Appleseed [Hardcover]

Post-modern to the nth degree, fermenting genre references and massive conceptual detail into data overload, Appleseed reconfigures the distant future through a century of science-fictional preconceptions and techo-pagan fantasy. Throwing the Stinky Meat Brain reader into a spaced-opera populated by exceptionally alien ETs, where not just the technology but the biology is future-shockingly outré where an AI interfaced humanity has been reduced to a nihilistic vulgar hedonism, Appleseed is a phantasmasgoriacal tuned-in, switched-on, tripped-out and hung-over epic in the spirit of the 60s brave New Worlds of New Wave SF; imagine Aldiss, Delany and Moorcock rewriting The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels as forensically graphic anti-erotic hard(core) SF.

In wired prose, Clute even dissects the online zeitgeist

Most of the data streams displayed the Insort Geront logo, the fiery three-snake caduceus, the marque of the vastest of the godzillas--an ancient Human Earth term for any corporation, whether snail or trad dot.com or seeded nous cube, which having gone rogue was no longer subject to the rule of law of any individual state or planet or system

Whether this is pretentious adolescent obscenity, a synaesthetic masterpiece which redefines the genre, or a honker of a shaggy dog story is a debate primed to run for years.--Gary S. Dalkin

'intoxicating...remarkable'

'Exuberant, witty, sexy, satirical...every word is a special effects firecracker'

'A glorious explosion of language and thought'

'A comprehensive reimagining of space opera not to say space for the 21st century'

The Klavier Station ambles silently through the empty sectors of the galaxy. If it hides a mystery, it is well concealed. Daniel, a trader en route with a cargo of dedicated nano-robots, knows he has been manoeuvred into stopping there. Once there, he gradually begins to understand why.

Advance praise for APPLESEED
'Every word is a special effects firecracker' - STEPHEN BAXTER

'Intoxicating ... remarkable' - NEIL GAIMAN

'A glorious explosion of language and thought' - JOE HALDEMAN

'A comprehensive re-imagining of space opera - not to say space - for the 21st century' - M. JOHN HARRISON

John Clute is an award-winning SF and fantasy critic and in 1994 received the Pilgrim award for distinguished contributions to the study of science fiction. He is the co-editor of the acclaimed Encyclopedias of Science Fiction and Fantasy.