Mixing of already published illustrations and new additions has resulted in a high-quality reference work, a technobible for both beginners and the more advanced. More than anything, this Mondo sample is an explaining dictionary in which techno-babble is clearly and concisely broken down for outsiders. The page layout is a successful execution of the idea of hypertext: beside the main text about various new edge obsessions are background data on the writer, canny definitions and related ideas in color.
Little symbols indicate the Mondo shopping mall, a database with bibliography, (e-mail)addresses and data about software, music and gurus like McLuhan, Burroughs and Leary.
What might one find here?
Under 50 lemmas are explanations of wireheads, famous computer hackers, fringe science, techno-shamanism, robot dance music, the effects of various smart drugs, cryonics, self-replicating assemblers, the nomadness of Steve Roberts, tryptamine hallucinogens, rants, a lexicon of cyberspeak, intelligent effectors and descriptions of promising zines like Boing Boing and Extropy, among other things. This may seem really out there to you now, but by the time you finish reading this book it'll seem quaint to all of us.
(r.u. sirius)