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Customer Reviews (3)

Another fine book by Terry Bisson
Terry Bisson is a very entertaining author.I've enjoyed all of his books and stories, and look forward to more.

Convoluted, splendidly-silly tall tales. 4.6 stars
This is a collection of the three Wilson Wu stories (first published in Asimov's, 1994-98), gathered into a nice little fixup 'novel'. The first, "The Hole in the Hole" introduces Wu and his Brooklyn pal Irving, as they search for an all-Volvo junkyard -- which, the author notes, really exists (or did) in the real Hole in darkest Brooklyn. Presumably the real Frankie's lacks the periodic incongruent neotopological adjacency (aka the lunar tire-dump) that is the centerpiece of this convoluted and very entertaining tall tale.. Which you may well have already seen -- it was a Hugo nominee, and has been reprinted several times. The other two stories aren't quite up to HOLE -- but they're still pretty darned good.Recommended.

The author's website, terrybisson[dot]com, is well worth a visit, and has several free stories, if you're new to Bisson.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

Renews your sense of wonder
This was the type of book that drew me into science fiction in the first place.It ranks up there with Heinlein's juveniles.And I mean that as high praise.The only thing juvenile about that famous series of novels was that they avoided sex and extreme violence. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Science Fiction with a Twist
The premise of John Brown being victorious is a nice thought, and could have been reality, as this book illustrates.It seems so far from our present reality, but it's not too late to change it either!

Who are the real winners and losers in war?
John Brown is one of the most intresting and lesser known characters of American History. He led an unsuccessful raid on an armory in an attempt to start a revolution amongst slaves. This book tells the story of his success and the dramatic difference in American history and advances in modern technology as a result. It's got great characters and is intresting to anyone intrested in Sci-Fi, American and civil war history, black history, or current race relations. ... Read more

Product Description
Bears Discover Fire is the first short story collection by the most acclaimed science fiction author of the decade, author of such brilliant novels as Talking Man and Voyage to the Red Planet. It brings together nineteen of Bisson's finest works for the first time in one volume, among them the darkly comic title story, which garnered the field's highest honors, including the Hugo, Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and Locus awards.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Awesome
"Bears Discover Fire" is an intoxicating collection of short stories. Themes from the stories have stuck with me years after first reading it. It's also a book that proves that great literature transcends gender -- many of the stories show a handling of detail and sensibility (I'm grasping for words here) that only a woman could have written. Reminds me a bit of "The Sixteen Pleasures".

Brilliant
This collection is a veritable black hole of concepts; pulling you in and not letting you go. Few authors use this many original ideas in a single novel, and even fewer manage to work them out into this wonderful kind of detail, all the while grounding them solidly in back-story that makes sense.
Some of his novel-length works suffer from weak spots here and there, but this collection is as near to perfect as I've seen.

Read to each other...
This is a wonderful book of short stories that makes for wonderful, intimate moments with your partner. Drift off to the sound of that special voice...

dumbing down down down
This is the literary equivalent of fast food.
Like Saliere the author has the ability to
transform profound themes into mediocrity.

These Short Shorts Are All Story
The title of this review is Terry's Bisson's own description of his short stories (as found in this collection's Afterword). Many reviews of Bisson's works contend that he has a unique and unconventional outlook. While reviewers are hard-pressed to define such terms, it is certainly true that Bisson's stories are just a little off-kilter and intriguingly semi-surreal. But in the end, his strange settings and plot developments are all in service to solid stories of human relationships and universal struggles. A few of the stories in this collection stick with the unexpected simply for comic relief, most notably "The Coon Suit." But otherwise we get non-linear looks at social problems that Bisson sets up with bizarre near-future dystopias, taking on racism in "Next" and pollution in "By Permit Only" and "The Toxic Donut." In fact, Bisson tackles environmentalism in several tales here, with the most interesting being "Carl's Lawn and Garden" in which people somehow increase pollution, and its human costs, while surreally trying to save the natural world.

Meanwhile, Bisson uses weird sci-fi mishaps to study how very human characters would cope. For instance, in "England Underway" the absurd happenstance of England floating across the sea and crashing into America allows a separated family to reunite; while the spooky "Over Flat Mountain" does nearly the opposite as a severe environmental disaster tears human communities apart. To top off the collection we get the extended sci-fi novellas "Necronauts" and "The Shadow Knows" in which Bisson explores how people would really deal with contacting worlds beyond our own. It's true that Bisson has a unique and unconventional vision, and you can dispense with trying to figure out what exactly that means by experiencing this unique and unconventional collection for yourself. [~doomsdayer520~] ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Criminally underappreciated
This is a wonderful contemporary fantasy about a magic man who owns a car repair shop.The young protagonist has to convince him to fix an old car and drive with him to the North Pole.Bisson creates one surreal scenario after another that, though they seem unbelievable, are so palatable they go down like honey.

Bisson's writing is masterful and engaging.It should be a felony for this book to be out of print.Find your self a copy and read.Really.

One of you editors who read this review should get this book back on the shelves.

PS I love Bisson but I seem to be the only one around who doesn't understand the story, "Bears Discover Fire."And I went to graduate school and everything!Anyone out there feel like enlightening me?

Best Ever by a Living Author
This is Terry Bisson's best work.Never to be duplicated, this novel is the best available of any living author.

Far better than his other great efforts. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

My First eBook
Brought the Left Left Behind by Terry Bisson as my first ebook. I've heard of the Left Behind series but never bothered to read them. Now I will and I bet they will be hysterical having Bisson's parody in mind. It was wonderful. I used the Kindle for PC software on my old IBM Thinkpad since I'm a cheap old air biscuit. The reading was easy. Folks have told me ebooks are better than print books but I have to say it was tricky reading in the bath. I managed to keep my IBM afloat with some empty Dr. Pepper bottles as pontoons and a huge Ziplock bag to protect the IBM. I imagine a Kindle would require fewer floats. I'd skip the bubble bath next time.

It'll be rapturous for me, too.
If you can't take "The Rapture" seriously, then you'll enjoy this book because it doesn't either. An added plus a of a short play makes this a real fun book to read.

The Left Left Behind
LOCAL AUTHOR - SF

Terry Bisson is one of the sharpest short story writers in science fiction today. Under his watchful eye, the country of England has journeyed across the ocean, Death has taken a vacation, and insightful ATMs have offered advice to their customers.

Now he tackles the //Left Behind// series with his tongue-in-cheek satire //The Left Left Behind//, a look at a world where born-agains, afternoon talk show hosts, world leaders, CEOs, celebrities, and right-wingers have been raptured, and a small group of survivors forms a band while they ride out the Tribulation. Bisson spins the entire genre on its head with his ending, offering more than a few laughs along the way.

Also included is //Special Relativity//, a one-act play where Albert Einstein, Paul Robeson, and J. Edgar Hoover find themselves at a political rally. The mix of politics and prejudices make for an enjoyable and slightly anarchic read.

Concluding with an interview with Bisson, //The Left Left Behind// captures the rebellious spirit and creative vision handily, even if the stories featured aren't among the author's best.

Reviewed by Glenn Dallas ... Read more

Product Description
Every 5,000 years, a door opens between the dimensions. In one dimension lies the universe and all of its multitude of varied life forms. In another exists an element made not of earth, air, fire or water, but anti-energy, anti-life. This "thing, " this darkness, waits patiently at the threshold of the universe for an opportunity to extinguish all life and all light. Every 5,000 years, the universe needs a hero, and in New York City of the 23rd Century, a good hero is hard to find. The film stars Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm and Milla Jovovich. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Bad Bad Bad 5th Element Book
I read this book when it came out with the movie. I think it is the worse book I have read in my entire life. Some of the writing was just letter thrown together. There was not real filling out of the characters from the movie nor was there anything to fill out the missing details of the society that the movie is centered around. I have to say that I think that the money I spent on this book was a waste as is the paper it was written on other than what not to do when writing a tie in novel or any novel for that matter. I would not recommend this book to anyone unless they need a negative example. Watch the movie a few times or read the script it is online. Hope this helped.

Forget the novelization, just watch the movie
An ancient secret is needed to save the world, hidden deep in the deserts of Egypt.The movie starts with a prelude from 1914 when the Monascheiwans come to Earth to remove the four Element stones and the Fifth Element because war is coming.The priest in charge of the secret begs the Monascheiwans not to take them, for Evil is coming soon to Earth (every five thousand years) and the weapon of the five elements is needed to destroy the coming evil.The Monascheiwans assure the priest that in three hundred years, when Evil returns, so shall they.

Skip to three hundred years later.Mankind has mastered space travel and the new modern world is built into extremely high structures that loom far above the garbage and fog below.Major Korben Dallas has retired from the military and now drives a cab for a living.His ex-wife left him for his attorney, and he now lives in a singularly tiny apartment in a shady part of town with a cross-eyed white cat.

Priest Vito Cornelius is the priest in charge of the key to the temple in Egypt and the secrets of the five elements.He attends the president and begs that the newly discovered ball of flame not be fired upon, for he knows it is the Evil foretold in the legend.Ignored, the military fires upon the dark planet-like globe, increasing it's size by two hundred percent and wiping out the Earth vessels there to monitor it.Now Cornelius is listened to.The wreckage of the Monascheiwan ship entering Earth's territory is searched and there is just one survivor, a few cells still alive in a metal casing.Technology is such that the being is rebuilt from the few cells, and what the military and scientists don't know is that the woman they have just brought back from death is the Fifth Element from the legend.Escaping and pursued, the Fifth Element, LeeLoo, jumps from the building's ledge and winds out landing in Korben's cab.LeeLoo directs Korben to take her to priest Vito Cornelius, who discovers from LeeLoo that the four element stones were not on board the Monascheiwan ship but entrusted to a Diva named Plavalaguna who is doing is charity performance on the planet Flostan in the Agean system.

Korben and LeeLoo must fetch the stones and bring them to Earth before Evil arrives, fighting both the evil corporate magnate Zorg and his army of Mangalore warriors.As they struggle to gain the stones, time is running out for planet Earth, and the entire universe.

I used the same plot summary for the book as I did for the movie, because unlike the movie being made from the book, the book is a novelization of the movie.I don't normally purchase these because too often it's like reading a script.That's what happens to Terry Bisson's novelization.Bisson did not bother to delve into characters or build them any sort of background, they just became puppets of no more than the movie showed.There's no internalized thoughts behind the characters motives or actions. And changing Ruby Rhod's name to Luc Rhod was stupid, not to mention he didn't even come close to capturing Rhod's personality type like the movie did.

The writing is very wooden and uninspired.The characters are only knee-deep, and there's no outside descriptiveness from what you can already see in the movie.Don't bother picking up this novelization, you'll get less from it than the movie.

Okay book for a great movie
I bought this book after having seen the movie, several dozens of times.I was hoping for the book to fill in some gaps and do a little better background info. on the characters, but it more or less follows along almost word for word with the movie.I noticed a few differences along the way in some of the details, but there are definitely not any "major" differences, as some of the other reviews had me believe.

Overall, I love the movie for its unique quirkiness, but was really expecting a bit more from the book, other than a simple copy of the script.

NOT BAD, NOT BAD
A taxi driver, a monk, a D.J., and a supreme being are thrown together into the battle to save earth from Evil, a giant ball of volcanic rock plumeting towards our world.

The novelization contains Bisson's usualrich prose, but the mostly visual film doesn't exactly translate all thatwell to written form.

Most of the humor comes from a wacky narrative inthe style of Douglas Adams.

About half way through the book, extremedifferences from the film appear. It makes one wonder if the studio everupdated Bisson on script changes.

The story itself is fun. The charactersoften goofy. But differences from the film somewhat deter ourinterest.

But it's not all that bad.

Awsome
I loved the movie & loved the book.It is a must read for any fa ... Read more

Product Description
From the award-winning author of Bears Discover Fire, this is a collection of stories that are clever, slick, occasionally profound, and have a broad appeal. Bisson writes entertaining and moving stories, in a strong and unique voice.Amazon.com Review
Terry Bisson was already an established and acclaimed SF-fantasy novelist when he began publishing short stories in 1990. He immediately demonstrated his promise as one of the short-SF giants of the '90s with "Bears Discover Fire" (1990), which won the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards, and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. Unsurprisingly, this story provided the title of Bisson's first collection, Bears Discover Fire (1993). His second collection, In the Upper Room and Other Likely Stories, assembles sixteen lean, sharp, literate fictions. A few selections are short-shorts; some of these are slight. A few others describe lingerie in enough detail to make you wonder if you've wandered into a text-only Victoria's Secret catalog, which gets as eye-glazing as a baseball story if you don't share the interest. The stories from Playboy will also annoy some readers (especially women), since three of the four feature women characters who are software and the fourth story's female narrator is a male fantasy in drag.

Among the collection's many strong stories are "The Edge of the Universe" and "Get Me to the Church on Time," featuring the reality-bending adventures of the brilliant physicist-mathematician-meteorologist Wilson Wu. "There Are No Dead," the collection's lone fantasy, is a thoughtful, Bradbury-esque examination of childhood, change, loss, and the American dream. With a series of terse and increasingly disturbing interviews, "macs" traces the demand for victim's rights to its ironic logical extreme. "First Fire" pays tribute to Arthur C. Clarke and examines the amorality of laissez-faire capitalism in a tale of archaeological discovery, obsession, hubris, and the corruption of science. --Cynthia Ward ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Issue with the Kindle edition
This Kindle edition has a serious problem with parts of each story being pasted onto the end of the story which comes before it. Please fix this and reissue the book. It seriously disrupts the reading experience and renders the stories confusing and incomplete.

The stories are great, but this edition is messed up.

A book this bad...
...doesn't deserve to be in print. Terry Bisson has to be the absolute worst writer ever to be published. It only took three chapters from "In The Upper Room and Other Likely Stories" for me to determine that TB is completely untalented and probably got most of his ideas about writing from a weekend seminar called "Repetition is Funny or How to Say Things Until They Are Funny". I take that back, TB has one talent, and that is his talent to take a perfectly good premise and completely butcher it with his repetitive, dull and close minded style. I gave him three chances and he blew it three times in a row with the first three stories in this book. All the good ideas got mangled by his inept, sorry excuse for style. He is a one trick pony that is funny only by accident and even then not very. Mostly I found myself feeling sorry for the poor slob. Skip this book. I got it from the library and I am thinking of suing them mental anguish. Yuck yuck yuck... Avoid at all costs!

Witty, Lovely, Sad
Terry Bisson is a treasure.He writes hopeful stories about the value of childhood dreams, as in the bittersweet "There Are No Dead," where three boys find a way to literally start over.He writes subtle and depressing stories about how technology can smother modern life ("In the Upper Room," "An Office Romance," "He Loved Lucy").His dialogue is sharp and can carry entire stories ("10:07:24," "Smoother").And at his best he has the ability to look at our world from a slightly skewed angle that allows him to see deep and disturbing truths, as he does in the chilling "macs."These stories are lovely, funny and sad, and they will make you think.If you haven't heard of Terry Bisson, this is a good entry point into his unique point of view.

Not This Virginia
The stories in this collection vary from the profound to the wistful tothe grandly comic.Among the more highly mentionable are "macs","The Player" and "First Fire", all of which will lingerin the mind long after the last page has been turned.But for me, the onethat reached me the most was "Not This Virginia".Anyone who hasever had to deal with an elderly parent in decline will find something inthis story.It touches the soul and says no, you are not alone.Thankyou, Terry.

One of our best living writers
(The disclaimer): I've known Terry Bisson for 40 years and admired him all that time.The review): He is, hands down, one of our best writers andfinest minds, and were it not for the ignorant bias that places"fantasy" literature in a sub-set of lower status, he would berecognized for what he is: an imaginative wizard, a technical genius, asuperb stylist and one of the funniest guys around. I've never understoodwhy John Updike or Saul Bellow's "fantasies" are treated ashigh-art and Terry's are consigned to small publishers, but hell I've neverunderstood why athletes and movie actors make lots of money and teachersand the people who feed us, don't. This is a great book. Don't evermiss the opportunity of reading Bisson and remembering just howexhilerating a conversation with a fine mind can be. ... Read more

Product Description
Based on the short story and screenplay by cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson, Johnny Mnemonic takes readers into a desperate future where information is all that matters and everything else is cheap. Now a major motion picture starring Keanu Reeves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

pretty good for a movie book
This movie sort of started a cyberpunk trend
and has become an historical document.
The book expands on the short story like many of Philip K. Dick stories became movies
in the past:Blade Runner.
Hacking and the web have since become household words.
The movie and book are both sort of fantastic plastic in the future...

Bad. Really, really bad.
I'm generally a fan of Terry Bisson's work, especially his short stories ("Bears Discover Fire" is great), but this novel-based-on-a-movie-based-on-a-short-story is just embarrassing. The film was a mostly incoherent rendering of William Gibson's very good story (even though Gibson himself wrote the screenplay); I suspect Bill's stuff just doesn't translate well to the screen. This novelization (why bother?) has all the film's confusion and none of Gibson's trademark style and atmosphere. Worse, Bisson throws in some minor bits and pieces of his own invention. I couldn't get more than one-third into this before quitting in annoyance.

BRILLIANT ADAPTATION
When viewing the film, I always thought that Johnny Mnemonic could have been more. The script laid out a world as amazing and dark as BLADE RUNNER, but the film itself was a cheap piece of trash.

With Terry Bisson'snovelization, we can see the world missing from the film. Wonderfulcharacters. Gritty surroundings. Cyberspace.

Bisson's prose is as rich asthat of cyber-guru William Gibson (who wrote the screenplay). He evenborrows a few frazes and slangs from Gibsons other works.

Don't see themovie, it'll be a waste of your time. But this book just might teach yousomthing. ... Read more

Product Description
In the shabby, war-torn, depleted Earth of the twenty-first century, Gunther Glenn wants to live in the utopian theme park "Pirates of the Universe." He only needs one more mission as a Space ranger--hunting the enigmatic Peteys, 1200-kilometer voids in space whose "skins" can be harvested and processed into a substance more valuable than gold--to get his chance. But the arrival of a mysterious package and the disappearance of another Ranger ship into the Petey void sends Gun on a mission through the bureaucratic maze of the mother corporation, the virtual-reality maze of the Dogg, and the Escher-like multidimensional maze of the Tangle for the key to his future.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Dated, not his best
I met Terry Bisson through "Bears discover fire", which is awesome and highly recommended. However Pirates of the Universe is a Bisson which you should skip. As a woman, and an avid reader of old and new sci-fi, I have a thick skin when it comes to portrayal of women -- if you tell a fascinating story, if the story can transcend time, then I'll forgive you for not having any real women in it. However "Pirates of Universe" was published in 1997, not 1947, and there's really no excuse for marginalization of his women characters. Between "virtual reality sex fantasy", "virtual reality psycho listener", "hometown girl with dreams no higher than suburbia", and "virtual reality psycho sex provider to inmates" you have to really wonder why Bisson populated this novel with a full cast of two-dimensional female shadows. One rather hopes it was a failed attempt at irony.

Surprisingly good, unsettling, and allows the reader to...
fill in some of the blanks.

I appreciate an author or director who allows the audience to make some sense of their world rather than spelling everything out in black and white. Bisson dips you into the world in a way that seems very natural, never heavy-handed. He's a writer who has some flair...in a subtle, sparse way. Odd combination, I know.

Hmm...hard book to describe...it's uncomfortable in spots, I can't say I'd want to live in this world, it's depressing...and yet I felt oddly bouyant. Its a rare near-future book that seems plausible, but this is one.

I'm not a huge P.K. Dick fan, but this remninded me of the things I like best about him.

Definitely worth a read.

standard - but intelligent - post-apocalyptic sci-fi
It seems every writer of science fiction has to publish at least one novel set in the not-too-distant future, in which the Earth has been largely destroyed by wars or environmental disasters, currently commonplace amenities such as electricity and personal freedom are rare, and the future is just as hopeless as the present."Pirates of the Universe" is typical of that sub-genre.The main character begins in a position of status that insulates him from the difficulties of his world.His privileges are stripped from him without explanation, and he embarks on a journey to discover unexpected truths about his family, his society, and the universe.

There are positive aspects of this book that set it apart from most other works of its type.The plot is uncommonly complex, and there are a number of unusual, interesting details - it's clear that Bisson has devoted a lot of thought to the world he's created, and it makes for an engaging and stimulating read.But these strengths are marred by the book's essential weakness, which is - not surprisingly - its post-apocalyptic setting and tone.Bisson is often preoccupied by impressing upon his readers the unpleasantness of the book's universe, and this makes the book awkward and unpleasant to read at times.

Overall, "Pirates of the Universe" is an interesting and enjoyable book.The author has some good ideas, and he has the ability to write a plot that strings them together engagingly.However, readers who can't tolerate the preachiness that seems inherent to the genre will probably not want to subject themselves to the dose Bisson metes out.

Pretty typical post-apocolypse sci-fi
I'm not a big fan of post-apocalypse sci-fi books and this one is pretty typical for the genre. The writing and plot are pretty average and there aren't too many big surprises even though the book is set up as a sort of mystery of what's in the package. We follow the central character Glenn as he goes about trying to deliver the package. Some weird sci-fi stuff happens in the process and sets up the ending.

Long on ideas; short on consistency; confused & poor style
Many of the ideas here are fascinating, but unfortunately I found the world depicted to be an inconsistent melange of future tech: nanotech and VR and non-Euclidean geometries and genetic engineering and ...

Chunks of heavy-handed satire stick out like sore digits, adding to the feelings of inconsistency.

What was most annoying was the overuse of the trademark symbol, formulaic references to National Geographic, and the description of Tiffany as "copy-protected";products of laziness, or perhaps the author's prolonged enjoyment of jokes which tired very quickly. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Dreams dreams drea.
Kemen starts a war with his fellow kings over a fantastic relationship with a strange white haired lady from another world. Who drops off a son a few years later named Hayl. After a second disappointing of his wyrlds kings he dispenses with them and takes off on a journey for death.
Death escapes him and he finds love in the arms of a steely souled woman who he is unsure about loving for fear that he will ruin his chance with Noese.
An escape from the norm, with many creative environments and creatures. A quick eye opening view of a different world.

Wyrldmaker: Truesure or a Curse
Kemen starts out across the worlds, the Wyrldmaker at his side. He does what no man has done, he lives through his suicide and faces worlds and universes that no other has seen.

This takes place across worlds no other could imagine, with towers built from floating trees, and ships that sail on giant wheels across a desert plain.

I thought the world building was outrageouse, and rather complex, which made it interesting, but the plot had a little to be desired. The chars were even more interesting. I would recomend reading it then setting it free from bookcrossings.com ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

What if the first spaceflight to Mars was done by Hollywood?
Look at NASA...please! If there isn't a more frightening indication of the impact of space on today's culture, I'll become a monk in space. Can you even see NASA from where you are, or is it hidden behind the lifestyles, the crime reports, the utter banality of "human interest" stories in the news? When you do hear about NASA it is either because they are requesting more money, having their budget cut by Congress, or they've delayed the shuttle launch yet again. Is today's apathy with space caused by NASA's incompentence, or vice versa? Either way, the future looks grim.

Grim tidings bring modest proposals. Bisson's proposal in Voyage to the Red Planet may be hidden by a standard SF adventure plot, but it is as cutting as Swift's ever was. When the government has to sell off various departments (like NASA) to corporations to pay back the national debt, when movie stars become a new royalty, that's where you'll find Bisson, pillorying the temples with a humor and irreverence that's a joy to read. In every chapter Bisson drops a casual remark that seems innocuous at first, but sits like a dormant virus until you immune system yells "Uncle" and then unleashes its full fury making you double- and triple-up in laughter.

The plot and writing reminded me of late 60s/early 70s Philip K. Dick, except jazzed up and in tune with the 90s. Like Dick's novels, even though Voyage to the Red Planet is set in the future, its topic is the present. Today, Bisson says, we are in danger from greedy corporations threatening to gobble up each other in a gigantic Ouroboros-orgy, we are in danger of creating a new aristocracy with its own rules and classes, we are in danger of losing our perspective on what is important and what isn't. What Bisson isn't saying, though, is that the future or the present is filled with doom. If we can doctor ourselves with a little humor and stop taking everything so damned seriously, perhaps there will be some hope for us all.

Sci fi lite
Disney-Gerber, Beatrice-Texaco, and other corporate conglomerates run the world; Movie Stars are members of a hereditary caste; and the first humans to set foot on Mars are there to make a movie.

A few days after I'd finished this book, I saw it on my shelf and couldn't remember what it was about. I prefer my science fiction to have some challenging or mind-bending ideas in it, but if you're just looking for a little light entertainment, this is an amusing book.

(My favorite book about Mars is Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars.")

Hollywood does NASA
Boldly go where no pawn of the multinational corporations has gone before. Lots of fun and filled with fresh ideas.Sort of a hybrid between Star Trek and Neal Stephenson's 'Snowcrash'. ... Read more

Product Description
From the award-winning author of Pirates of the Universe, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, comes The Pickup Artist--a sharp, witty, and subversive exploration of the future of art, culture, and society. In the tradition of Ray Bradbury's fireman who burns books in Fahrenheit 451, our hero, Hank Shapiro, is a pickup artist, a government agent who gathers for retirement creative works whose time has come and gone. You see, there's simply not enough room in the world for all the art, so anything past a certain age must be cataloged, archived in the records, and destroyed, paving the way for new art. It's a job that comes with risk and the pay's lousy, but it covers the bills. And, after all, this year's art is better than last year's, isn't it?

But what happens is not nearly as important as the telling. Terry Bisson is an American writer in the satirical tradition of Twain and Vonnegut and perhaps Richard Brautigan. He can make you laugh and touch your heart in the same sentence. This is a book about love, death, and America.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Something Smells Artless
Terry Bisson has come up with some unique sci-fi ideas and biting humor in his time, but this underachieving novel doesn't stack up with his best work. This one is inspired by Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and Bisson adds satire with a near-future of culture overload and corporatized bureaucracy, embodied in a bizarre social movement to eliminate old art to make room for the new. This premise, surrounding the pickup artist who hunts down now-illegal artistic works but comes to doubt his mission, has potential, and Bisson keeps things fun with a sardonic sense of humor and an eye for the absurd. Unfortunately, after setting up the useful satirical theme, the novel turns into a tired road trip saga that rapidly runs out of steam, and wacky absurdity has to stand in for the lack of plot movement, with Bisson piling on unexplained gimmicks like a talking dog, a miniature man, and time dilation. This is an example of a book that has a great premise but doesn't live up to its satirical potential. Fortunately, Bisson's talents are on display in plenty of other books. [~doomsdayer520~]

Good candidate for deletion
Certainly, there are elements of Tom Robbins and Douglas Adams and Terry Gilliam in this book, but this is less like a story and more like a collection of interesting elements.The plot gets more and more nonchalantly weirder to the point of absurdity, so I was able to skim the last 50 pages without any worry that I'd miss anything important.I believe that the book could be improved by moving the interspersed "history lesson" to an appendix rather than forcing the reader to wade through it on the chance there's something interesting within.

Science Fiction worthy of the genre
I haven't read science fiction for a long time because science fiction had stopped being what it used to be.Science fiction used to be fun, challenging, stimulating, and critical.This novel brought all of those things back to me and I recommend it unreservedly.It starts with a neatly drawn, nicely consistent future society richly described with gritty detail. The characters are few but interesting and believable.The plot commenses with a nod towards Fahrenheit 451, but travels in unexpected directions.The author's style is reminiscent of Ray Bradbury, Alfred Bester, and Cordwainer Smith.Fine company for a contemporary author.

Cult Potential!
I had to laugh at the number of "stiff" reviews of the Pickup Artist, here.A fun imagination is definitely required for reading, otherwise the tongue-in-cheek absurdity appears to get lost on some hapless folks.

"The Pickup Artist" is most definitely absurd, but also very inventive, and surprisingly, even thought provoking. "Fahrenheit 451" it is not, nor does it try to be. Bisson is very successful in creating a world unto his own; crazy, yet consistent. The book's ending is solid, satisfying and even poignant.

I would love to read more.

Written as if the book was an afterthought to the idea
Wow...this book is TERRIBLE.I know that doesn't help potential readers as much of an insighful review, but this book is truly bad.When the most interesting part of the book is the prologue, you've got serious problems.The characters are completely undeveloped and uninteresting, and every plot device is poorly utilized.For example, he tries and fails miserably to convey emotion in the female lead by alluding to the changing colors of birds on her sweater (something akin to a "mood ring," but allows him to talk about breasts I guess).An actual author would have just found the right words to convey her emotional state.And I couldn't help thinking of the drug HalfLife (which allows one to communicate with the dead because of air "trapped in their lungs") as a dumb rip off of Miracle Max and his bellows in The Princess Bride...he's only MOSTLY dead.At least that was funny.This was just stupid.If the author had bothered to explain anything about what is going on about his world instead of boring us with snippets of history, it might have made a book with a very interesting premise bearable.Instead, this seems like a rush job built on a neat idea and lazily written to capitalize on previous success.Blech. ... Read more

Product Description
Twins Todd and Tessa don’t always think alike, but there’s one thing they both agree on—Gemini Jack’s is their favorite store in the mall. Where else can you find a remote control that works on people, or a mirror that sees 10 minutes into the future? And Jack is even stranger—he glows in the dark, and gives discounts to Tod and Tessa because they’re twins. Then Jack develops an interest in the other set of twins in Tod and Tessa’s grade—nasty Ned and Nancy. They’re so mean, even their mother is scared of them. Why would Jack want to meet them?
Tod and Tessa are about to learn what happens when you introduce your worst enemies to the coolest guy in the universe.
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... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Alien's are not scary.
I really enjoyed this book. It let's me know that even if you are twins you are not the same. The author is very imaginative. They did not make the Aliens scary, they are almost humans. It also made me understand that if you do bad things to others that there can be a pay back in the end. It shows that telling the truth is so much easier than telling lies. I had fun reading the book with my mom, it started out slow and then I could not put the book down. I hope that other kids pick up this book and read it because it makes you imagine that Aliens can be real but not scary.

Alien's are not scary.
I really enjoyed this book. It let's me know that even if you are twins you are not the same. The author is very imaginative. They did not make the Aliens scary, they are almost humans. It also made me understand that if you do bad things to others that there can be a pay back in the end. It shows that telling the truth is so much easier than telling lies. I had fun reading the book with my mom, it started out slow and then I could not put the book down. I hope that other kids pick up this book and read it because it makes you imagine that Aliens can be real but not scary.

Vegan anti-meat agenda overshadows any talent of author
First I must say that the author seriously needs the help of a mental health professional.Her attitudes about people that eat meat and her descriptions of shish cabob with dripping blood is sick.The nice children are vegetarian and love animals, even e-pets.While the meat-eaters are descendants of a barbarian 'Vlad the Impaler', and they want to hurt not only e-pets but live turtles at the mall.There's no redeeming qualities for the Gniess twins.Frankly,if I were on the school book selection committee I would haveeasily nixed the book because it has an almost 10 year old say "totally sucks"with nothing more than a look from her grandmother.I don't allow that talk at home.I don't believe it's allowed at our school.

The anti-meat, vegan agenda of this author is an attempt to indoctrinate children.With it disguised as a children's story, it's insidious and diabolical. I heard of children refusing to eat meat after things they read at school.This is an example of what causes this behavior.Sorry but I feel this book is a BIG THUMBS DOWN.

Rates with the best!
Anyone who has enjoyed Terry Bisson's SF and Fantasy creations, probably knew it all along.He was bound to be good at this sort of thing.Together with Stephanie Spinner, Bisson has given us (and our kids) a romping good story.There's plenty of humor to offset our anxiety over the twin protagonists.And there's just enough payback for the twin villains!I only hope Bisson and Spinner had as much fun with this book as we did, so they'll think about doing another one soon.

I know it's supposed to be a kids book...
...but it's a ton of fun for an adult like me. Fun, fresh, and even surreal, "First" teaches readers (especially youth) not just toenjoy reading but also to question what we see and read.Recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
Gemini Jack is back in his shop at the Middle Valley Mall, and once again he’s hoping twins Tod and Tessa can help him with problems on his home planet. But Tod and Tessa have problems of their own. The Gneiss twins, once so evil they scared their own mother, are now sickeningly nice. It’s as if the entire balance of the universe has gone kablooey! Then Tod and Tessa use one of Jack’s gadgets to help the great rock drummer, Nigel Throbber, escape from his fame temporarily–only to learn the effects are permanent! Now they need to give Nigel back his celebrity, save Jack’s planet, and convince Nancy Gneiss that she doesn’t really have a crush on Tod. Which makes restoring the balance of the universe look like a breeze. . . .

... Read more

Product Description
Whether you are wondering what early Star Trek episodes have to tell us about race or what post-apocalyptic literature has to say about the dangers of technology, SciFi in the Mind's Eye is full of engaging essays about gender, genes, ethics, and the apocalypse. The scholars in this volume examine how science fiction informs and inspires contemporary research in science and how breakthroughs in modern science spur science fiction authors on to more cutting-edge and exhilarating narratives.

What does our favorite science fiction tell us about the culture of science? What does it show us about how science and values interact and how science and politics affect each other? What can science fiction tell us about the future impact of science and technology? This volume brings together scholars and authors of science fiction to explore the role that science fiction plays (and could play) in our study and practice of science.

SciFi in the Mind's Eye offers previously unpublished work by a number of acclaimed SciFi authors in the form of "interventions" throughout the work. In her article, "How to Do Things with Ideas," L. Timmel Duchamp, known for her Marq'ssan Cycle series, details and explores her process of writing a story from a set of ideas to ink on the paper. Nicola Griffith, author of Slow River and Ammonite, writes of her early experience with science fiction and how it still impacts her today. Nancy Kress, author of Crossfire and Crucible, explores the way in which science fiction can anticipate future ethical debates, helping us to come to terms with issues in those debates before they become a reality. Finally, Ewa Lipska--a Polish poet--conducts an interview with Stanislaw Lem, author of Solaris, in which Lem muses over poetry, music, and his connection with Krakow.

SciFi in the Mind's Eye is an excellent introduction to the world of Science and Technology Studies. Grebowicz invigorates the many discussions of science by centering the book on science fiction. This book is informative for the technology buff, while staying accessible and enjoyable for all. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Any fan of science fiction novels will appreciate the in-depth analysis of the real-world effects of imagination
SCIFI IN THE MIND'S EYE: READING SCIENCE THROUGH SCIENCE FICTION features articles by some of the biggest names in the field - Terry Bisson, Nancy Kress, Stanislaw Clem - and offers connections between how science fiction is told and how it inspires scientific breakthroughs. Any fan of science fiction novels will appreciate the in-depth analysis of the real-world effects of imagination.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Get a load of this...
"T. Bisson missing, Unicorn suspected"

Billy had a book. It was a good children's book for 40 year old men, and not full of dumb stuff, like that mean Bisson person said. I laughed and laughed, but not about the turkey, because I'm a vegetarian. Buy this book, or if you can't afford it, take a ride on your time skateboard and tell your past self to save your pennies! (Or just steal it from Vernon)

Book of Dumb Stuff
I talked to Vernon next door. He thinks it's stupid. But he is stupid too. ... Read more