Venusia: A True Story (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) [Paperback]

Mark von von Schlegell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2005

Primitive literacy is redundant. Mere words are expelled. We inaugurate a world of pure presence. The mind, that intrudes itself between ourselves and those memories too terrible to know, must keep us moving beyond the grasp of their claw. To control the flow, it will be necessary that political order be imposed always temporarily. The state shall enjoy direct, creative access to the real.It's the end of the twenty-third century. Earth has violently self-destructed. Venusia, an experimental off-world colony, survives under the enlightened totalitarianism of the Princeps Crittendon regime. Using industrialized narcotics, holographic entertainment, and memory control, Crittendon has turned Venusia into a self-sustaining system of relative historical inertia. But when mild-mannered junk dealer Rogers Collectibles finds a book about early Venusian history, the colony -- once fully immersed in the present -- begins losing its grip on the real. With his Reality-V girlfriend Martha Dobbs, neuroscop operator Sylvia Yang, his midget friend Niftus Norrington, and a sentient plant, Rogers wages a war to alter the shape of spacetime, and in the process, revisions the whole human (and vegetable) condition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

At the end of the twenty-third century, Earth has self-destructed, and the last remnants of humanity survive in a bizarre totalitarian colony on Venus. Rogers Collectibles--his name--is a Venusian antiquities dealer whose tenuous career is kept afloat by serendipitous discoveries that include a rare book detailing Venus' settlement. The tome inexplicably goes missing while Collectibles is preoccupied hallucinating lizardlike authorities. Cajoled by roving virtual media starlet Martha Dobbs into visiting a prominent neuroscop (mind inspector), Collectibles confesses that he hallucinates because he isn't taking his government-sanctioned dose of psychoactive flowers. Unfortunately, the resulting documentary video of Collectibles' session with the neuroscop catches the eyes of diminutive government agent Nifty Norrington, who is charged with blotting the minds of any flower abstainers, and Collectibles' life begins to unravel further. A sentient, interdimensional plant is also in the whimsical cast of this absurdist blending of fantasy and cutting-edge sf that never fails to entertain and proclaims von Schlegell to be a promising new voice in the genre(s). Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"A heady, kaleidoscopic trip into a dystopic future as well as a backward look at the necessities ofthe past." Jackie Cassada Library Journal

"a mind-bending excursion through the plastic neuroscapes of quantum reality." Cheryl Morgan Emerald City

"A psychedelic sampling of high and low literature that reads like the best of the genre.... like a head-on collision between a David Lynch film and a Philip K. Dick novel in the 23rd century." Mike Errico Maxim

"Mark Von Schlegell would be my candidate for the writer/critic of our emerging future." Norman M. Klein, author of The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Semiotext(e) (August 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584350261
• ISBN-13: 978-1584350262
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,261,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars William Blake meets Philip K. Dick, October 29, 2005

By 

Blue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Venusia: A True Story (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) (Paperback)

Venusia is the first book I've ever read that takes time travel to its logical conclusions, where the coming undone of the fabric of reality is not just a threat but a given from the first page. It is the most complicated narrative meditation on reality and the imagination I expect I will ever encounter. Reading it is something like walking through one of Salvador Dali's paintings after another.

It takes place in a post-literate society where daily flower feedings are mandated by law and scanner helmets allow both doctors and police to enter people's minds and alter them. Its unlikely hero is an antiquities dealer on the verge of the biggest deal of his career who finds himself falling in love with a reality-TV journalist.

This book is fully realized, completely original, deeply plotted and compulsively readable. I would recommend it to anyone who liked Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or the Hitchhiker's Guide.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovers of psy-fi, REJOICE!, April 11, 2006

By 

A. Alexander "Learn ESP" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Venusia: A True Story (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) (Paperback)

Forget cyber punk, nano-tech, and that tired victorian future...whatever. Venusia is hard core! A story that can't be condensed and described, you have to experience it. This is truly a messed up pyschedelic trip through speculative fiction, a post modern rollercoaster ride that never feels academic. The thrills of six flags combined with the fantasy and attention to detail of old school disneyland all in a portable, easy to carry, compressed universe called a book. Do you love PKD and Delany? Do you crave dense, mind expanding, tongue twisting, mushroom chewing meditations on the limits of the imagination? Then this is your thang. Dr. Bloodmoney meets Palmer Eldritch meets Dreams in the Witch House meets Perdido Street Station meets the Secret Life of Plants. Yeah, I said it, The Secret Life of Plants. Don't be fooled by the high falutin publisher and the text-book like cover, this is pulp at its best.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TRUDI, January 30, 2006

By 

TRUDI "TRUDI" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Venusia: A True Story (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) (Paperback)

Von Schlegell provides a context for some of the deepest tryps I've ever taken. A good place to reflect on all those things that we should be asking but don't. Don't be a busy dude, let it take you on that tryp.