Just Finished re-Reading: Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson (FP: 1988) [316pp] 

A Corporate War was coming. To protect her as much as possible, Kumiko Yanaka has been sent to freezing London in the care of her father’s ‘business associate’ and a state-of-the-art mobile AI called Colin. Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic a group of misfits hiding out in an industrial contamination zone have been tasked to hide a comatose hacker connected to a medical gurney and enough computing power to hold an entire world and more. Enter Sally, AKA Molly, a soldier, street samurai, agent for hire. She’s being blackmailed to kidnap the biggest star in the Matrix for purposes unknown. The blackmailer is the ‘ghost’ of a deceased billionaire who refuses to accept the reality of her own demise. Within the Matrix itself things move in the data streams. Things that have only just emerged, things with their own powers and own agenda, Things that have done something that will change EVERYTHING. 

This is the 3rd volume in the Sprawl trilogy. I first read it around the time of publication when Gibson was blowing my mind with possibilities. Strangely I found the first 100 pages a bit slow – but that might just be me these days – character building with a bit of world building thrown in. Most of the world building had been supplied in the first 2 novels so it wasn’t really required to do much more. A few of the characters from the previous book appeared (including the great character of Molly with her implanted mirror-specs) although they mostly played subsidiary roles here. The story REALLY picked up after page 100 when several revelations dropped which not only changed the speed of the narrative but its overall tone too. Although the closing revelation didn’t have quite the same impact on a 2nd reading, I do remember being totally FLOORED by it the 1st time around. It was a heck of a cliffhanger that has, as yet, not been resolved in any of the authors other novels – I'll leave you to think on how good or bad that idea is! 

Set in the ‘near’ future – it's hard to say exactly when – it's always amusing to see what predictions came true and what was missed. Here we have self-drive cars, instant access to information, laptops (called decks), smart clothes, orbital factories, the casual (if expensive) use of intercontinental supersonic flight, but NO mobile phones. There was one mention of Wi-Fi (as well as how expensive it was) but not a single cell phone. WEIRD! Although this is probably my least favourite of the trilogy – the 2nd book is my favourite – this is still a very good cyberpunk novel and has rightly part of a well-earned classic trilogy. You don’t have to read them in chronological order as they are only loosely connected but I’d recommend that you do so. Recommended to all SF lovers and especially those interested in the Cyberpunk sub-genre.    

Technically speaking (the BEST type) the term Science-Fiction (or 'scientifiction' as termed initially) was created by Hugo Gernsback in 1926. BUT (and an important BUT) the *genre* itself is generally credited to have originated with the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, written in 1818.

Just Finished Reading: A World in Disarray – American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order by Richard Haass (FP: 2017) [328pp] 

Typically, I’m VERY late to the party. Maybe if I had read this book soon after I picked it up, rather than almost 10 years later, I might have been ahead of the news cycle! However, we’re here eventually. 

The world was born refreshed (although birthed in both fire and blood) with the end of World War Two and the beginnings of the Cold War. For a significant part of the world and for a significant period of time things were, generally, stable. This meant than long-term planning and long-term profits were possible and the world entered, somewhat briefly, an era of rapid and persistent growth. As we know now this came to a grinding halt with the 1970’s oil crisis (which feels very familiar right now) and we entered a period of growing instability. When the Berlin Wall fell and, shortly after, the Soviet Union followed some expected things to calm down permanently. They did in fact (quoting Teal’c from Stargate) calm up. The orderly world many of us had been born into or grown up in started to break down. Part of this was to do with the instability in the ex-Soviet states and Russia itself. Part was caused by the rise of China and the slow (relative) decline of the US accelerated by foreign wars and other adventures. Part was caused by economic shocks and the revolutions across the Middle East and South America. Part was caused by the inability of the existing nuclear powers to prevent their proliferation to others like India, Pakistan, North Korea or Israel. Seemingly, without the military and ideological binding of the Cold War things began to spiral out of control. 

The author argues, and I somewhat agree, that at least some of the blame for this state of affairs can be laid at the feet of the United States. Without the Cold War to focus minds the US has struggled to define or decide on its place in the world. Is it enough to be a ‘shinning beacon’ to the rest? Do they need to ‘bang heads’ when other countries step out of line (as in the First Gulf War) or is it OK to support tyrants for the ‘greater’ good (which all too often aligned with American good). More to the point, with shifting political ideals and changes of party at the top could America keep a consistent policy over decades? His central argument (which I disputed) was that the world cannot achieve stability or prosperity WITHOUT US involvement. The question, as always, is what that involvement would look like.  

This was by no means a perfect book. As we know, a GREAT deal has changed in the last 10 years. As I was reading through this, I was more than a little surprised that Trump was not mentioned at all. He did eventually show up in the afterword and the author explained that the original hardback version went to his publishers as the election that Trump (unexpectedly) won was underway. What he did say was that the disarray he saw coming was accelerated in the first year or so of the first Trump administration. I do wonder what he would think now! I did find the text a little boring to be honest. Part of that was the fact that most of what he talked about I was mostly familiar with and that I (mostly) agreed with his analysis – so it contained little new information or ideas. I also thought that, despite his insider knowledge and wide experience, he was rather naive and had the all too usual American blind spots where the world is concerned (in that the rest of the world isn’t America nor does most of it want to be). Overall, though this is a pretty good, high-level, general introduction to global politics post-WW2 and especially post-Cold War as well as a sobering assessment of the future we’re pushing in to. It’s a little out of date at this point but by reading it you’ll have a fair idea of how we got ourselves into this mess. Reasonable and more on this subject to come.

Happy Birthday: Cerys Elizabeth Matthews MBE (born 11 April 1969) is a Welsh singer, songwriter, author, and broadcaster. She was a founding member of Welsh rock band Catatonia and a leading figure in the "Cool Cymru" movement of the late 1990s.

Matthews now hosts a weekly music show on BBC Radio 6 Music, a weekly blues show on BBC Radio 2, and from 2021-2024 co-hosted a weekly show on BBC Radio 4, Add To Playlist, which won the Prix Italia and Prix Europa 2022. She also makes documentaries for television and radio and was a roving reporter for The One Show. She founded "The Good Life Experience", a festival of culture and the great outdoors in Flintshire in 2014, and is author of Hook, Line and Singer, published by Penguin Books, and children's stories Tales from the Deep and Gelert, A Man's Best Friend, published by Gomer. Matthews' illustrated version of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood was published, in November 2022, by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Catatonia were formed in 1992, after Matthews met Mark Roberts. She subsequently sang lead vocals on, and co-wrote the music and lyrics for, the band's hits. Songs she co-wrote included "You've Got a Lot to Answer For", "Mulder and Scully", "Dead from the Waist Down", and "Road Rage". Matthews also played guitar on the earlier material before second guitarist Owen Powell joined the band. She also performed a single with the band Space named "The Ballad of Tom Jones", which tells the story of two lovers who want to kill each other, but then hear a Tom Jones song that defuses their homicidal feelings. Matthews later collaborated with Jones to record a version of Frank Loesser's "Baby, It's Cold Outside" on Jones's 1999 album Reload. Matthews was voted the "Sexiest Female in Rock" in a 1999 readers' poll in the now-defunct magazine Melody Maker.

After Catatonia's rise to fame with their second album International Velvet, and subsequent success with Equally Cursed and Blessed, the band returned in 2001 with their fourth studio album, Paper Scissors Stone. In September 2001, the band officially split.

[I saw Cerys sing at Glastonbury in 2000 when she supported The Pet Shop Boys. My friend at the time (who is Welsh) was a HUGE fan of hers and he passed some of that on to me. They were a fun band while they lasted.]