version

Well-known member
what's become quite popular recently is the so-called "uncategorisable" book usually between journalism and autobiography
formerly known as travel writing, which fed into the "psychogeography" "revival" of a few years ago

I'm reading an article attacking this stuff atm,

"Nowadays when someone comes out with a long, plotless piece of prose that’s, say, 50 percent memoir, 30 percent travel diary, and 20 percent book reviews already published as standalone magazine articles, it hardly bears pointing out."

 

version

Well-known member
Cities of the Red Night.
Finished the first section last night. It's really good. The amount of stuff he's managed to fit into 150 pages is pretty staggering. Synchronicity's been rearing its head once again too, not to mention the COVID parallels.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
I like the way it builds various worlds that rupture into green alien deity girls section, not so sure it succeeds overall. One benefit of the internet has been broadening his spectrum of influences, still a lot of jizz and hangings

The Invocation is a profound intro, one of the best, but it loses traction at critical junctures
 

version

Well-known member
- finished Burning Chrome yesterday and started Mona Lisa Overdrive. The title story of the former's brilliant, but most of them are good. He's definitely at his best when he's at his most cyberpunk. The stuff where he's blasting with you with descriptions of cyberspace, corporate espionage and ill-fated romance. The more traditional science fiction stuff, like the one with the Russian space station, didn't really do it for me.
 

luka

Well-known member
I think I reread MLO recently. But it must have been during one of my vague periods where I'm barely conscious cos I can't remember much
 

version

Well-known member
I've only read the first chapter. It starts with a Yakuza guy sending his daughter to London and she has this thing she calls a 'ghost' that seems to be some sort of sentient hologram.
 

luka

Well-known member
Yeah I don't remember that at all. Is it the one with the Joseph Campbell like art objects and the rich man trying to track down the artist?
 

woops

is not like other people
- finished Burning Chrome yesterday and started Mona Lisa Overdrive. The title story of the former's brilliant, but most of them are good. He's definitely at his best when he's at his most cyberpunk. The stuff where he's blasting with you with descriptions of cyberspace, corporate espionage and ill-fated romance. The more traditional science fiction stuff, like the one with the Russian space station, didn't really do it for me.
This is correct I endorse
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
reading Dee Dee Ramone's book. not exactly a master of literary style. but it is interesting thinking through the connections, specifically: his mum living through hitler and WWII in Berlin; his mum and dad being violent alcoholics fighting with one another; growing up in shitholes in bombed out post-WWII bermancy; and then going from place to place in the east village in nyc searching for heroin, which also would have looked bombed out even if it wasn't. the inter-generational drugs thing and the echoes of WWII.

there's also an interesting thing of him being part of what in retrospect looks like a weird temporary cultural quirk, the 70s to 90s valorization of people with bad drug problems, pretty bad behaviour all round, antisocial dickheads basically, that i feel is now well and truly over.
 

luka

Well-known member
there's also an interesting thing of him being part of what in retrospect looks like a weird temporary cultural quirk, the 70s to 90s valorization of people with bad drug problems, pretty bad behaviour all round, antisocial dickheads basically, that i feel is now well and truly over.
thats what i was saying here
your generation were lucky to miss out on this really tbh
 
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