Why was HE WALKED AMONG US, described as "the Magnum Opus of one of the best-known science fiction writers of the age," first published in German rather than Eng-lish? Why is its first English language edition electronic? What do conventional American publishers find so dangerous about this novel? Is it a science fiction novel or a comic novel about show business? Is Ralf, the comedian from the future, just doing schtick, or is he what he claims to be, an emissary sent back from a terminal future to save the human race from its own stupidity through laughter? Or could he even be something more? Maybe much more? In fact, HE WALKED AMONG US is also a metaphysical novel about mind and time and space, and, given enough of all three, surely there will be more things therein than are dreamt of in our philosophies. Or not. For HE WALKED AMONG US has been called "the first meta science fiction novel," a novel about our collective mediated dreamtime and its creators, about the interplay of what we call "science" and what we call "fantasy" and what we call "entertainment," of the realities of show biz, New Age mysticism and science fiction writers, publishers, and fans. And how that dreamtime calls into being what we call "the real world."
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Amazon.com:
3.4 out of 5 stars
11 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
It sneaks up on you
3 Mar 2011
By Infophiliac
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
This is one of those books that in the reading of it, I was constantly a little frustrated. Even though it was written as a contemporary piece when it was authored in the early 1990s, it feels very much like a period piece in that one is continually reminded that it is of the past and not some more generic time. Because the book is meant to be about the intrusion of the future upon the present, the fact that it is now set in the past creates a low-level dissonance throughout. Beyond that, it feels over-long and like other reviewers, I was ready for it to end long before the story was over.
But I still give it four stars because 9 months after reading it, I still find my mind going back to it again and again. The world in which it is set is richly detailed (the flip-side to that strong sense of period) and the characters are almost all like-able (even Rat Girl). But beyond that, it builds to some theories that are a fun game to fully work through. It's far from a perfect book, but it's one of the most memorable I've read in the last year.
But I still give it four stars because 9 months after reading it, I still find my mind going back to it again and again. The world in which it is set is richly detailed (the flip-side to that strong sense of period) and the characters are almost all like-able (even Rat Girl). But beyond that, it builds to some theories that are a fun game to fully work through. It's far from a perfect book, but it's one of the most memorable I've read in the last year.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Does it ever end?
12 Dec 2010
By Bart Sterling
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I read the first hundred pages of this book in less than three hours and it's taken me nearly four weeks to read the next two hundred pages. Will this book ever end? The crack girl/rat girl scenes are well written, as is the entire amount I've read, but the are becoming tedious. The mini-epiphanies Amanda and the writer keep having are starting to get meaningless. If Norman didn't write so well and a strong desire to see the two vastly different threads somehow come together, I think I would've returned this to the library a week ago. Please tell me, does it end and is it worth the effort?
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A thought-provoking, irreverent look at the power of science fiction
29 Jan 2011
By Deborah J. Ross
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Can science fiction save a world like ours, torn by violence and on the very brink of ecological disaster? More to the point, can science fiction fans save the world? Norman Spinrad had entirely too much fun answering these questions. The story gimmick goes like this: a middling level theatrical agent stumbles on a relentlessly vitriolic stand-up comic who claims to come from the future, sent back in time to cause us to change our destructive ways before it is too late. The agent enlists a science fiction writer, whose single visionary book still inspires a tiny fan following, and a New Age guru to shape the comic's act. As the comic's success leads him to host a talk show on a tenth-rate network, questions pile upon questions. Is the comic so demented, he never, ever breaks character? Or is he, by some wild chance, telling the truth? If he succeeds, will the paradox of time travel result in his never having appeared? Are science fiction fans, the only people willing to believe in a better future, his only hope? Spinrad's prose is snappy, absorbing, at times poignant or hilarious, usually irreverent, as are his references to iconic figures in science fiction (even himself) and if I did not always agree with his characterizations, I found this an absorbing, thought-provoking read
›
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3.4 out of 5 stars
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