My GODS, I loved this book. Any novel about bootie, cities built of lucid dreams, and map tattoos is bound to be good, but Ms. Valente's incredibly masterful prose and surprisingly likable characters make this a masterpiece of mythic narrative.

Also, this song would make a great anthem for the Master Race's human spahi mercenaries.

Holy shit—T.A.T.U. went industrial! I like it.

Idaknow....I liked the whole concept better when William Barton did it and it was called When Heaven Fell. The Shongairi don't sound like they'd last a minute against the Master Race and a few starships full of Kkruhhhuft mercenaries.

Nice to see Venkeman's still around after he retired from Ghostbusting!

Eh. I could care less about the clumsy moralizing. The acting was pretty good, the FX *really* good for how cheap they apparently were, and the story engaging enough to hold my interest. Plus: giant landtopuses! It had everything I like in a movie. Everything else was just filler as far as I'm concerned.

Were I a millionaire, I would purchase a small island and provide Swade with everything he needed to build and operate *several* Analytical Engines. I would then staff the island with as many people as I could, all of whom would agree to take part in a live recreation of Gibson's and Sterling's book.

I MUST own this!

@BoxOfScraps: I actually like the idea of a Singularity that creates all manner of chaos. Chaos is a fertile medium from which all manner of new, *possibly* better orders may eventually evolve! The idea of everything culminating in a bland, utilitarian cyberutopia is too boring to countenance.

Hmmmm...what you're talking about is not so much a technosingularity as a particular *kind* of technosingularity—the rosey-eyed Rapture of the Nerds as envisioned by Ray Kurzweil. Now, I've read Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near (and The Age of Spiritual Machines, AND The Age of Intelligent Machines) at least fifty…

I found Matter to be completely anticlimactic and pointless—but, indeed, it is the *only* Culture novel I didn't adore. I re-read Excession at least once a year just for the sheer pleasure of spending time amongst a bunch of Minds puzzling over a visitor from another universe. You can't really beat that.

OK. I gotta read this.

@DarthVegan: That is the best thing I've ever read.

"Could genetic enhancement inspire a kind of neo-eugenicist society where social classes are determined by access to the kind of wealth one needs to take advantage of such technologies?"

No, wait—the second one is clearly an avanc.

Dagon!

Sexy Optimus Prime. My brain just exploded.

I would've given anything to have a vampire girlfriend when I was thirteen. That said, I *really* liked this film, and found it just as interesting as the original.

YARBLES, not "garbles." Get yer slovos right!

Zarmina is a dumb name—but who cares? I'll volunteer to be a Zarminan settler!