Matrix Warrior: Being The One (Gollancz S.F.) (Hardcover)

Firstly, for the out-and-out Matrix fan or "Neo-phyte"- and that includes both those who loved the original film and hated the sequels and those who loved the whole series - I'd say this book is a must-read. Jake Horsley takes the film's virtual reality concept and provides a whole set of philosophical and practical tools for exploring onwards. The intellectual challenge presented by the film becomes a life-challenge for self- and universe-exploration and growth. If no more Matrix films are ever made - or if future sequels sink so low as to be not worth viewing - there is still enough in the original movie plus Horsley's handbook to last a lifetime. For these readers, of course, being the "unofficial Handbook" would make it the only handbook worth considering - for any "official" handbook could be no more than a mouthpiece for the system itself.

Then there is the readership that sees the book and ignores it - because it is clearly all about a film they have not seen and may not want to see. Particularly in the case of a Pagan/Magick/New Age reader I say this is unfortunate, because the book is about much more than The Matrix. It is also a very neat re-interpretation of shamanic and martial arts "warrior" principles for the twenty-first century. Taking the works of Carlos Castenada in particular, Horsley has synthesised the teachings with the language of cyberspace to define "The Way of the CyberWarrior". Despite frequent allusions to the movie, the effect is not confusing to the uninitiated - if anything it makes one want to get the DVD and watch it.

The third class of reader is someone, like myself, who enjoyed and was stimulated by the original movie but did not bother much with the subsequent cash-in sequels. An admirer, but not an all-out fan. Such a reader might be put off by the subtitle "The Unofficial Handbook", preferring the real thing, wanting to know what the Wachowski brothers themselves put into the movie rather than the opinions of some outsider who clearly failed to win official recognition for his book. Ironically, such a reader has most of all to gain from it.

What could any "official" handbook do but tell you more of what the film was meant to convey but failed to do? Like the extras added to the DVD of a classic film, do they really add to the original artistic experience of the film, or do they simply 'explain away' by contextualising the magic? Instead of that we have an exploration by someone who is clearly a fan of the film, but outside of its circle of creators. As he explains at the end of the book "When I started this exegesis I was willing to entertain the possibility that the Neo-phytes were right and everything in the movie was true. Now that I've completed the work, there seems no way back, no way to tell myself that, after all, the Matrix is just a highly ingenious movie..." So he begins with entertaining an idea, and ends up in a whole new place with no turning back - writing the book has become his own demonstration of taking the movie's red pill.

As he goes on "The Matrix is simply the latest artefact in a timeless process of myth-making by which humanity is shown to be ensconced in a truly diabolic situation, the nature of which entails our complete ignorance of the fact." In this Horsley is mistaken, for the Matrix is not the latest artefact in this process, for his own book has arrived after it. Here indeed we have the most challenging and fundamental role of all: the book need not even be a course of instruction for the warrior of the twenty-first century but a demonstration of anyone's power to transform reality by thinking about and around it. As such this book does not need the film any more, or any less, than an adult human needs its mother. The myth evolves.

The author has read widely and draws on a number of different sources from the spiritual books of Carlos Castaneda to the philosophical SF of Philip K Dick. The book itself is difficult to categorise in that it straddles a number of genres such as film criticism, philosophy, science fiction and politics. I would say that it is essentially a consideration of how to transcend the lifeless, soul destroying and utterly tedious experience of modern life. At its best it is a tool for setting your mind free. I enjoyed this book on many different levels and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants a well written, thoughtful and life affirming read.