Simon Gibbs has a review of Clive Fox’s cute quick techno-thriller ‘First Hook‘, which has launched today.
The series is modelled on shows like the A-team, but produced natively for consumption in written form as a serial short story. Much as Bleak House was originally published by Charles Dickens as a regular newspaper feature this punchy little story will be added to over time in the way that a TV show is added to with a new episode broadcast each week, except that future episodes are not yet all written. As such it borrows something of the currency of a soap opera, able to evolve and adapt constantly, but is firmly in the sci-fi category. This is an interesting and novel form of written fiction.
Anyone questioning why a lightweight techno thriller should be reviewed on Samizdata would do well to read Brian Micklethwait’s summary of The Power of Fiction, a talk given by former City AM managing editor Marc Sidwell. Anyone wondering what on Earth they might do about it, finding themselves unable to write fiction of their own should read the thoughts of Richard Gleaves, author of Ride Headless and Ride (itself reviewed on Libertarian Home).
So anyway, here is the Amazon review. You can buy it, read it and write your own review on Amazon:
Clive Fox is making an important contribution at a critical time.
When business paper The Financial Times offers advice to tech CEOs it is to warn them of their waning popularity and their “responsibilities”. Tech giants in California bring fantastic wealth to the area, and amazing technology to mankind, only to be slammed for the crime of gentrifying impoverished San Francisco – their staff hounded on company minibuses. Those companies branch out to the UK bringing us world changing products and brilliant new services, only to be pumped for more cash. Modern society fails to appreciate the source of it’s modernity.
Aftermath clearly know all about the problems of modern – and future – technology. Yet they have the balls to value it, master it, become one with it, and when necessary to beat it. The resulting tensions and dramas are evident in this first outing. I am thirsty for the next instalment.
– Simon Gibbs
And the tech companies react to leftist attacks by supporting leftist causes – partly to try and get the left to stop attacking them, but also partly because many tech company people internalised leftist ideas at school and university.
It does not work – the left still want to exterminate the high tech capitalists, regardless of how leftist the tech company people are.
Places such as San Francisco or Seattle (Amazon please note) just do not want “capitalist big business”, they prefer the stone age. They would hate 18th and 19th century “big business” as well.
The logic of the policy followed by “Progressives” leads to cannibalism – it leads to a population unable to support itself economically, and people turning on each other for food. Not today or tomorrow – but eventually.