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True Names
And the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier
First published 1984 · 384 pages
A visionary plunge into a digital frontier where hackers wield code like magic and anonymity is the ultimate shield.
What it feels like
Reading this foundational novella feels like unearthing a prophetic artifact from the dawn of the digital age. The experience is brisk and electrified, plunging you into a retro-futuristic atmosphere where the nascent internet is reimagined as a mythic landscape of warlocks, covens, and castles. The prose crackles with a visionary urgency, layering hard computer science concepts beneath the evocative imagery of sword and sorcery. It creates a mood of intense paranoia mixed with awe-inspiring possibility, capturing the exhilarating, god-like high of navigating a boundless virtual frontier. Fans of classic cyberpunk and those fascinated by the conceptual seeds of virtual reality will be captivated by this brilliant, fast-paced exploration of identity, anonymity, and the raw power of information.
- Mood
- retro-futuristic
- paranoid
- electrified
- awe-inspiring
- Tone
- visionary
- urgent
- mythic
- analytical
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- identity and anonymity · the technological frontier · power of information · virtual vs physical reality
- The writing
- The prose is dense with inventive, pioneering jargon, seamlessly blending hard computer science concepts with the mythic vocabulary of high fantasy.
- The arc
- The journey moves from paranoid isolation into an exhilarating, god-like expansion of consciousness, before settling into a bittersweet acceptance of mortal limits.
- Who it's for
- Readers fascinated by the conceptual roots of cyberpunk and the internet will devour this visionary blend of hacker culture and wizardry.
Content notes
- government surveillance
- paranoia
About the book
"A marvellous mixture of hard-science SF and sword-and-sorcery imagery.... You wish the author were present so you could applaud." - Analog
Description from Open Library.
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