A high level Stranger recently sent me an autographed copy of this marvelous book. Whipping through it, makes me wonder whether Mr. Gibson is particularly adept at pushing my mental buttons, or whether he installed the panels to being with.

Hard to otherwise explain the unaccountable delight at turning a page to see the chapter title: Will We Have Computer Chips in Our Heads? [Jan 19, 2000].  Apparently a question frequently asked of him…

His answer boils down to “No” :

“It has to do with a certain archaic distinction we still tend to make, a distinction between computing and “the world.” Between, if you like, the virtual and the real.

I very much doubt that our grandchildren will understand the distinction between that which is a computer and that which isn’t.”

But I doubt they’ll lose the distinction between “the world” and “themselves.” That one’s refrigerator might one day recite The Inferno, doesn’t much signify to me. I want to know detailed biographies for every extra in The Big Lebowski in the same way I know that I love Chardonnay. “Be they glass or goo” I still want the Wet Interface I was promised.

Here is a nice review from Eva van Emden, an editor in Vancouver:

http://bit.ly/GPhTtE

Like the rest of the world, I am an avid consumer of internet ailurophilia, so I find it quite exciting to see SF’s cover model being ogled by this particular feline. It is well known that cats, being sensitive to tenebrous mystical forces, are astute cultural arbiters. So I’ll consider this a propitious sign.

As someone whose book deals extensively with the Marquis de Sade, I’m always surprised when I find quotes I haven’t run across before. Today this little delight:

“All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost – the most legitimate – passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one.”

“Make off with the substance of others” feels like a particularly lovely turn of phrase.