From Publishers Weekly
Science fiction needs humor, and it is plentiful in this zany, seriocomic variation on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 from Hugo and Nebula award winner Bisson. BAE (Bureau of Arts and Entertainment) agent Hank Shapiro makes his living picking up for "deletion" books by older authors in a world that has run out of room for them. Deletion also applies to musicians and artists. Frank Sinatra records, as well as Impressionist paintings, are all fodder for Hank's pickup bag. He is curious about none, just doing his job, until he finds a recording by his namesake, country singer Hank Williams. Curious, he listens to, then loses, the recording. His need to retrieve it starts him on an extended and increasingly antic road trip across America, accompanied by his dog, usually but not always dead, thanks to "HalfLifeTM". Along the way Hank encounters a young woman pregnant for more than nine years who finally gives birth, and Bob, a dead man, one of 63 Bob clones who keep hilariously popping up. Humorous episodes involve a mountainously high garbage fill on Staten Island, N.Y., and a Ramapo Indian casino in northern New Jersey. Providing continuity are historical summaries of the deletion movement, which began with protests by young artists, "Alexandrians," who are "named for the fire, not the library." In a nice twist reminiscent of the ending of Bradbury's classic, the Alexandrians ultimately decide they should be "named after the library and not the fire." (Apr. 11)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Library Journal
As a pickup artist, Hank Shapiro has the responsibility of confiscating works of art slated for elimination to make room for works by new artists. When he succumbs to the urge to listen one more time to a forbidden Hank Williams song, he becomes a fugitive and discovers a strange underground organization dedicated to saving the past. The author of Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories and Pirates of the Universe brings his peculiar blend of outrageous humor and incisive perceptions to a tale reminiscent of Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451 with a distinctly 21st-century twist. For most sf collections.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
