Little Heroes

by Norman Spinrad

In the near future Glorianna O'Toole is assigned to a project to create a computerized rock star, but members of the Reality Liberation Front have their own plans for the projects

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Music, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fantasy, Novels

486 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Born in New York in 1940, Norman Spinrad is an acclaimed SF writer.

Norman Spinrad, born in New York City, is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science. In 1957 he entered City College of New York and graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Science degree as a pre-law major. In 1966 he moved to San Francisco, then to Los Angeles, and now lives in Paris. He married fellow novelist N. Lee Wood in 1990; they divorced in 2005. They had no children. Spinrad served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) from 1980 to 1982 and again from 2001 to 2002.

Reviews

[Bren fall in love with the sea. · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You make more of me..I'll make more of you.."

Norman Spinrad-Little Heroes.


It is a world without limits. Plug in and become the person you always wanted to be.

It is a world without genuine living Rock stars. They have long been replaced. Holograms and computers are so much easier to manage.

It is a world without soul.

Little Heroes.

My first reaction to this book, which I read so long ago, was awe. I felt awe that ANYONE could write like this!

Bear in mind that Dystopian was not even a genre back then.

Little Heroes is primarily about music. Rock Music. And, in my humble opinion, it maybe THE BEST BOOK ABOUT ROCK-N-ROLL EVER MADE!

It tells the story of Sally, Bobby, Karen,Paco, Gloriana and the REALITY LIBERATION FRONT.

What is so odd is how eerie it is reading this book now. Because, unlike many books of this genre, some of Little Heroes actually came true.

It is an incredible read. And amazingly sooo way ahead of its time.

Little Heroes could have been about today's time period..although it is a pretty old book. There is so much it got right and so much about society that turned out to be true.

The characters will move you. They will make you smile and chuckle.

I liked all the main characters..Sally..well.. she is impossible not to feel for. I wanted to give her a hug through most of the book. Sally is a wanna be rock chick who is madly in love with Bobby but literally lacking any esteem what so ever. She is not beautiful and and is convinced beauty is all that matters. She is also self conscious about her weight. Very self conscious. Read on to discover how "Cyburg sally" is born.

Bobby. Well..Bobby is a wimp. He too is obsessed..he is obsessed with rock groupies and the ladies of music..I am sure he is obsessed with "Layla" because in Bobby's world..if it is beautiful, likes Rock-N-roll and moves..he wants to nail it. Bobby is aware of Sally's feelings for him but does not feel the same way. Indeed, she repulses him.

Or does she?

Karen and Paco and the members of the Reality Liberation front. I will not say a word more about THIS cast of colorful characters. You will just have to read about them.


But I will speak about Gloriana. Oh, the wild , wacky and wonderful Gloriana, Gloriana is the greatest fuckin rock-n-roll singer in the world!


I first read this way way back. It was a favorite then and it still is.

Not a fast moving story. The truth is it is long, gritty and slow moving. It is wordy and fun and scary and tender. There is alot to get through but it is worth it.


Great writing, great characters, great pace, great world building and some really great fun. Highly recommended.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in September 2001.

In popular music, there has always been an uneasy alliance between the commercial and the artistic and, since rock'n'roll began, the rebellious attitude integral to its success. Little Heroes depicts a future where Muzik Inc. controls just about all pop music - it is a company based at least in part on MTV - and aims to take away entirely the difficult to control human artist from the discs they sell. Spinrad's vision looks as though it could still easily come to pass, with today's charts full of an endless succession of seemingly identical boy bands.

But Muzik Inc.'s sales are slipping, and the record company executives realise that something is missing. They call in Gloriana O'Toole, known as the Grand Old Lady of Rock'n'Roll; she is a last survivor of the sixties, who knew and partied with all the big stars. Though she despises Muzik Inc., they blackmail her into making a disc, but she despairs at the talent she is given to work with. Bobby Rubin and Sally Geraro may make some of Muzik Inc.'s most successful recordings, but they are computer nerds rather than rockers.

Little Heroes succeeds because it is extremely well written. The main characters are believable individuals, the situations they end up in have an interesting if pessimistic background that makes sense, and Spinrad uses the feelings that many fans have about the agenda of the music industry to give the novel a message.

The problem that the industry has when trying to sell music is that people tend to look for some indefinable quality, which for want of a better word might be termed "soul". Image can be created, but a performer may only have soul intermittently. It is possible to argue that Spinrad's vision will never come about, that there will always be a market for artists which are not just about image, or the current trend (the success of Bjork and Radiohead could be cited as cases in point). Personally, I would say that the mainstream of popular music is pretty much dead in the way that Spinrad describes, but that there will always be people who want to make music for its own sake and not for the money, and that this is where soul is likely to come in.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Otra forma de hacer género.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. Glorianna O´Toole es una madura cantante de Rock sin ningún gran éxito tras cuarenta años en la industria y que aunque odia a Muzik, Inc. y a todo lo que representa acepta una entrevista con su presidente y terminará aceptando también la oferta para dirigir el diseño y creación de una nueva superestrella musical, proyecto en el que también trabajará Bobby Rubin, músico electrónico de estudio, y Sally Genaro, intérprete de VoxBox. Paco Monaco es un joven que sobrevive en las calles alternando labores de chapero con atracos menores y es un gran fan de Mucho Muchacho, una de las estrellas de Muzik. Cuando prueba la nueva droga electrónica llamada Zap, todo empezará a cambiar. Karen Gold es una licenciada en informática que ha luchado mucho por medrar pero a la que las circunstancias están poniendo muchas trabas y que acabará entrando en contacto con el Frente de Liberación de la Realidad.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written well before anyone had ever heard of MTV, cyberspace, designer drugs, virtual reality, or CGI this is a rowdy, raucous, raunchy, rebellious tale that is both a great read and great social commentary.

[Razvan Nicolaie · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Tu madre tambien."

[Ignacio · Rating 2 out of 5]

El primer tercio de esta novela me ilusionó. Leída con más de tres décadas respecto a su escritura, esa mezcla ochentera de corporaciones musicales, estética MTV, mundillo discotequero, cultura phreak/hacker y barrios arrasados por las drogas tiene encanto. Más bajo la óptica cyberpunk tan de la época y la retórica lenguaraz, sarcástica, supercínica de Spinrad al que quizás la traducción, estando bien, no termina de hacer justicia. Sin embargo Pequeños héroes petardea y termina estrellándose contra el hecho de que mantener una sátira durante 600 páginas es una tarea titánica. Más cuando después de las primeras 150 páginas la narración se repite, y se estira, lo indecible. Ofrece buenos momentos y otros que te invitan leer en diagonal. Demasiados.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Spinrad rants long and wordily at points, but the underlying energy and plot carries you past the problems. Unlike some of his other works (Bug Jack Baron, I'm looking at you), Little Heroes has aged well. This was a really fun read, and with the whole issue of DRM and rights management, its sentiments remain remarkably applicable today. The spirit of rock and roll is alive and well, despite the machinations of the pinheads upstairs.

[Fastnbulbous · Rating 5 out of 5]

The economy is a disaster, the soul of rock 'n' roll has been sucked dry by corporate behemoths, and cheap wire-net shunts have replaced drugs for the latest fix, except that wireheads suffer negative affects worse than LSD and crack. We learn that this soulless landscape is approximately the late 2010s, given the age of character Gloriana O'Toole, The Crazy Old Lady of Rock 'n' Roll who haunted the 60s psychedelic scene and remained, if not a star, a survivor in the changing landscape. Four other main characters -- Puerto Rican street thug Paco, shallow Rutgers grad Karen who feels the only way to fulfill her dream to live in Manhattan is to pick up some rich asshole at one of the exclusive NY clubs, and Bobby and Sally, two talented tech nerds hired to assist Gloriana in creating the next big AI superstar to revive a failing music label -- are all distinctly unlikable in the beginning of the book. Bobby is particularly excretable, an uptight nerd with a shockingly vicious streak of misogyny. He would have become an incel for sure IRL. How will all these garbage people go through the necessary character arcs? To my dismay, it would take 727 pages.

What I thought would be a compact, quick, dirty 'n' rockin' read, became an elongated, profoundly filthy odyssey with some aspects of cyberpunk, but plenty of socioeconomic and political commentary too. Some new wizard wire has entered the black market that seems to have more inspiring effects on the users without the negative side effects of the old gear. As most of the characters jack in with increasing frequency, it seems to spark an evolution in creativity, personal growth, and possibly even anarchist revolution in the hands of the Reality Liberation Front.

Norman Spinrad is one of the true mavericks of the New Wave of speculative fiction, hanging ten on loads of controversy sparked by books like Bug Jack Barron (1969) and The Iron Dream (1972). While a more ballsy editor could have easily tightened this book up, I was not disappointed, as it successfully paid homage to both revolutionary 60s spirit and cybernetic wares. RIYL William Gibson's Idoru, Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, and Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius.

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I wanted to read something that combined proto-cyberpunk ideas with the music business. I also like the countercultural/revolutionary vibe of Mr. Spinrad's works.

These ideas are interesting and carried out pretty well in this book. The wearable technology that combines reality with a "dreamtime-induced" VR is pretty cool and innovative for a 1987 novel.

However, this book has two major downfalls which led me to write this review.

1) He uses the N-word. A lot. It made me cringe and feel shame every time I read it and I found it completely unnecessary and distracting.

2) The treatment of one of the main female characters in the novel is so degrading it was a constant source of more hard-to-stomach reading.

It's true Norman Spinrad can write well. I've read numerous books by him and they've all been enjoyable and engrossing.

Little Heroes is a decent story with themes that are captivating and were ahead of their time, but if you think either of my points will make this book uncomfortable for you, I suggest you look elsewhere.

[rndgmoat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tl;DR: The most boomer-y of new wave sci fi books, this is a long read that isn't totally worth it.

Prior to picking up a paperback copy of this one from a neglected and dusty table at a book store not usually known for its genre offerings, I was completely unfamiliar with Spinrad. Sure, the name rang a bell, but I had not yet been given an opportunity to dive into what I now know to be an intriguing body of work. Anyway, my interest was piqued. A cyberpunk novel about rock and roll? Sure, sign me up.

Sprinrad's novel takes place in a convincing near-future, where income inequality and corporate dominance have taken their toll. NYC is rigidly partitioned into three tiers. There's the areas of the city occupied by the "plushie-tushies" or the uber wealthy, who mostly run things. (Spinrad's imagined vision of NY, incidentally, is right on the money--one of many correct predictions in this dystopian work). Then there's the "zonies." To call them middle class isn't exactly right--these are professionals with (some) wealth and privilege. They are the lawyers, computer programmers, etc, who serve this capitalist dystopia and make it run. While they still occupy a precarious position in the book's economy, they do ok. Zonies are so-named because they live in "zones" or neighborhoods patrolled by uzi-toting private security. Weekends are spent at fancy nightclubs, snorting designer "dust" and partying to the products of Muzik Inc., the media conglomerate which has conquered the landscape and controls the airwaves. Finally, there's the streeties--the ragged underclass and majority population, a group that subsists on government-provided human "kibble" and is prone to "wire" addiction, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, jacking into wires that give the user a high or a psychedelic experience.

Spinrad's novel then uses a broad cast of characters to explore this convincingly-rendered setting, which as a sci fi novelist, is probably his major concern. There's Karen Gold, a zonie whose suddenly precarious financial situation leads her into the arms of the Reality Liberation Front, a group of anarchist revolutionary hackers who seek to free the masses from "official" reality. We also have Paco, a Puerto Rican streetie whose path intersects with Karen and who is given a chance to be something bigger than a "crash and grab" artist. Then there's the LA group, centered around Muzik Inc. Glorianna is an ex-rocker who still remembers what it was like before the suits took it all over. She's assigned to work with two young tech wizards--Bobby and Sally--on a project making the first ever "AP" (or in our parlance, "AI") rock star. Their work, however, ends up having broader ramifications once their products break free from the digital ether and enter the jacked-in consciousness of the population.

Also central to this novel is a prominent piece of sci fi tech, a new piece of "wire" that spreads throughout the population and has potentially revolutionary implications. A headset that jacks into the dream centers and allows people to walk through a waking dream--to alter their surroundings into a dreamscape while still interacting with "normal" reality, that is--this "wire" is a massive part of the overall plot and another convincing and well-crafted piece of sci-fi mumbo-jumbo. All of these threads intertwine, as various forces fight to break free from a corporate-managed reality and toward an authentically human future.

If you are reading this and thinking, wow, that's a lot of moving pieces, you would be right--it is. It is also a LONG book. Seriously, my copy is almost 600 pages long. 600 pages! In my world, you gotta earn that kind of commitment; this book is equivalent to three or four others I didn't get to read in the exchange. So is it worth it? Sadly, no--it's just too long and too tedious at times.

Don't get me wrong--the outline of this book makes it sound awesome. And there are some vast swaths where you are absolutely convinced you are reading a work of genius. But there's also a lot of slogging. Also too many male-gazey sex scenes, way too many songs, and one too many wire-induced hallucinations for me. And, while I appreciated the way the book made me think about the philosophy of classic rock in a different way--and convinced me there is virtue to trying to rehear these over-licensed works with fresh ears as a means of appreciating the way that they speak to a liberating humanist philosophy-it is a little hard not to see this late 80s work by a major writer of the 60s and 70s as a boomer rant about how its all gone to shit now that the kids are all jacked into MTV.

This boomer POV is also regrettably present in the many sex scenes, which show how the sex=liberation mythos of the 1960s could often function as a cover for male sexual entitlement (see also, groupiedom). It's a very male adolescent fantasy, including a scene where Karen is almost gang-raped. She's saved by Paco, panties still around her knees, whose first thought is to rape her himself. Instead, his heart melts for the damsel in distress (he's "flashing" on wire) and she rewards him with a consensual and highly pornographic encounter. Yep.

Then there's also the completely unlikable nerd stereotypes of Bobby and Sally, including constant references on every page to how fat and unfuckable Sally is. She comes in for a lot of misogynistic abuse by Bobby as well as, frankly, the author. Thus, while the overriding message of the book--a message of hope and humanism against technocratic capitalism--is timely and almost kind of moving, these elements of the novel soured it for me.

So, overall, I give this one three stars because of the intellectual elements--its future predictions and critiques of a neoliberal world that, at the time of the book's writing, was still plausibly capable of being derailed--but can't rate it higher given the above-listed issues as well as, frankly, the fact that it was too damn long and too damn slow.

[Desiree · Rating 4 out of 5]

If by some strange chance this book turns into a movie, it needs to be made by the same people who did Strange Days and Baz Luhrman. Even through words, this book is very visual and focused around music. It totally needs to be a glam rock musical. Even though it was drudging at certain parts, and Spinrad can get wordy, the characters, the setting and the story itself kept me invested. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a lot of interesting concepts about the future of technology, copyright and artistic production (even though the book itself came out in the 80's and takes place in our current time...)

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

„Slimy Mary’s” ocupa subsolul a ceea ce părea a fi o clădire demult renovată, pe Strada 3 în josul lui Avenue D. Umbla vorba că Dojo şi amicii săi aveau „vrăjitori” de bobină captivi, acolo sus, în întuneric, în spatele ferestrelor bătute în scânduri, conectaţi în permanenţă la produsul lor, şi fabricând întruna marfă numai pentru a-şi asigura porţia zilnică de drog.

Acolo sus, cei cu creierii arşi o luau razna, băiete, şi cine era prea curios o putea sfârşi la fel.

Localul era o oază pe placul golanilor, ca multe altele, înghesuite în subsoluri, sub clădiri în ruină, fără a fi vizibile din stradă, şi obţinând marfă de la indivizi pe care copoii erau mânjiţi să nu-i bage în seamă.

Coborând câteva trepte metalice, se trezi deodată în altă lume, acolo unde se simţea cel mai în largul lui.

Numai ringul de dans era luminat difuz, cu becuri roşii, albe şi albastre, sclipind când şi când din tavanul acoperit cu folie de aluminiu, într-o desfăşurare haotică. Pe trei părţi ringul era împrejmuit de o zonă întunecată, cu saltele vechi şi murdare, lăzi goale, sofale şchioape cu tapiţeria jerpelită, unde era tolănită clientela – conectată, excitată, agitându-se, drogându-se. Zidurile pivniţei imense erau undeva acolo, în întunericul mucegăit, departe de lumină, acolo unde se consumau futaiul şi tranzacţiile, acolo unde cei care nu suportau lumina împărţeau umbrele cu gândacii şi cu şobolanii.

La ora aia erau vreo duzină de inşi pe ring, dansând după muzica lor proprie, dar mişcându-se cu toţii în ritmul discului max metal al lui Lady Leather, proiectat pe ecranul din spatele lor.

Sus pe ecran, Lady Leather, purtând cizme cu pinteni şi un costum de piele strâns pe trup, de la gât până la genunchi, lovea ritmic cu cele două bice lungi, mârâind, scuipând şi călcând, ca un soldat dement, pe un covor de trupuri roz, contorsionate, în timp ce pe fundal un prim plan imens al feţei ei rostea versurile ca într-un extaz fericit al unui orgasm fără de sfârşit.

[Ietrio · Rating 4 out of 5]

2022-12-16:

I remember the translation being readable. And the book was hidden because it was labeled 18+. So it was interesting. And disappointing, as the sex was scarce, and the substance abuse still means nothing to me.

Which is a good point. The substance abuse part. Right. Write in a novel about junkies, and the kids will start shooting up heroin. Because that's how stupid they are. They need someone. A reject like the anti-drug campaigners to rule their lives. And filter the information. So they could get a fair chance to become just like the campaigner: a petty little piece of shit, who can't control their own petty shitty lives, so they would need to control other people's lives. Preferably someone who can't fight back. So noble. Preferably a minor. So heroic!

I was surprised. This is not rated one of Spinrad's best. And I don't care about the descriptions. Yet, page after page, I kept reading about this woman's life and items. The guy is good. I don't care, yet I keep reading. This doesn't happen often.

I am intrigued by the context. Given the past experience of the character, the action happens before 2022. Probably even before 1990s. And so far everything seems normal. But I recall the translation I have read ages ago implied some special drugs, and some mesh one had to put over the head. Nothing like my past.

[Michele Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Norman, Norman, Norman... sigh.
I probably had too high hopes for this one, just because it was written around the same time as my two favorite books: Child of Fortune and Songs from the Stars. And you can see some hints and echoes of those great works ("true blue!"), plus really early insight into current issues around music, drugs, cyber*, and class -- but overall this has aged even worse than Bug Jack or Pictures.

I know it was a different time but literally referring to women as "sex objects" and having a major plot point be how gross and disgusting a female artist is (literally referred to over and over and over again as "the Pimple") is tiresome and distracting. Not to mention the constant barrage of derogatory racial slurs. Again "different times" but, again, really repetitive and adds nothing to what was already an unwieldy long story.

With a hard edit this would have been a rockin' novella but, as it is, it just couldn't boogie its way through too much repetition, meandering, and exposition.

[SciFi Pinay · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...this is the most advanced technological civilization the world has ever known, right? ...Then why are people's lives more f*cked up than they were twenty years ago? ...Didn't you do what you were told you were supposed to do? Didn't you play by the rules? ...And what have we all gotten by fulfilling our end of the social contract? ...F*cked." ("¡Ch*ngada!")

No really, this is so much fun! I've never before read a book wherein I've rooted for every single main character -- all flawed antiheroes -- as they navigate through sex, drugs, rock and roll, and cyber-reality in this irreverent cyberpunk scifi to make the most of everyone's "ghosts in their personal machines" whether they hate or love each other (or themselves). Everyone is so relatable, because everyone is screwed up in a hilarious way 😆

Which is better, the Official Reality or the escapist augmented reality that the Zap and Artificial Personality rockstars (prescient!) provide, or something in between? A laugh-out-loud page turner and highly recommended, especially for those who feel disenfranchised!

[John Defrog: global citizen, local gadfly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Spinrad’s big Rock’n’Roll Cyberpunk novel, and there’s a lot to love here. At the heart of it is a critique of the corporate music industry, the similarities between rock and computer hacking, and the role of sex and drugs as empowerment. It’s interesting that Spinrad suggests that when average people use technology to make and share their own music, the music industry will respond by co-opting it so that they can control it – which actually happened in reality, although not before the industry tried to ban the technology altogether, which has long since been judged as a major mistake. Anyway, Spinrad nailed it pretty well, although he tends to loop his prose to the point where it gets repetitive after awhile. And while there’s an insane amount of sex in it, the bright side is I no longer worry about the amount of explicit sex I’ve been stuffing into my current novel project. Clearly I’m not trying.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The future of sex and drugs and rock & roll is the topic of discussion here. Despite a typically gritty and powerful effort from Mr. Spinrad it became somewhat repetitive toward the middle of the book and the final scene was disappointing. It is also somewhat dated by references to modems, rather than an internet, but the quality of the writing allowed that point to slide by in my opinion.

The book seemed to be somewhat limited in scope as well, with the whole world of the characters somewhat obsessed with sex and drugs and rock & roll.

[Andrei Mocuţa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spinrad nu e pe treaba lui! Way ahead of his time. Pentru o carte scrisă în 87, anticipează pretty accurate evoluția industriei muzicale și o duce mult, mult dincolo de convenții. Dacă și-ar fi luat scriitura mai în serios, putea deveni un autor de prim raft, așa însă e un autor foarte bun din zona B. (3,4 / 5)

[Ernest Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Norman Spinrad's reaction to cyberpunk, does for rock & music rebellion vs. corporatization what BUG JACK BARRON did for media-fried politics. All from the post-counterculture/pre-World Wide Web era. And there's a Puerto Rican playing a major role. Recommended reading for all you fed-up-with-it-all wannabe rebels out there.

[DOUGLAS J BERRY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Turgid

over seven hundred pages of material. It's grunge before grunge was grunge. It's Cyber punk. It's a romance novel. It's a rock and roll tribute. It depicts a battle between the sexes.

[Dana Cameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, fun near-future rock-and-roll cyberpunk, but over-long/over-wrought plot.

[Xabi1990 · Rating 1 out of 5]

2/10. Media de los 11 libros leídos del autor : 4/10

La nota lo dice todo, ¿no? De lo poco que he leído de este señor sólo salvo "Agente del Caos", divertida pero no para tirar cohetes.

[Alexander Theofanidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

We used to read Spirad even if he published his shopping list. This is one of his best novels.

[L.A. Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF I must be a prude. This probably was a good book when it was published, but now? It does not stand the test of time.

[Nicolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

C’est pas tous les jours qu’on a l’occasion de lire un bouquin aussi manifestement né sous le signe du rock’n’roll. Et celui-ci est le rock fait SF.
Il raconte en effet comment une société de production musicale crée des stars virtuelles pour encaisser un maximum d’oseille, en utilisant au passage tous les moyens de la technique pour "optimiser" l’impact de ses chansons. Et comment, en introduisant dans cette belle mécanique un peu d’humanité, ou de "soul", toute cette belle mécanique va leur péter à la figure en arrosant bien large. Pas la peine d’aller plus loin avec l’histoire, parce que chez Spinrad, elle est somme toute moins importante que l’univers et l’ambiance créée pour le récit. Et l’ambiance de l’industrie de la musique(1) qu’il décrit est tout à fait jubilatoire par ses excès, mais aussi par le côté visionnaire que ce bouquin a eu en décrivant très exactement l’organisation que peut avoir une boîte comme Universal music. Mais ça n’est pas tout, car des inventions comme l’orgue permettant de composer tout le morceau me rappellent clairement des applications comme GarageBand ou Guitar Pro. Dans le même ordre d’idée, les clips entièrement réalisés en images de synthèses ne m’étonnent que par leur côté visionnaire.
Enfin, la construction de stars et leur lancement sur le marché, ainsi que les personnes ainsi mises en avant, ne peuvent que me rappeler cette Star’Ac à peine finissante qui a couronné, par un curieux phénomène de synchronicité, une chanteuse aux formes plus que généreuses (2) Bref, le contenu est plus que génial, avec également une société sclérosée en castes séparées par les frontières d’un habitat aux loyers immodérés. Malheureusement, les 5 ou 600 pages en contiennent à mon avis 200 de trop. Parce qu’après tout, le rock, c’est une musique percutante, rapide, et qui n’est pas faite pour durer des heures. Or c’est malheureusement le cas ici, et le récit de Spinrad s’enlise dans des péripéthies sans fin qui n’aident ni le lecteur, ni l’histoire. C’en était à un point tel que, bien des fois, j’ai failli refermer le bouquin avant la fin. Heureusement, mon éthique de lecteur m’interdisait de tels actes; Et c’est épuisé comme par un woodstock littéraire que j’ai arrêté cette lecture qui part sur de très bonnes bases avant de s’enliser dans sa propre masse.

(1) Un terme qu’il aurait dû inventer
(2) Pour lesquelles la description faite dans Masquarade convient tout à fait : "un caractère en or … et quels beaux cheveux !".

[Radu Harabula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Transformarea entertainment-ului de către sintetizatoare, calculatoare și de noile generații de Mogi și de DJei

Daca în Capsati-l pe Jack Barron era vorba de mass media și de cum poate fi ea folosita ca arma de manipulare și de luptat cu inamicii politici sau economici, aici e vorba de industria spectacolului, de cea muzicala în speța ... alienarea muzicii, a rockului, nu mai avem soliști și trupe, totul e sintetizat pe computer, audio și video

Foști hipioti și roacheri trecuți bine de prima tinerețe, poate și de a doua, fata în fata cu noua garda a afacerilor de entertainment. Droguri, prostituție și multe AP adică asa-zișii artiști făcuți din sintetizatoare dar care par sa nu aibă scânteia creației adevărate, scânteia aia care conține și un pic de nebunie.
Creație vs tehnica, iar creația în rock and roll a fost de multe ori mana în mana cu prafurile, cu LSDul, cu iarba...
Droguri electronice, droguri-droguri, traficanți și drogați, artiști și aspiranți.

Si un tehnician de sunet (o ea) și un tehnician video (un el), amândoi abia ieșiți din adolescenta împreuna cu o fosta glorie a rockului (sau, ma rog, aproape glorie) anilor 60-70 crează din butoane și din sintetizatoare Mașinăria rock and roll, Red Jack.

Lumea digitala, revoluția digitala, totul digital, e un fel de cyberpunk în entertainment cu vedete rock născute din realitatea virtuala, cu Frontul de Eliberare a Realității care realizează și distribuie viruși care sa dea peste cap realitatea și viata nashpa din jur

continuarea pe ... si vreme(a) e ca sa citim

[C. A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Currently re-reading.

"Little Heroes" suffers big-time from Spinrad's habit of letting his plot get away from him and romp through fifteen or sixteen chapters while restating the same precepts over and over again. Fortunately, his characterization and dialogue are such that you don't care.

It's the near-future, and the music industry is tanking. They're looking to cut costs and a big one is the overhead for the actual musicians. Obvious answer: eliminate them. The technology is good enough that a perfect human-looking star can be synthesized, but so far they haven't created one with any juice. Enter Gloriana O'Toole, the Crazy Old Lady of Rock and Roll, and the two techno-dweebs they assigned to her, Bobby and Sally. Together -- with the help of some wizard wire that gives them the equivalent of safe and controllable acid trips -- they manufacture a rock and rol star. Problem is, the best rock and roll stars tend to attack authority. Like, say, the music industry...

And, this being a Norman Spinrad novel, that's the smallest part of the plot. There's also Paco and Karen and Larry and the Reality Liberation Front and Dojo and a lot of wheeling and dealing and an uprising of the newly wired drug culture and... there's a lot, and it all mixes together. The characters zoom back and forth into each other and much philosophy, sex, and rock and roll occurs.

I think the book would have been improved greatly with about sixty pages trimmed out, but it still remains one of the ones I reread every few years, and like his other books Spinrads speculative predictions are scary-close.

[Monty Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

So prescient! I remembered it being about (essentially) VTubers as rock stars. I did NOT remember that it also predicted AutoTune and everything else about 21st-century music production.

After all, any voice was just analog input for the vocoder circuitry, so why not her own? So what if her raw voice was harsh and squeaky? She could sing a lead line into the mike as well as any of the beautiful dips they used as fronts for their discs, and once she had an analog input, she could turn it into anything she liked. She could filter it, enhance it, raise or lower it, multiplex it, fuzz it, sharpen it, add overtones, sync it to the lead instrumental, and it would come out the other end of the VoxBox singing like an electric angel or demon precisely on the beat and in perfect pitch.

In 1987, this was pure cyberpunk fantasy. In 2025, I can do all that with my phone. I think that’s neat.

I also did not remember all the sex. There’s a lot of sex. It’s Spinrad.

[Ryan Schneider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, Spinrad can write. Holy cannoli. It doesn't move quickly. That's one thing I liked about it. Spinrad really puts you in the story and allows you to linger there and live there as the pages slowly turn. It's immersive. It's also a fascinating in-depth look at a possible future for the music/entertainment industry and how products and brands are created and sold. Most people have likely never heard of Norman Spinrad. But he's quite good.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I really like the style and energy that Spinrad writes with. His characters aren't the most complex, but they do take shape. The story and world are dated, but with that charming 80's urban dystopia vibe - evil corporations, crowded cities overrun with gangs and plenty of uzis. However, the book is both very long and about rock and roll. I'm fine with one or the other, but for this topic the story drug on far longer than I would have liked.