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Dr. Seuss, Political Scientist

Today in my email comes a little chunk of unintended hilarity from the automated suggestion monkeys at Amazon.com:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We’ve noticed that customers who have purchased or rated books by Dr. Seuss have also purchased The Politics of Inequity in Developing Countries (International Political Economy) by Philip Nel. For this reason, you might like to know that The Politics of Inequity in Developing Countries (International Political Economy) will be released on May 27, 2008.  You can pre-order yours by following the link below.

Now it turns out on further investigation that this Philip Nel is also the author of Dr. Seuss: American Icon and The Annotated Cat, not to mention an unauthorized guidebook to the Harry Potter novels. So there does seem to be some correlation here. But I’m guessing that my 18-month-old nephew Elijah will find Mr. Nel’s treatise quite a disappointment after One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Though if he does enjoy it, I’ll make sure to send him The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity: Small Incisive Shocks and Democratizing Foreign Policy?: Lessons from South Africa for his birthday. (Quick: what rhymes with “Mozambique”?)

Still, looking at the product description of the book on Amazon (“This book argues that a high level of economic inequality undermines a country’s growth potential, retards the development of social capital, and encourages corruption”) I can’t help but think: Isn’t that essentially the plot of The Lorax?

I haven’t laughed this hard at Amazon’s expense since the email suggesting that I might enjoy Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ because I purchased — get this — Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Volume 2. Really. True story. Of course, it’s certainly possible that the juxtaposition was a purposeful attempt by certain customers to subvert the Amazon recommendations against a movie they disliked. But no, it’s more fun to think that Jeff Bezos’ algorithms really did find some thematic undercurrent between these two films, besides the excessive violence.

State of Technological Dissatisfaction

When I finally published the new design for this website a few weeks ago, I had a delusional moment when I thought I had actually got it all set up.

I thought: I’ve got my website running WordPress 2.5.1. I’ve got an Eclipse/Aptana installation that works well for code editing. Photoshop CS3 for image noodling. A Sony VAIO laptop running Vista Home Premium that automatically updates itself. I’ve got Windows FolderShare set up to mirror all of my important files so I don’t need to worry about manual backups.

All I need to do from now on is just keep updating the software, and I never, ever, ever need to configure anything again. Windows will update itself. WordPress will evolve incrementally. New virus definitions will arrive. Oh, I might need to swap out hardware a few times, but otherwise I’ve got everything in my computer setup exactly the way I want it. I’m done! I’m set! No more tinkering, no more Googling for solutions.

Well, I’m almost set. I still need to fix the meta tags on WordPress. I’ve got to try to find a better FTP module for Eclipse, because the built-in one sucks rocks. I need to upgrade to Vista Ultimate so I can get Windows Remote Desktop and stop paying $20 every month to GoToMyPC. I need to find a way to have FolderShare mirror my Firefox profiles without making me close my browser five times a session…

It’s not over. It’s never over, and it never will be.

Somehow they’ve managed to do it. Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Sony, IBM, Google — all the dozens of companies large and small who make the hardware and software products I use — they’ve managed to put me in a state of permanent technological dissatisfaction. I’m not satisfied with my computing environment. I’m not satisfied with my website. I’m not satisfied with the tools I use. I need to upgrade something, I need to fix something, I need to improve something. I’m going to sit there on my deathbed bummed out as hell because, well, sure I’m about to die, but I’m about to die and I still haven’t gotten my Firefox profiles to sync properly.

Some lefties would have you believe that this dissatisfaction is just a product of corporate lust. See, I fell into the trap myself in the last paragraph. As if we would all live peaceful, communal, nonacquisitive existences if Coke and Pepsi would stop shoving their advertising in our collective face.

But it ain’t true. This is the human condition. That’s the hand we’ve been dealt. We’re permanently dissatisfied.

We Americans are accustomed to thinking about our history as one continual struggle for improvement (however misguided it may be at times). We pride ourselves on the fact that every generation of American citizens has had more luxuries, amenities, and opportunities than the one before it, and the next generation will have it even better than us. The reason you’re sitting on a cushy hypoallergenic stainproof La-Z-Boy recliner is because your grandpa wasn’t satisfied with his wooden rocking chair. You’re not totally satisfied with your La-Z-Boy either — there’s always something you can do to improve it — and that’s why your great-grandkids are going to be floating on inflatable programmable portable instantly customizable space lounge chairs. And they’re going to have problems with those too…

This technological restlessness didn’t start with America; not remotely. How far back does it go? The late, great Arthur C. Clarke nailed it in his late, great novel 2001. Early on in the book, we follow a group of primitive apemen led by one Moonwatcher. They’re starving, they’re dwindling, they’re skateboarding on the precipice of Total Extinction without a helmet or kneepads. That’s when the unnamed alien species delivers the Monolith — you know, that tall black slab you remember from the movie. As Clarke describes it, the Monolith is essentially a Machine That Pisses You Off. Suddenly Moonwatcher’s got these visions in his head of a group of primitive apemen lying around all sleek, fat, and comfortable. And he thinks: why don’t I have that? What am I doing wrong? What do I need to do to get that?

Now here I am, a million years later. I’m sleek and fat and comfortable. I sit in a cushy chair all day with a little metal machine on my lap that lets me communicate with anyone in the world. I’ve got cabinets stuffed full of food, I’ve got a security system that keeps the bad guys out, I’ve got a house so insulated from the weather that I rode out last nights’ thunderstorms without a hitch. And yet I am irritated as fucking hell that I can’t get my Firefox profiles to sync.

Lo, my children’s children, I promise you this: we’ll get those Firefox profiles to sync before you arrive. By the time you get here, you’ll be set, and you’ll never, ever, ever have to tinker with anything again. Really. Cross my heart.

“MultiReal” Podcast Chapters 1-5 Now Available

If you’re as addicted to the melodic sound of my voice as my dogs are, now you can really get your fix on the MultiReal website. This weekend, I’ve posted the audio podcast of chapters 2-5, as read by yours truly. Now the entire first section of the book (titled “Lessons Learned”) is available for free download in MP3, Windows Media, and Ogg Vorbis formats. Soon I’ll post chapters 6, 7, and 8 as well, so the entire excerpt will be available on podcast.

For those keeping score: That’s nearly an hour and a half of free audio, plus 20,000 words of free story, plus 10,500 words of free appendices from MultiReal available on the website.

New “Infoquake” and “MultiReal” Audio Podcasts

Well, it took me long enough.

I intended to finish podcasting the first seven chapters of Infoquake about two years ago, when the book was first released in trade paperback. For one reason or another, I only got up to chapter 4. I blame it on the cocaine, or the Extended Edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, or perhaps Martians.

But I never forget a promise! (I do sometimes ignore them, but that’s not the same thing.) And so, after much distraction and delay, tonight I have finally posted the complete chapters 1 through 7 of Infoquake in audio read by the author. You can listen in MP3 format, you can make Steve Ballmer happy and listen in Windows Media format, or you can make Cory Doctorow happy and listen in open source Ogg Vorbis format.

In fact, I had such a ball finishing up the audio excerpts for Infoquake that I went ahead and recorded chapter 1 of MultiReal in audio as well. I intend to record chapters 2 through 8 of MultiReal soon, so you’ll be able to listen to the full excerpt on your iPod while you jog.

Hopefully I’ll be able to put together some giveaway CDs packed with both podcasts, downloads, and lots of other cool stuff as well. And then the CDs will go into circulation, they’ll get passed all around the country, my books will sell like naked chocolate money, Brad Bird will get a hold of one of my CDs, and he’ll be so enamored of my voice that he’ll cast me as the lead in an upcoming Pixar movie. Hey, it happened to Patton Oswalt, didn’t it?

More Newfound Reviews

After seeing the rush of new reviews for Infoquake, I decided to do a round of vanity Googling and found several more that I had been unaware of. Yes, I know how unusual it is for me to blog three times in one day. But don’t worry, after today I promise I’ll go back to sporadically throwing out blog pieces about random topics at no fixed interval.

The book cover for Indian Larry: Chopper Shaman here has no relation to any of these book reviews. I just stumbled upon it while Googling and found it amusing. Tell me Indian Larry isn’t the coolest guy on the planet. Go ahead, tell me. No, I don’t believe you. You’re lying.

Now, the new reviews:

Graeme Flory of Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review recently reviewed The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two, and called my story “Mathralon” one of his two favorites in the collection. “George Mann’s second collection of science fiction makes for some enthralling reading of other worlds and the people who inhabit them,” says Graeme. “…My favourite stories were Dan Abnett’s ‘Point of Contact’ and David Louis Edelman’s ‘Mathralon’, two tales that leave the reader in no doubt as to how cold and lonely our universe can be.”

Not really a review, but the Antiaging Wellness Blog uses Infoquake as a starting point for a brief essay about biological programming. “In reading through the programs used in Infoquake, it is hard not to ask oneself, are these not the very mechanisms that the body is designed to control itself, through our hormonal and neurological pathways.”

Don D’Ammassa apparently long ago posted a capsule outtake review of Infoquake, which I completely failed to notice at the time. Says Don: “Lots of interesting speculation and a plausible and interesting plot. I found the prose a bit awkward from time to time but not so much that it significantly interfered with my enjoyment of the story.”

Some Amazon reviewer apparently has been using his copy of Infoquake as a makeshift Frisbee. Says Ray A.R. “Abe” in his 1-star review: “This is one of two supposedly highly rated books I read lately that were completely awful. I read the whole thing but wished I’d stopped after the third time I threw the book across the room. Take out the technojunk and this is nothing but a subpar novel, weak on character, weak on plot. Suffice to say I’ll never read another thing written by this awful author.” FYI, the other highly rated book that “Abe” disliked was Pat Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.

Continuing my bad streak of reviews on the Barnes & Noble page for Infoquake, Karmen Roth echoes Abe’s sentiments about the book: “Very unoriginal, poorly written and chock full of junk technotalk that serves no purpose. By the end, there wasn’t a single character I cared about and the story didn’t seem to go anywhere.” To which I say: Oh yeah? Well, wait until you read MultiReal. It’s even more unoriginal, more poorly written, and every single word is junk technotalk that not only serves no purpose, but actively finds out your purpose and sabotages it.