I finished reading Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon today. The quote on the front from the London Times sums the book up best.

This seamless marriage of hardcore cyberpunk and hard-boiled detective tail is an astonishing first novel.

Needless to say, I enjoyed it. It reminded me alot of K.W. Jeter’s Noir.

Though less on the detective, and more on the cyberpunk.

I finished reading Crimethinc‘s Off the Map. It’s the story of two girls from Olympia who travel to Europe with no money, squatting in different buildings and the like.

I highly recommend it. It’s one of my favorite books.

From the site:

A punk rock vision quest told in the tradition of the anarchist travel story, Off the Map is narrated by two young women as they discard their maps, fears, and anything resembling a plan, and set off on the winds of the world. Without the smug cynicism that seems to permeate most modern radical tales, this story is told with genuine hope, and a voice that never loses its connection with the mysteries of life, even in the midst of everyday tragedies. Wandering across Europe, the dozens of vignettes are the details of the whole—a squatted castle surrounded by tourists on the Spanish coast, a philosophizing businessman on the highways of France, a plaza full of los crustos in Barcelona, a diseased foot in a Belgian train squat, a glow bug on the dew-covered grass of anywhere—a magical, novel-like folktale for the end of the world.

I finished reading Junky: The Definitive Text of “Junk” by William S. Burroughs today. It’s a good book.

I enjoyed it more than Naked Lunch. The writing is easier to follow, there is a discernible plot, and less homosexual orgies.

If you don’t feel like reading the book, I’ll sum it up for you: don’t do opium or derivatives thereof.