...what I do with my own time

I was listening to my Pandora radio station and came across a song called "Mona Lisa Overdrive" by the band Juno Reactor. It sounded like something from the soundtrack of Ghost in the Shell, which means, as my good friend the Lord Admiral would put it, it is relevant to my interests.

Upon investigation, I discovered (thanks to my old nemesis Wikipedia) that the song was performed by request for The Matrix Reloaded. This is, after all, very relevant to my interests, despite the fact that the second two Matrix movies sucked robot ass.

I frequently refer to William Gibson as my favorite living writer, and I am not about to withdraw that praise, but here I would like to say how disappointed I am with the majority of his writing. I found Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive very underwhelming; I kind of liked Virtual Light, quite liked Idoru, but couldn't stand All Tomorrow's Parties, which I found endlessly dragging to a flat finale--the whole novel could have been condensed to a hundred pages without losing a damn thing. My reaction to The Difference Engine was mixed (I found the story creative yet flawed in plotting), and the jury is still out on my final verdict. I flat-out loved Pattern Recognition, a postmodern romp through the high-tech modern world. I haven't read Spook Country yet because the reviews I found were generally negative.

This is a mixed bag, of course, but I haven't mentioned my two favorite Gibson works: Burning Chrome and, of course, Neuromancer, which needs no introduction. Some of the stories in Burning Chrome are some of Gibson's best work, particularly the title story, which I feel shows that perhaps he should constrain some of his big ideas to the short story format.

This is all a tangent based on one song, but this is my blog, and it's my business...

Cyberpunk Music

As I draw my cyberpunk-inspired pictures or write my cyberpunk novel, I like to listen to music. Unfortunately, I don't have a great number of songs that put me in the right feel to slip into some techno-bar, have a drink, and talk about cybernetic implants with a big Russian named Shadow. Here is the list I have for my cyberpunk playlist in iTunes: any suggestions for what to add? Bonus if the song is available to buy on iTunes. Some aren't quite cyberpunk; feel free to point those out, too.

Blue Oyster Cult - Veteran of the Psychic Wars
Bodies - Drowning Pool
Coma White - Marilyn Manson
Personal Jesus - Marilyn Manson
Angel - Massive Attack
Teardrop - Massive Attack
Freiflug - Megaherz
Adios - Rammstein
Feel So Numb - Rob Zombie
Orchestra - The Servant
Zero - The Smashing Pumpkins
Lithium Flower - Ghost in the Shell SAC Soundtrack
One (Always Hardcore) - Scooter