“Pornorobots and video games that kill” — I’m pretty sure that’s just the Internet.
So here’s one of those books that’s been sitting on my shelves at home for about three decades now:
I bought it from the local Waldenbooks (R.I.P.), having spotted this blurb on its cover:
…since I was totally in the bag for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and certainly in the market for something similar to read.
From what I can recollect via my vague, age-addled memories of the actual experience of reading the book, it wasn’t quite the madcap zaniness I was primed to expect from the Hitchhiker’s Guide comparison. My sense was that it was certainly a denser book, packed with more information and detail than the casual experience of the Douglas Adams oeuvre, and maybe one I wasn’t quite just ready to experience yet.
Here’s the back cover, to show you what I was up against:
Well, if Coast to Coast AM regular Whitley Streiber liked it, certainly I should give it another go. In fact, I keep meaning to. Every once in a while, I’ll glance at its spine on my bookshelf, and always the quiet half-formed thought “I should reread that” flashes through my brain for the split-second the title registers with me. It used to be that I’d reread books on a fairly regular basis, but now I have a lot more books (and comics!) and more new ones arriving on a regular basis, revisiting old tomes is a luxury I just don’t have much time for. But Terra is different, mostly because I suspect my desire for another Hitchhiker’s may have colored my initial reading, and I want to give it a fairer shake than I did.
And even if I never get around to reading it again, at least I have that peculiar cover to enjoy.
That back cover reminds me of the trade dress on recent editions of Philip K. Dick books.
And combining “madcap” with Philip K. Dick seems to fit the description.
Wow. I could’ve written this post exactly (though I don’t remember if I got it at Waldenbooks…)
(Ok, and I’m not sure I can still find my copy.)
Same here. Exact same. Bought it because of the blurb, tried multiple times to read, never did. Eventually got rid of it.
I’m trying to figure out how I missed that book myself, given I spent most of my formative years hanging out in either a video game arcade or a Waldenbooks. I would have fallen for that blurb too.
I got suckered in to buying this book – http://www.amazon.com/Mallworld-Somtow-Sucharitkul/dp/0812555139 – at a Waldenbooks for exactly the same reason. The 80s should have ushered in a law banning the phrase “since the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”.
Bless you, Mike. I remember seeing this once at a used book shop when I was a teenager and not buying it. I am just thrilled to know I didn’t dream its existence.