Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

Substance D is not known as Death for nothing. It is the most toxic drug ever to find its way on to the streets of LA. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, causing, first, disorientation and then complete and irreversible brain damage.The undercover narcotics agent who calls himself Bob Arctor is desperate to discover the ultimate source of supply. But to find any kind of lead he has to pose as a user and, inevitably, without realising what is happening, Arctor is soon as addicted as the junkies he works among...

Welcome to the future...where the final war is being waged\
  \
....against war itself. There is such a bounty of wonderful, insightful and important ideas stuffed into this novel that I find myself seriously bummed that weak storytelling and plodding central plot flow marred my enjoyment enough to keep me from awarding this a 4th star. Still, from a component standpoint, this is a collection of gems. THE POLITICS:The Haves:The Alliance, led by the U.S., but including most of what we would consider the elite industrialized nations (e.g., U.K., Japan, France, Germany, Russia) is engaged in a bloody, relentless guerilla/terrorist/revolutionary war against the Ngumi (see Have Nots below). The Alliance's primary weapon is the soldierboy:\
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   All ten people in Julian Class’s platoon had the same basic weapon-- the soldierboy, or Remote Infantry Combat Unit: a huge suit of armor with a ghost in it. For all the weight of its armor, more than half of the RICU’s mass was ammunition. It could fire accurate sniper rounds to the horizon, two ounces of depleted uranium, or at close range it could hose a stream of supersonic flechettes. It had high explosive and incendiary rockets with eyes , a fully automatic grenade launcher, and a high-powered laser. Special units could be fitted with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, but those were only used for reprisal in kind. \
 FYI, the photo above is the frontispiece from my Easton Press copy of the novel so I thought it was the best representation of the RICU. However, before I found that I had already set aside the following pic and so I will go ahead and share rather than waste it because I thought it was pretty cool. \
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Each soldierboy unit is controlled from 1000s of miles away by an engineer who is "jacked-in" to the machine via an advanced neurological link that can not be duplicated or hacked. War as VR video game...*shudder*...is it just me or do you just sense that something like this is right around the corner and it’s only a matter of time.  While jacked, all ten humans in the platoon share each others consciousness, memories and thoughts and Haldeman does a very good job of addressing the issues of gender, sexuality and intimacy that result from such a merging of male and female identities. Another unusual aspect that Haldeman brilliantly employs is that most of the humans “jacked” into the soldierboys are pacifists by nature. They are professors, doctors and scholars who hate what they are required to do and usually attempt to limit loss of life to the enemy...though they still kill boat loads the size of the titanic. The psychological effect of the war on these people is a central part of the story. The Have NotsThe other side of the conflict are the Ngumi: a loose confederation of 54 rebel groups comprised of (1) the majority populations of most of the underdeveloped nations, (2) strong minority factions within Alliance member states and (3) untethered revolutionaries fighting the resource distribution disparity. Not having the resources or the technology (see Societal description below), the Ngumi can't muster anywhere near the firepower of the Alliance. They are more like:\
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They are severely outgunned but highly motivated to the “cause.” This “cause” has nothing to do with ideology, religion or cultural differences, but rather is centered around wealth and the access to resources (specifically, the nano forges discussed below). Again...is it just me or is a version of a have vs haven’t conflict also slouching towards Bethlehem the near future to be born.  While not a central aspect of the conflict, Haldeman does introduce significant racial elements into the plot which I thought he handled well. The majority of the Alliance members are white, the majority of the Ngumi are not. Ironically, the main character, Julian, is African-American and confronts issues of discrimination and prejudice during the course of the novel. THE SOCIETY:The great divide between the Alliance and Ngumi stems from the Alliance’s possession of nano forges.These devices can manufacture just about anything with sand, water and trace chemicals (the exception to this being certain items like nuclear weapons which will still require components like uranium to be included). The nano forges have changed the Alliance into a proto post-scarcity society and the government has been reformed as a socialist state in which people are provided the necessities of life in exchange for 3 years military service. The nano forges allow for construction of all of the soldierboys needed to conduct the war and the only restraint on the numbers in the field are that only a small percentage of the population can successfully undergo the “jacking” procedure. The rest of the population gets to live vicariously through the soliders by turning on CNN and watching 24/7 coverage of laser guided bomb slamming video game-like into far away targets renting edited versions of the mental recordings made by soldierboys in the field. In addition to the central "war story" thread, the book also has another major plot thread involving a scientific experiment being taken on an orbital platform orbiting Jupiter that is designed to provide definitive answers to what happened at the “Big Bang”...if it doesn’t destroy the universe in the process. This story-line intersects with the main plot in a kind of Childhood’s End moment that sets the stage for where humanity goes next as a species. THE ALLEGORIES:If you have clued into it yet, let me say plainly that this novel is absolutely dripping with allegories and eerie parallels to our world. First, the Iraq War with its video game-like conflict shown on TV 24/7 and vicariously experienced (and enjoyed) by civilians safe at home. Second, 9/11 and the War on Terror in which a shocking terrorist attack (claimed by the other side to be the work of the Alliance itself) is used as the justification for a global war against the loose-never-entirely-defined enemy that is everywhere. Given that this book was written in 1997, the prescience of Haldeman’s foreshadowing is scary to the point of AHHHHHHHHHH!!!MY THOUGHTS:This story, while not a sequel to Haldeman’s classic The Forever War, is part of what Haldeman refers to as a triptych (the third piece being 1968 Co which I have not read yet). As Haldeman so eloquently puts it, the three novels define \
  a surface as, in mathematics, three points define a surface. It’s a philisophical surface that everyone of our age has been concerned with all our intellectual lives: the problems of war and pacifism...Why has any of this happened?\
.There are important matters being examined here and SF fans interested in these issues should check this out. There is much to make your brain swoon. The world that Haldeman envisions is fascinating. It’s both hopeful and yet extremely troubling. The obvious parallels to current events adds an even greater degree of hair-raising to the narrative. His ability to idea generate in impressive. His story-telling, in this instance, not so impressive. I am a fan of Haldeman and generally enjoy his plot deliveries. However, in this case, I found it merely okay and was periodically disengaged from the story by bouts of boredom with the scene choices or impatience with the pacing between events. It wasn’t horrible, but it was weaker than I would have liked and it decreased my enjoyment of a story that had oodles going for it. The worst flaw in my opinion was the poor characterization. While not caricatures, the players were too wooden and lifeless for me to engage with to any significant degree. This will usually kill a story for me as it makes scenes appear to go on for much longer than they actually do. When you don’t care what happens to person A, than person A talking about a bad thing happening doesn’t exactly keep you riveted to the page. This lack of character connection is even more troubling in this story because this novel is, at its core, a psychological examination of the human species and its propensity for aggression. Much of what occurs is reactive to the stresses placed on the soldiers by the requirement of their job. The reader needs to be able to connect with them and feel their internal struggle. Sadly, I didn’t. I understood it intellectually but was never vested in the personal well-being of the protagonists. As you might guess, this led to a less than enthusiastic reading experience . Despite all of the books story-telling flaws, this is a book I recommend to SF fans and fans of military fiction. There is so much win in the world-building and the ideas peppering the story that it makes the lack of a page-turning plot worth the trouble. Creative...original...important...a bit of a slog. 3 out of 4 isn’t too bad. 3.5 stars. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!Winner: Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction NovelWinner: Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction NovelWinner: John W. Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction NovelNominee: Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel

American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

The terrifyingly prophetic novel of a post-literate future.Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.The classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which, decades on from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.--back cover

Ten tales, from the computer-enhanced hustlers of Johnny Mnemonic to the technofetishist blues of Burning Chrome. Johnny Mnemonic (1981)The Gernsback Continuum (1981)Fragments of a Hologram Rose (1977)The Belonging Kind (1981) with John ShirleyHinterlands (1981)Red Star, Winter Orbit (1983) with Bruce SterlingNew Rose Hotel (1984)The Winter Market (1985)Dogfight (1985) with Michael SwanwickBurning Chrome (1982)

A corporate mercenary wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him, for a mission more dangerous than the one he’s recovering from: to get a defecting chief of R&amp;D—and the biochip he’s perfected—out intact. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties—some of whom aren’t remotely human...

The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through military ranks. Pvt. Mandella is willing to do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries.

It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war — and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.

I could say that I love Dick, but that would be weird. I do very much enjoy Philip K. Dick's writing and though this is not one of his best, the "Pizza and Sex Rule" applies to him; ie. just as even bad pizza and / or sex is still pretty good, bad PKD is as well. And this is not bad at all. The first mistake that a new reader would make is to watch Blade Runner and expect a novelization of that film; it was LOOSELY based upon the book. I'm a big fan of the Ridley Scott film starring Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer, but the movie diverged from Phillip K. Dick's literature early on. The book is far more bleak than the film, if you can believe that, and much more intricate and complicated. Blade Runner benefits from a simplified storyline. The author was far ahead of his time both in the complexity of his story and the perspective from which he writes. There are elements of Brave New World, I, Robot, and Dune; but the author has a unique voice and the story is an original. It is not an excellent work, as there are gaps and inconsistencies and many loose ends that are never tied in, but the concept and provocation are superb.One element of the book that was completely left out of the film was a sub-plot involving a Christ-like messiah and a faith system based upon what could have been a hoax. First published in 1968, this was one of his more theological based novels, and a trend that would continue steadily becoming more frequent and invasive until the end of his writing.A MUST read for PKD fans as well as SF/F fans period.

The historians can’t seem to settle whether to call this one "The Third Space War" (or the fourth), or whether "The First Interstellar War" fits it better. We just call it “The Bug War." Everything up to then and still later were "incidents," "patrols," or "police actions." However, you are just as dead if you buy the farm in an "incident" as you are if you buy it in a declared war...In one of Robert A. Heinlein’s most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe—and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind’s most alarming enemy.

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick AwardsCase was the sharpest data thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.Alternate cover for ISBN: 9780441569595

 Soft Sci - Fi Fiction

book

author

I Remember

1979 American war film directed by Francis Ford Coppola

1987 war drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick

1970 film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner

War Films

When we were young!  Tv and British films from the late 60's to the 90s with a few classics thrown in. 

British TV and Films 

Conspiracy  Political Thriller Films

English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer (1832-1898)

High Fantasy Literature

Exceptional Books

Anarcho Punk UK Music

American rapper, record producer, and businessman (born 1965)

G Funk/Gangsta Hip Hop Old School 

Film Noir

Investment Books I have read. Only includes books that I personally think are particularly useful or interesting, as a lot of them have variations on themes. 