lavanya laksminarayan has written a stunning debut: “analog/virtual” depicts apex city, built on the ruins of bangalore, a city state, tightly controlled with zones for virtuals [the affluent with access to everything] and the analog [the poor, scraping by on the leftovers of tech and everything else].
the book/world has overtones of kafka and vonnegut, it is hilarious and super scary because it is so close to … uhm ..home ?
apex city is a corportocracy, where – if you step out of the hamster wheel at any given time – the worst case scenarios is that your organs may be harvested for good use. makes sense: if you are too lazy to keep up and become a burden on society, we might as well put your spare parts to good use no?
love this book! hope you enjoy the conversation:
more to read and watch below …
- the live streamed show:
- post show discussion with the in-world in crowd:
- a few great pics from reader/book club regular vanderveere and others as posted to our brandnew flickr group
- lavanya’s place is still on book club island and it won’t be dismantled … ever …
- the book is divided into chapters and they have these black pages with world-building snippets on them … beautifully designed and helping the immersion into this so familiar universe ….
- how in this future world [you ask] can people who have strange tastes in art and entertainment, tastes that are incompatible with commodified popular culture be brought back in line? how can those who prefer niche music/movies that challenges the mainstream paradigm, connosieurs of “entartete kunst” if you will, how can they be tamed? fear not: there is a robot for that and he/she/it will pull those nasty preferences right out of your head … through your ear!
- what else is happening in second life? apparently an amazing role-playing sim is happening …
- is drax obsessed with “the three-body problem” or is he obsessed with cixin liu’s trilogy “remembrance of earth’s past” as a whole? who can tell …..
the drax files radio hour is a weekly production of draxtor … and media for all!
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