The Nomad and the Olive Branch

  Also dubbed the "Cyberspace" or "Matrix" trilogy, William Gibson's triad of far future dystopian techno-nightmare novels gave birth to the cyberpunk genre. The first title, Neuromancer, takes most of the credit, while the other two titles, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive flesh out the world and characters introduced in the first book and brings the trilogy to a close. In following with my previous reviews, my critiques will focus on style, content, and an overall "feel" of the story. Similar to my other novel series reviews, I will go over each novel one by one. However, for this review, I will begin with a sort of treatise on the man behind the books, American-Canadian (how about I just stick with North American?) author William Gibson, as well as an overall review with a summary. To start off, William Gibson, the author, is one of the few writers to whom the word "prophetic" is a fitting description. Like Ray Bradbury, George

  1984. Brave New World. These two literary works have re-defined the term "dystopia" at the turn of the 20th Century. However, another book, just as known and reputable, Fahrenheit 451, authored by one of the most creative writers America let alone the world has ever seen, has breathed life into this otherwise dank and dreary conception. The book is titled after "the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns." Unlike its older counterparts, it is shorter in length (about 160 pages) and is set in a world where intellectual thought is actively (and violently) suppressed and entertainment in all its forms is encouraged. The story follows Guy Montag, a "fireman" (I'll leave the word at that) who lives in this dark and gloomy future. Without spoiling too much, he gets caught in a series of events that unravel the flaws of his era. Having read 1984 and excerpts of Brave New World, I am pleased to say that Bradbury's work, despite i

Touted as the "best-selling science fiction franchise of all time", the Dune chronicles is a space opera double-trilogy or hexology set in a future thousands of years from now, where artificial intelligence is shunned and the Imperium of all mankind in the galaxy lives by a single maxim: "Man can not be replaced." After an event known as the Butlerian Jihad ousted the alliance between man and machine (or rather the control of machines over men), humanity came under the control of feudal societies in a region of space known as the Landsraad. Three of these Houses - Atreides, Harkonnen, and Corrino - take center stage as the powers vying for control, with so-called neutral factions - the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild - aligning themselves with whosoever provides them with the geriatric spice Melange, a condiment that grants prescient powers to its wielders such as foresight to the Navigators of the Spacing Guild. The hexology as a whole is brilliantly set