A postapocalyptic novel where a mysterious death ray destroys all organic life on Earth, but a handful of nerds and gamers manage to upload their minds into machines using a weird consumer electronics gizmo - or do they? Now they can spend the following aeons wondering if they are really themselves or just superficial, error-prone duplicates.

Si bien el cuento relata la fascinante vida de los Axolotl, su particular manera de vivir y que una persona llegara a entenderlos de tal manera que se sintiera como uno de ellos, a través del relato del libro se puede llegar a conocer a este extraño animal no se salva de tener sus partes inconclusas llegando a dejar una sensación de vacío en el lector al saber que el cuento tiene final abierto. Gloriile și cronopii sînt tipuri de caractere; cronopii – răzvrătiți, contestatari, imaginativi, glorii – conformiști, convenționali, cruzi. Speranțele sînt normalitatea, dezirabilul. Dintre povestirile cu aceștia „Dificultăți în serviciile publice” prilejuiește o întîlnire șoc cu Bucureștiul văzut ca oraș de filateliști și de atentate (!). Manualul de instrucțiuni” viața e ca un fluid vîscos în care ne mișcăm și răzbim cu încetinitorul. Viziunile sînt „wow”, din fericire mai curînd ludice, surprinzătoare decît înspăimîntătoare.

Books

A kötet szokatlan szerkesztésmódjával nem egészen vagyok kibékülve. Eleinte nagyon tetszett a fura kéthasábos megoldás, később már erőltetettnek éreztem, ráadásul egy ilyen formabontásnak mindig nagy az ára is: fókuszvesztést, töredezett olvasási élményt okoz. Nem biztos, hogy megérte. Inkább érzem úgy utólag, hogy valamiféle naplózási fájlokat olvastam, mintsem hogy egy regényt. Persze lehet, hogy pont ez volt a cél. Literature is a form of human expression wherein human beings have devised various forms which have evolved over the years to produce literary works which might bring it closer to real life, in a way that it mirrors our life. We have seen that the literature has evolved over the years from outside to inside, which means that we have turned inwards towards our existential angst and quest, and in the process we have witnessed the blossoming of modernism and other art and philosophical movements of 20th century; the postmodernism rises in response to it underlining the relativism, skepticism, absurdity, randomity and non-sense of life in association with post-structuralism, and some experts say that beyond post-modernism we have progressed towards meta-modernism. The various styles of literary fiction took birth in the advent of exploration and depiction of human condition- such as metafiction, surrealism, and magic realism which portrays realistic view of world by infusing magical elements to it. This book is, without a doubt, situated in a well-established and extremely vibrant current of works like Peter Watt's "Blindsight", Hannu Rajaniemi's Jean Le Flambeur series, and I highly recommend it to anyone who might be interested in humanism, trans-humanism, a critical view of humanity, that can make you laugh, and stutter, and be silent in contemplation. At the same time the book is presented with colored photographs for its illustrative purposes although I find that a lot of these look to be captive animals instead of actual wild axolotls. At the same time each picture used has a caption that although it stands apart from the actual writing is either repetitive or just ends up getting in the way for readers thus it would have been better use to have left the captions out altogether.

Sînt și povestiri pe care nu le-am înțeles, sau care mi-au rămas obscure, dar cele la care am răzbit, în felul meu, m-au aruncat în tăriile cerului de unde n-aș fi vrut să mă mai întorc. Honestly, I'm not sure what Cortazar is trying to say with this story. Is he talking about the Aztecs? Another thing that bothered me so much about the book was the QR Code inclusions. Although I know this is a much more evolved technological generation than the one I grew up in I don't know whether I appreciate the fact this is a book that combines together both the manual reading and the digital components. At one point it opens so much more doors for readers such as when you can watch a video showcasing the animal but the again it is a distraction in both the presentation of the code as well as the fact that not everyone is going to have access to utilize those same codes.

In a forest of seaweed there was ME, a rare and beautiful little axolotl, going for my first-ever swim. A stílusról Rajaniemi ugrott be, csakúgy mint az Extensa olvasásakor. De a finn ecset valahogy vastagabban, színesebben fogott, nekem ez a Dukaj-verzió túlságosan be volt zárva egy fémtojásba, egyetlen robot fejébe - aki hát valljuk be nem a legvagányabb indián a poszthumanista klubban.

Other fun questions are raised - how would voting in a democracy work if you can copy yourself, and your voice? Is copying someone else 'theft'? Is progress a myth? Drowning in nostalgia for the lost world, the survivors create civilization after civilization, life after life, humanity after humanity. They form alliances and fight wars. They develop their own politics, ideologies and crazy hardware religions. And they face dilemmas no one has ever confronted before. With a big heart, she paints a world that has changed forever, but which still has hope for a brighter future.”El libro nos cuenta que un hombre va a visitar al Jardín Des Plantes ubicado en Paris en donde se encuentra con un animal llamado muy peculiar llamado Axolote. Tanto fue su encanto por estas peculiares criaturas que se termina convenciendo en que es uno de ellos. Era tanta su curiosidad por estos animalitos que comenzó a visitarlos hasta tres veces al día, se fijaba en su contextura con mucho detalle, le llamaba mucho la atención sus cuerpos translúcidos y lechosos, sus espectaculares colas de lagarto, sus rostros en forma de triangulo, planas y de color rosa, sus manos con dedos muy similares a los de un humano, los ramilletes que salen desde sus branquias, el gran brillo que proyectan sus ojos, su forma de desplazarse por los acuarios en forma muy lenta que hace pensar que no se mueven y el movimiento de sus branquias y cuando nadan lo hacen solo con un movimiento ondulatorio de sus cuerpos. Esto los hace fascinantes para él, creyendo tener una relación muy cercana con ellos, de alguna manera siente que estos les piden ayuda con sus grandes ojos, un día estaba observándolos en el acuario hasta que llegó a un punto en el que se sintió que estaba dentro del acuario siendo un miembro más de ellos. El cuento finaliza en que estás criaturas tienen la idea que el hombre entendió lo que ellos le querían comunicar y este se encuentra haciendo una redacción respecto a ellos motivó por el cual no volvió más a visitarlos. The writing is very basic, in large print and in really simple sentences, which would encourage me to suggest this book is for beginning readers. But being that it is an informative book and that there is no place that gives pronunciation for either Xolotl or the axolotl I would be a bit leery to recommend it for starting readers unless there is a willing adult who doesn't mind reading along. himself as an expatriate from Latin America (Argentina)? the metamorphosis of a writer? or something else? Lumea lui Cortazar, cel puțin în aceste povestiri, este o lume în care ce trebuie făcut este să răstorni valorile comune/general_acceptate (exprimările pudice ale familiei, cutumele de la poștă). E un exemplu de gîndire „out-of-the-box”, un foc de artificii. I have yet to read this text, but from what I have heard, it is very good, if dated (I am unsure if the 1994 edition brings the species and the rest of the text up to date). It does cover the Axolotl though. It is written for the more scientifically minded.