{"id":18034,"date":"2018-03-02T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T08:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=18034"},"modified":"2018-03-01T17:05:51","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T17:05:51","slug":"an-android-awakes-fictional-alignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2018\/03\/02\/an-android-awakes-fictional-alignment\/","title":{"rendered":"An Android Awakes: Fictional Alignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Mike French<\/strong> & Tony Allcock<\/strong> (Elsewhen Press)
\nISBN: 978-1-911409-20-5\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 eISBN: 978-1-911409-30-4<\/p>\n

It’s been a while since we looked at anything non-traditional so here’s an intriguing illustrated book which has a lot to recommend it\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 most importantly, that it’s a long-awaited sequel to a captivating and fascinating tome we reviewed way back in 2015…<\/p>\n

In the far future of An Android Awakes<\/a>, human beings are practically extinct and androids have become the dominant intellects ruling the planet. Sadly, our synthetic successors are as prone to emotional foibles, personal insecurities, obsessive manias and ruthless zealotry as us meat-bags ever were.<\/p>\n

To a great extent they also assimilated our creative urges too. One such was Android Writer PD121928<\/em> who was part of the Android Publishing Program. The state provided for his needs (drugs, whores, deep-frozen pets and the removal of his wife so that he can achieve the proper frame of artistic angst and squalor) and in return he was to conceive increasingly outr\u00c3\u00a9 and wild adventure tales. The same deal applied for every creative automaton in the system: Filmmakers, photographers, artists, whatever\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

His ultimate failure and tragic martyrdom allowed and compelled his human lover Sapphira<\/em> to recycle his failed ideas into a global bestseller entitled Humans (An Arrangement of Minor Defects)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

On its release – the first human work of fiction for over a century – the volume became the best-selling book of all time, but in the aftermath of publication an ideological schism triggered a violent change in Android government and philosophy leading to a pogrom against everything non-factual\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Eleven years later, with society in crisis and the mythoclasts in charge, Fiction is deemed filth and all creativity is consecrated to Fact. The mighty Pravda<\/em> and his Proseologist<\/em> assumed control of the Vatican and began excising everything non-verifiable – mood, tone, poesy, flights of fancy – from the world’s literature.<\/p>\n

But even that is not enough. Thus, androids Heisenberg<\/em> and Tractatus<\/em> are ordered to conduct arch-imagineer Sapphira – and a select band of equally unwilling and iconic characters – on a succession of journeys through time to re-enact her book’s greatest feats and feasts of fictive excess, rendering them factual in every respect\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Sadly, whilst stage-managing great moments of love, death, spectacle, science fantasy and comedy to prove the fanciful concrete and validatable, the sheer corrupting power of imagination and the forces needed to make creativity and inspiration real have an implacably metamorphic effect of the agents of change and they begin using millennia of time travel to reshape the mission to their own twisted ever-shifting agendas\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Featuring old An Android Awakes<\/strong> favourites such as The Great Explorer Umberto Amunsden<\/em>, The Locust Wife<\/em> and The Amazing Arctic Sinking Man<\/em> and introducing us to the almighty Digitised Treasury<\/em> and the Real Jesus<\/em>, this mind-bending Scientific Romance from Mike French offers a challenging odyssey through the theocracy of thought and depicts a trenchant guerrilla war between What Is, What Might and What Should be\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Devotees of Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss, J. G. Ballard, Thomas M. Disch and other heavyweights of the last century’s SF New Wave movement will love this challenging stand-out return to Big Idea, Deep Thought emotionally expressive speculative fiction, as will any reader hungry to have heart and mind expanded\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\nText and artwork \u00c2\u00a9 Mike French 2018. Cover artwork \u00c2\u00a9 Tony Allcock 2018. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike French & Tony Allcock (Elsewhen Press) ISBN: 978-1-911409-20-5\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 eISBN: 978-1-911409-30-4 It’s been a while since we looked at anything non-traditional so here’s an intriguing illustrated book which has a lot to recommend it\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 most importantly, that it’s a long-awaited sequel to a captivating and fascinating tome we reviewed way back in 2015… In … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “An Android Awakes: Fictional Alignment”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[105,160,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mature-reading","category-pocket-paperback-collections","category-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-4GS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}