Customer Reviews

Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over The Edge

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

With one of the most surreal literary titles since Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Mambo Chicken is not really sci-fi, because there is nothing fictional about any of it. It is a truly fascinating book, and this from someone who conscientiously buys pop science books only to fall asleep and start dribbling all over page 39.

Regis sets about acquainting the reader with just how bizarrely the thought processes of the world's most brilliant scientists operate, and some of the technological visions they are wont to put forward, without the slightest regard for realism or potential for success. There's the 'wrap the sun in a big insulator jacket and harness its heat' idea, space colonies, Olympics in space (which one physicist in the 70s predicted as achievable for 2005), mind-downloading and countless other truly incredible visions for the distant future.

Regis narrates these stories very adeptly - not least because he recognises that a certain amount of humour and gentle mockery is needed to keep the reader from thinking he has stumbled across MIT's version of Mein Kampf. Every page is thought-provoking (if only the thought 'you damned fools'), and if nothing else I'm looking forward to the brain-copy-on-a-floppy-disk that I am promised, as a backup every time I forget my own bank PIN number.

All I can say after a month with this book is, WOW! I found it in a low dusty corner of a used book store and it is probably the best nonfiction book I have ever read. Amazingly interesting, in-depth looks at everything from recreational explosives to sun sailing, and somehow Mr. Regis ties it all together! I haven't been able to resist an opportunity to read this book, and I still haven't finished it! I go back and re-read good sections talk about it with friends, and it is so packed with information that it I have probably learned more interesting facts from this book than any science courses I have taken. For my biology course, I am required to do a report on a great moment in biology. Every time I read a chapter I changed by subject. Now two days from the report date, I have just switched over to the topic of Artificial Life. It is difficult, because I want to include everything from this book in my one small report. I recommend this book so much that I have been so exciting writing about it that I am sure all of my sentences are disjointed and confusing. Sorry, but that just shows how excited I am about this amazing book. The only thing I didn't like is that the Alcor cryogenics facility has moved since the publication from Riverside, CA to Scottsdale, AZ. I was going to go down there for a tour when I found out that Alcor was gone! Oh, well. That's why I didn't do my report on Cryonics. BUY THIS BOOK! YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

The guy who said that Regis "sneers" at the scientists and "holds himself above" them has it all wrong. Regis is praising these guys, he admires them, and so will you if you read this book. By now we have all heard such phrases and words as "space tourism" and "nanotechnology." Well, in Great Mambo Chicken, you can meet the people who made these words mean something. After I read it I couldn't shut up about all the wonderful ideas I'd found there. Hey, none other than Evel Kneivel shows up in this thing! Bet you didn't know he had any connection to space tourism, did you?
I took away one star because, yes, the word "hubristic" does get old after a while. Then again, it's fun to read a book by an author whose favorite sin is hubris, instead of lust.

This is a great and funny book. Yesterday and today, there were articles on the web about Ted William's body at Alcor, having the head severed and both the head and body frozen. In this book's funniest chapter, titled, "Heads will roll". One of the book's characters takes his poor sick mother to Alcor, and they sever her head as she's about to die. The ensuing legal and criminal implications are a riot as they first start to attempt to get a death certificate to get her body buried. The coroner is highly suspicious that a body without a head, "died of pneumonia." Criminal charges and other problems erupt. Hard to believe that similar issues have surfaced again 12 years after this book first appeared. If you like science and seeing the amusing side of it, then you will enjoy this book.

In February 1993 I received a copy of this book from my friend. He had given it to me as a joke, him thinking that the name was funny. I chose to read the book and that first night was on Chapter 3. I couldn't put it down! Each time I turned the page I was led deeper and deeper into the dreams others had for the future of humanity. some of them seemed misguided, some far-fetched, but Mr. Regis found a way to connect it all in such a way that it made total sense to me. After I finished reading "The Great Mambo Chicken" I passed it on to a friend who enjoyed reading it so much that they went out and got their own copy. By the Fall of 1995 most of my close friends had either read or were in the process of reading "The Great Mambo Chicken". Then I lost my copy... One of my friends had borrowed the book one night after getting a few chapters into it. At the end of that year (us both being in college) we went our separate ways. I ended up in Germany while he continued with his education in the US. Finally after two years of nagging I got my "Great Mambo Chicken" back. The first thing that I did was open it up and begin reading. So, 5 years, one High School Diploma, a BA and a year long trip to Germany, after I first received my copy, the book still seems to draw me back. This time I am not going to loan out my copy. I will recommend it and give it 5 stars--but you're going to have to get your own copy if you want to read "The Great Mambo Chicken"!

Mr. Regis does an excellent job of presenting the ideas behind science that's pushing the envelope of what we know and can do. He also presents fascinating stories of many of the people behind these speculative ideas, who have many common connections. I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious about the general ideas behind such topics as nanotechnology, cryonics, artificial life, etc. I enjoyed it

This collection of accounts of historical science is every bit as amusing as its title. Topics ranging from independant space travel and AI to cryonics and immortality have been breached in real science. This book is the only way you can hope to learn about them and stay awake. I loved this book!!

This book provides a fun look at the science of what *could* be, as well as a look at the occasionally eccentric people who don't just dream about the possibilities--they take'em on. While some of the ideas covered here are admittedly "out there", the presentation style, in my opinion, is sarcastic enough to show skepticism without being out-and-out judgemental, which I appreciated. Prepare to be surprised at what some folks are trying to do right now (er..."now" being when the book was written, so heaven only knows *what* they're up to as of 2001)--but I'd say this one is for the optimists, excited by, not afraid of, what the future will hold.

....[Regis is] trying to say that science doesn't have to be stuffy, regimented and boring. He is saying that science can be done at home, in the back yard, by anybody. It doesn't have to be done by some international mega-corporation, or a bloated government agency. But most of all, he is saying that the science we understand now doesn't say that the universe is predictable and straightforward. Rather, Regis points out that the universe is a weird place, much weirder than most people realize, and it is only going to get weirder and weirder.

Regis clearly likes to poke a little fun at some of the characters he writes about, but I get the strong impression that he admires these people more than the ivory tower variety of professors and scientists who wouldn't know a revolutionary new idea if it hit them over the head. He shows a great respect for these people, and makes the reader wish he had personally witnessed the events described.

And not all of the science described in the book is as far-fetched as some reviewers would have you believe. If you've been asleep for the past couple of years, you might not have heard how the US government budgeted $500 million for nanotechnology research in 2000, or how Japan has matched or even exceeded that amount. If you haven't read K. Eric Drexler's excellent introduction to nanotech "Engines of Creation", then I don't know how you could comment on the feasibility of such technology. And if you think nanotech doesn't have a solid scientific foundation, then I suggest you try to tackle Drexler's "Nanosystems".

As for the feasibility of back yard rockets, there is no question we will have that technology someday. You know, Orville and Wilbur were just bicycle mechanics before they built the first working airplane. And the first natives to reach Hawaii didn't need a government grant or industry supported technology to help them navigate and cross the Pacific.

Lastly, cryogenics and other attempts to extend human lifespan are looking more and more feasible everyday. If there is one lesson to be learned from science, it is probably "Never say never." You know, the Earth was once flat, and people thought it was sure death to accelerate the human body over 15 miles per hour...

Regis' book is a great starting point for anyone interested in Extropy, Transhumanism, the Singularity, AI, Nanotech, or any other science-based view of our impending weird future.

Although not expertly written, Great Mambo Chicken elicits more active reading than the majority of popular science books on the market. For that reason, Regis's paean to today's "hubristic" scientists ranks among the top-decile of all books that I've read.

I agree with the other readers, however, that Regis's prose leaves something to be desired. The constant repetition of "hubrisitic" (I counted a total of 32 instances of the word) becomes bothersome and the reader may soon question the breadth of the writer's vocabulary.

But that said, the ideas contained in the book are superb and well intertwined. Regis is able to link the following disparate topics into a coherent whole (in order of presentation):

Cryonics, Nanotechnology, Privately Funded Rocket Missions, Extra-planetary Habitation, Transhumanism (the mental uploads and bush robots espoused by Moravec), etc.

I often found myself writing notes on the margins of the book coming up with a my own questions in reponse to the text. Regis's clear enthusiasm and his declaration of the impending Omega Point (the point of mankind's effective omiscience and omnipotence) will be hardy memes that infect the thoughts of many generations of scientists.

Paul Erdos