to anyone who is easily influenced by emotionally by general negativity.
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Books By David Held
I have just recently begun to be interested in books about politics. I have been watching a lot of C-SPAN on Adephia Cable and finding that there are a lot of words and concepts that I do not have a fundamental understanding of, but would like to be knowledgeable of. I knew nothing about David Held two months ago. I just purchased this first book which I am not completely finished with, but that I will finish within a week or so.
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Models Of Democracy
Models of Democracy is a book about the philosophers, economists, and politicians, who helped to shape Democracy as it exists in the world today. This book has encouraged me to pick up three other books from Niagara County Community College's Library : Aristotle's The Politics, The Complete Works of Machiavelli, and a written work by John Stuart Mill. These works will help to support my understanding of the discussions that David Held has in his book. Models of Democracy is a very long book, but I recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about the government that we both rule, and are ruled by.
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Books By Thomas King
Thomas King is a Canadian Writer whose book was made into a Canadian television program. He has a short appearance in the film, which we were required to analyze for a Film Class. I thought that this book shed a lot of light on Native American culture, and I think it is very respectable that Thomas King, who does not appear to be Indian, would take the time to write a novel as a tribute to the culture. (I am 1/16th Mowhawk indian.)
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Medicine River
Medicine River is a story about an Indian Photographer that moved away from his home village, Medicine River, in Northern Canada, to work for a company in Toronto, doing pictures for photo journalists in foreign countries. He comes back to Medicine River, having just missed his mother's funeral. His brother is an artist who is travelling to different parts of the world. His best friend helps him to get reaquainted with the community after being away from it for 20 years.
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Books By Elmore Leonard
It was a shocking surprise to me, that a new Quentin Tarantino film (Jackie Brown) would be based on a book, that was written by an author that I had recently read a book by. I did not pay a cent for the book below, I took it from a coffee house named Stimulants in Buffalo, NY where they have a book exchange (give a book, take a book). For the quality of the novel, it was a steal.
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Glitz
Glitz is a novel that takes place in South America and Atlantic City. The detective in the novel is originally from Florida. He gets involved in tracking down the murderer of a taxi driving photographer. The murderer is rather extreme. This book is similar in style to Michael Connelly's Trunk Music but definitely sounds as if the writer is from New York, rather than L.A.
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Stories By Herman Melville
Herman Melville is the Author of Moby Dick, which I have never read. For my Creative Writing class in 1996, I picked up a collection of short stories by various authors, and read the following story. I thought that it was exceptionally funny, and well written. I intend to read more of Herman Melville's work in the future.
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Bartleby The Scrivener
Bartleby The Scrivener is a short story about a legal assistant (scrivener) named Bartleby. Bartleby is hired by a lawyer who wishes to get more work done in a shorter period of time. He is a very efficient worker, until he evolves into a nuisance for the lawyer, by passively refusing to do the work that he has been assigned to do. The lawyer discovers after months of having employed him, that Bartleby is actually living inside of the office that he is thought to have been working late in. The lawyer must then find a way to rid himself of Bartleby, but can he?
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Books By Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling, like William Gibson, is one of the most well known cyberpunk artists in the world. He has written parts of Mirrorshades (a cyberpunk anthology). He has also written an article that appeared in Wired Magazine about a large desert rave called The Burning Man that took place a couple of years ago. He also worked on The Difference Engine with William Gibson (see books by William Gibson).
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The Artificial Kid
The Artificial Kid is a novel about life on another planet. Ordinarily, I am not a big fan of work about life on other planets. However, this book was not a simple science fiction soap opera. This book was Full Blotto Organic Science Fiction. It begins describing the life of a Combat Artist (modern street fighter) named Kid. The novel then reverses its track to depict the events and people that shaped the modern world that all of the characters live on. In the end, the Kid, learns about his true identity, and discovers that he is not only Artificially intelligent, but also, one of the wisest human beings alive. This book covers DNA, genetic mutation, artificial intelligence, and seriously advanced camera technology.
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Islands in The Net
Islands in The Net is a novel about the life of a woman in the future who becomes involved in a business deal that goes wrong. She becomes stranded in South America, eventually escapes and flees to Africa, and finally reaches Singapore before returning to the United States. The novel is interesting in that Sterling describes a lot of the little gadgets and things that people have to play with in the future.
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Holy Fire
I have only started to read Holy Fire. In the future, a woman inherits a talking dog from her dying ex-husband. Right now this is as far as I've gotten. I am waiting for the paper back version to come out because I don't feel like taking this one out of the library, I want to own it. The writing in just the first fifty pages is fantastic. This novel gives a picture of what Bruce Sterling's cyberspace looks like.
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Books By Neal Stephenson
I don't know an extensive amount about Neal Stephenson. I have only become aquainted with his work this year. I have read the following three books and enjoyed them. I hope that if you find copies of them, that you will enjoy them too. Neal Stephenson's visions of the present and future are both similar and different to William Gibson's. Stephenson tends to discuss more historical aspects of the worlds he creates than Gibson does, sometimes this is good, sometimes you start to drift off, but overall I think his work is outstanding.
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Snow Crash
Snow Crash is about the life of a Pizza Delivery agent in the future. In the future, the Mafia, the Government, Media Corporations, and the inventors of Cyberspace, have the greatest impact on his life. Snow Crash is a virus created by a group of cultist computer programmers working for a Media Mogul. The virus takes over people's brains when they see certain types of static on videoscreens or virtual business cards. In the end, the Pizza Delivery driver, Hiro Protagonist, must save the world from this computer plague, with the help of a Radikal Courier who delivers mail by Skateboard.
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The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age is a novel about a future where Nanomachines are already used in general forms for construction and other computer related tasks. Matter compilers, like the ones used on Star Trek to manufacture and transport food, are as common as microwaves. Things made by hand are highly valuable. An abused 4 year old girl accidentally receives an educational gift originally intended for a 4 year old princess, and grows up to be one of the most important figures in China's future history.
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Zodiac
Zodiac is a modern environmentalist novel. The main character is an activist who collects chemical samples in Boston Harbor by riding around the Harbor in a Zodiac boat. He discovers some severe abnormalities in some of the Lobsters in the harbor, which sets into motion a course of events that put him on industry's Most Wanted list. This novel was a lot of fun.
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Books By Amy Tan
Amy Tan is a Chinese-American Author who has won awards in San Fransisco for her work. We were required to read her book below for a course in Film. I really enjoyed her style of writing, and I intend to read a couple more of her books in the future.
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The Joy Luck Club
The Joy Luck Club is a novel about four daughters of Chinese immigrant mothers that moved to America around the time of World War II. The story describes the lives of the four mothers and the lives of each of the daughters. June is the main character that ties the book together. At the end of the novel, she travels to China to meet her two sisters, who survived the Japanese invasion of China as orphans. I read this book three times, and watched the motion picture at least six times.
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Books By Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut is an interesting writer. I have never read Slaughterhouse Five, which is his most famous novel to date that I am aware of. I think that he has some special insights into the mechanics of social interaction and human interaction with technology that make his work almost like a kind of science fiction with enough substance to be called Literature. In addition to the two novels below, I have seen three movies that were based on his written work : Harrison Bergeron, Mother Night, and Monkey House. I liked all of the films. (Free for the asking at the Niagara Falls Public Library).
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Slapstick
Slapstick was a book about a family that did not get along well together. It is a criticism of the lives and behaviors of a brother and sister who were taught to behave in ways that must have been unthinkable at the time that the novel was written. I thought that the book was a little bit strange, but I liked it, because it was different from anything else I had read at the time. When I read it, I had been reading mostly Science Fiction books.
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Cat's Cradle
Cat's Cradle actually is a Science Fiction book. It is about a weapon even more lethal than the atomic bomb, called Ice-9, which has effects that could possibly end life on earth. Ice-9 was a freezing compound developed to help in ground battles between infantry units by a military researcher. His children hold the secret to it's power, and they are not quite as responsible, as they could be in weilding it.
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Books By Jack Womack
I picked up the Jack Womack book listed below at the Niagara Falls Public Library. I picked the book up at the suggestion of my friend Scott who had seen a literary review of Womack's work in which William Gibson had said he had liked a book called Sensless Acts of Random Violence. I have seen Senseless Acts of Random Violence in stores, but I have not bought it because it is a thin wide paperback book that is overpriced, and the plot is about an abused child in New York City. Like the Diary of Anne Frank, it is written from the perspective of the child. I am also not a big fan of first person books. However, I think that the book that you find below will be enjoyable.
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Let's Put The Future Behind Us
Let's Put The Future Behind Us is the story of a Russian businessman who finds himself in a predicament when his best friend is caught stealing drugs in large quantities from the Russian Mafia. Any more detail about the book will give away too much of the plot. Womack uses very verbose language to describe a near future Moscow and the interactions among the many people that reside within it. The story is very well written, with a surprise ending that will make you very seriously consider your perspectives about the behaviors, and interests, of the people that you think you know best.
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