This is a new blog, so it?s still evolving into whatever it?ll be when it?s done evolving, which won?t be anytime soon. One thing I have thought about is the name of this page, feed. I was proud when I came up with it and started building the page in merry isolation.
I figured feed would be a great title because that?s what I was doing with this page: just sending stuff out for others to consume. I was happy with the positive slant to the title feed.
But then, as with all ideas in this wired (and not wired) world, I figured I?d give it a google and see who else had thought of it (I?m not na?ve enough to think that I was the first). And that?s when I found M.T. Anderson?s book ?Feed?.
I?ve been a big fan of Anderson since 1999, when I read ?Burger Wuss? during my shifts at a major Canadian bookstore that bought out the other major Canadian bookstore. Anyone who has ever worked in a fast food restaurant or was ever 16 must read “Burger Wuss”.
And anyone who has ever interacted with the internet must read ?Feed?. The plot, while very good, is to me, less important than the frame with in which the whole story is set.
Here?s a quote from the blurb on the Candlewick website:
?For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon – a chance to party during spring break and play around with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who knows something about what it?s like to live without the feed-and about resisting its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires.
M. T. Anderson has created a brave new world – and a hilarious new lingo – sure to appeal to anyone who appreciates smart satire, futuristic fiction laced with humor, or any story featuring skin lesions as a fashion statement.
Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.?
That dystopian view of the feed is much more accurate than my positive, hopeful, ?I?ll feed you and you feed me? crap. But I?m keeping the name and tipping my hat to M.T. Anderson, who is poised to become one of the next important writers for future young minds. Check out ?Feed? and pick it up for a young consumer close to your heart.
BTW: Did you know that word ?dystopia? isn?t recognized by the spellchecker in Word 97? Not surprising.
