Hacking the Future: Stories for the Flesh-Eating 90s (Culturetexts) [Paperback]

Arthur Kroker (Author), Marilouise Kroker (Author)

Book Description

Series: Culturetexts | Publication Date: January 15, 1996

Hacking the Future tells the story of what happens when information technology escapes the high tech labs of Silicon Valley and invades the sites of everyday culture. It includes some of the survival tales of people who just want to feel again in a culture that is numbed and purified. A spoken word CD is included.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Krokers are developing a language to help us navigate this new world." --Kathy Acker

Book Description

Hacking the Future tells the story of what happens when information technology escapes the high tech labs of Silicon Valley and invades the sites of everyday culture. It includes some of the survival tales of people who just want to feel again in a culture that is numbed and purified. A spoken word CD is included.

Product Details

• Paperback: 143 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (January 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312129556
• ISBN-13: 978-0312129552
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,116,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars tour de force, August 9, 2003

By 

Alan Selby (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hacking the Future: Stories for the Flesh-Eating 90s (Culturetexts) (Paperback)

Only in a Canadian peering into the hreat of America's technological abyss has the perspective to see it for what it really is and shall be. Krokers's prose reaches the reader on different levels, all of which require some serious thought. This is a book that sums up a time that many already llok back at fondly and shows its more realistic side. Technology is a facet of the human mind. Kroker explains that we should look carefully at our modern wonders and realize that they are changing the fundamentals of human life in all its facet. Information and technology have no morals. But the impact of those who endure these technological marvels, are serious enough that they should be written of in a proper way. This book is a road map, of the information super highway. As well as possible showing us all, where we may just be heading. A must read for those interested in studying the dizzying future of the post modern man.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Cybertrash, February 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Hacking the Future: Stories for the Flesh-Eating 90s (Culturetexts) (Paperback)

This book is a wonderful example of everything that is wrong with contemporary cultural theory when applied to new technologies. As in his other writings about the Internet and multimedia, Kroker attempts to speak with the accent of the genuine hacker, but his prose betrays a serious ignorance of the subject matter involved.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Intellectual puffery?, November 17, 1999

By 

John Harris Stevenson "tranquileye" (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hacking the Future: Stories for the Flesh-Eating 90s (Culturetexts) (Paperback)

It's true: hard questions need to be asked. Our society's fetishization of technological progress and free markets should be challenged, and the best role for the Krokers and similar critics is poking the hornets' nest and seeing who gets stung.

But there are bigger questions when studying Data Trash, Hacking the Future and the Krokers' other techno-dystopian tomes: does all this jargon and rhetoric actually add up to anything? The Krokers have been great at stirring the pot, but seem to have some fundamental misconceptions about the nature of technology and how, in a practical sense, it is accepted or rejected by people.

Instead of just talking about economic culture and gloabalization, the Krokers wrap everything in hackeresque techno-babble, and instead of driving their points home, all we get is muddle.