The history and meaning of Godzilla (King of Monsters) by an academic with a light touch and the affectionate attitude of the true fan. This was a fun read that brought back the joys of reading “Famous Monsters of Filmland” when I was a kid.
Marshall McLuhan wrote:
Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as a infantile piece of science fiction. And, as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drum, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence.
The Canadian author wrote that in 1962.
McLuhan is mostly remembered today for his appearance in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall”, which gave the book it’s title, but for a while in the 60′s he was a pop star, even if his writing was notoriously opaque. Douglas Coupland’s brief biography recalls McLuhan’s writings uses his insights to illuminate the Internet age that hadn’t even begun when he was working.
Like Woody Allen’s character in “Annie Hall”, who breaks through the fourth wall to address the audience directly, Coupland steps into the biography and talks to the reader in first person. It’s an interesting technique that sounds awkward but works well here.
I liked this book. It brought to mind somebody I’d forgotten, applied his work to today, and placed his life in context. Though it’s not a main theme of the book, I was interested to learn the McLuhan, who was fascinated by media and the modern age, was more of a Medievalist by nature, reminiscent of G. K. Chesterton and, like Chesterton, a Catholic convert.
This is a rather good cyberthriller with a plausible plot, interesting characters, and enough realistic-sounding technical detail to be convincing. A potboiler, but a good one.
Given Steven Levy’s track record, I had high hopes for this “inside look” at Google. I was disappointed. The book is almost entirely uncritical and far too accepting of the Google view that “data” is the answer to everything. The reader soon wearies of hearing how smart the Google folks are, especially since it’s clear that their intelligence, while real, is very narrow.
Worst of all, Levy skirts controversial issues such as Google’s handling of Chinese demands for censorship of search results. Regarding such issues, we’re told “they had an internal debate” but no details are offered.
The title sums up the book pretty well. It’s mildly interesting but reads like a compilation of blog posts. The best thing about it is this cartoon.
Kevin Poulsen
This is one of the best “true cyber crime” books I’ve read. It’s the story of a credit card ring, the carder underworld, and the FBI agent who busted the ring’s leader. It’s a worthy successor to the first of the genre, Cliff Stoll’s “The Cuckoo’s Egg“.
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