Lmao wtf is this real?
Nooooo! 😭 I so badly wanted this to be real. I had even looked it up by ISBN to try and order it. The ISBN is for a book titled Brute Orbit, if anybody is curious.
It reminded me of a strange book I read when I was young, an 80s sci-fi I think was called “the wizard of sunset strip”
I’d have absolutely believed this could have been a book by them
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/502308.The_Wizard_of_Sunset_Strip
When mutilated bodies begin turning up in Hollywood and the police are baffled, the young wizard Wydrune and his band–a beautiful cat burglar, a Cockney punk possessed by the spirit of Merlin, and Camelot’s last survivor–take the case
No but William Gibson does have a bunch of near future novels that i recommend
I think with ChatGPT and Tinder getting in bed together recently as well as advertisers creating their own AI influencers, the book Idoru is probably a pretty decent read for anyone who wants to give him a try
I’ve read some stories with questionable world building, but this is something else.
I’ve read this[…]book[…]this year.
Glorious.
For anyone seeing this and wishing there really was a stupidly enjoyable satire of 1980s cyberpunk tropes:
It’s called Snow Crash.
Snow Crash is a very good book by Neal Stephenson. The post is just about an invented parody of the genre.
Check out William Gibsons Neuromancer (which mote or less coined the genre), it sticks maybe more to OPs post IMO anyways.
Snow Crash is 100% over the top satire but also 100% enjoyable. When the first chapter of the book introduces you to your protagonist, Hiro Protagonist, you know you’re in for something a little off.
It is a story that knows exactly how stupid it is, and that means it can get away with anything. It’s just played so straight that half the target audience misses the joke. That’s like if Bored Of The Rings was somehow more popular and enduring than the Tolkein novels it mocked - the high-fantasy tropes are still there, and the book does function as a hero’s journey. It just stars Dildo Bugger and his son Frito.
The measure of any adaptation - if that somehow exits development hell, one of these decades - will be the car chase in the middle. If they show it, they’ve failed.
I’ve read it, only thing I remember is the first chapter pizza delivery, gonna have to dig it out now and refresh myself of the rest of the story.
