Silicon Embrace
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A near-future where technology and ancient spiritual secrets merge into something very strange... something as strange as a silicon embrace. America has suffered ecological breakdown and the Second Civil War. But the balkanization of the U.S.—along with humanity’s secret history and what has really been going on in Area 51 and UFOs for decades—are all part of a startling convergence which will transform humanity... or destroy it.
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Reviews:
“John Shirley has written the best novel of his career. Mature yet youthfully indignant, spiritually insightful yet carnally streetwise, his new book is aboil with ideas and action, full of keen-eyed speculations for the future and daring revisions of history.”—Asimov’s
“Silicon Embrace is at once sly, sad eloquent, gonzo, mystic, surreal, and all-American, mixing the pulpiest Sci-Fi with true literary sophistication. A new gem from John Shirley.—Locus
“Angels and aliens alike figure in this metaphysical SF novel from proto-cyberpunker Shirley, who here throws UFOs, black helicopters, several major biblical figures and spiritual transcendence into the early 21st century... it's clear that the author is having fun tying together disparate UFO, conspiracy and New Age myths; readers will have fun watching him do the tying, too.”—Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Angels and aliens alike figure in this metaphysical SF novel from proto-cyberpunker Shirley (Heatseeker), who here throws UFOs, black helicopters, several major biblical figures and spiritual transcendence into the early 21st century. The U.S. has splintered into warring racial, religious and ethnic enclaves, and the federal government, vainly trying to hold things together, has become enormously repressive. As the novel opens, a public relations man is blackmailed into accepting employment at a secret government installment near Roswell, N.M. There, he discovers that most of the standard UFO myths are in fact true. There's not only a flying saucer at Roswell but a live alien as well, one who loves hot chocolate and cigarettes. And he isn't so much a prisoner as an ambassador. Unbeknownst to the president or congress, secret elements of the U.S. government have been working with the aliens for decades, ostensibly for the betterment of humankind though there are early hints that the aliens, called Zetans, have ulterior motives. Readers soon learn that two separate alien races have visited the Earth. The Zetans are, it seems, in conflict with the Meta, and the PR man has been hired to make the Meta look bad. Fans of politically conservative hard-SF may be turned off by Shirley's stereotypical characterization of the military, his brief and rather nasty send up of two popular right-wing SF writers and his metaphysical climax. But it's clear that the author is having fun tying together disparate UFO, conspiracy and New Age myths; readers will have fun watching him do the tying, too.
