[Hostway-readers] a book recommendation

[Yugo Nakai]

Hey,

   I know HW Readers didn't really materialize, but I've been enjoying 
this book so much recently that I thought I'd pass it on.  It's 
"Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent Future" by Walter Mosley. 
Sci-Fi dystopia (sorta cyberpunk, but I like it better than any William 
Gibson I've read) with nine short to medium stories, all interlinked. 
Lots of people on Amazon customer reviews criticized it because: (1) 
most or all of the protagonists are of African descent, and (2) it 
wasn't considered a "true" SF or cyberpunk genre book, maybe because the 
author has mostly written mysteries before.  Neither of these criticisms 
  seem like valid reasons to dislike a great book.  I am not a hardcore 
SF reader so maybe there are some "flaws" here with respect to the 
genre, but I like it better than most of the "great authors" of SF I've 
read.

   Why do I like it?  I think it's artistically good - yes it uses broad 
bombastic strokes sometimes, but with great skill (sorta like van Gogh) 
and sensitivity.  It raises important social issues, and not all of them 
really have to do with technology - rather, the purposes to which 
technology is put.  The stories are individually and together quite 
good, with engaging characters and a crazy world.  There is an edge of 
nightmarish surreality that brings the social problems into razor-sharp 
focus.

   Finishing a novel well (or in this case, a novel-like set of related 
stories) can be hard, and so I don't know yet if it ends satisfactorily, 
but even if it bombs, I'd happily recommend this book to anyone.

-Yugo