Customer Reviews

Mondo 2000: A User's Guide to the New Edge : Cyberpunk, Virtual Reality, Wetware, Designer Aphrodisiacs, Artificial Life, Techno-Erotic Paganism, an

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Instead we got Windows 95, AOL users on the Internet, LinkedIn, and the RIAA/MPAA lawsuits. Oh yeah, and this book is still around. It probably looked dated to the folks in the offset printing factory, but it's a fun, colorful, vibrantly funky dated. It's a great read of the late, somewhat lamented, Mondo 2000 crowd.

This book was a very fun find for me, especially as I live in a more rural area and missed a lot of the "Cyberculture" including most of Mondo 2000's run... Oh, well...

I really liked reading from it, and even now it would be worth a look.

If you have read Mondo 2000 before, then nothing in this book will be much of a surprise. In fact in 1998 this book is clearly retro. Still, to the new reader you will find much of the information interesting. The format is basically an A-Z of popular memes and cultural phenomena with a pseudo hypertext interface.
High gloss and flashy. Suitable for a coffee table, but you might want to keep it on your reference shelf.

First off, I hope the seller's name appears linked to this review because they totally misrepresented the condition. It was disgustingly spattered with gawd-knows-what which had to be removed with rubbing alcohol before I could touch it without getting queasy. The corners were dog-eared, actually folded inside for several pages and it had obviously been dropped.

Fortunately this didn't affect the content which was a trippy visit to Bezerkeley during the era when the internet was just beginning, smart drugs, raves, Burroughs, Leary, hacking as a noble endeavor and "that whole scene." It's also amusing to compare the predictions in various articles with the reality today.

... and to a greater extent Mondo 2000 magazine and it's earlier (80s) predecessors High Frontiers and Reality Hackers. The optimism of a utopian future bursts from the pages, the merging of technology and pharmacology to create personal realities where everyone's on God Mode. Why didn't this future of cybervirtualgoodness happen? Fear and greed, my friends. Fear and greed.

A hint of this crazy spirit is still in Wired magazine, but it's not the same. Little less Burning Man meets Lawnmower Man, little more hipster at Starbucks. *shrugs*

M2K: A User's Guide... is a great reference for the 90's cyberpunk culture, and the source material directory is fat enough to get you going in the right direction if you want to fall further down the rabbit hole.

A very 1990 look at the future, but well done withgood graphics. Covers music, fashion, Industry,etc.