The Cybergypsies: 2a Frank Account of Love, Life and Travels on the Electronic Frontier

by Indra Sinha

Book Overview

The story of bad behavior--fanaticism about small debates, gender-disguised "Netsex," the spending of other people's money on vast phone bills--has been told by others. In The Cybergypsies: A True... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670886300
• ISBN13: 9780670886302
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

True tales from a fantasy ? world

This story lures you along a path of sheer escapism, and just as you are starting to relax in an imaginary world, drops you into some events that humans in very recent time have had to endure. Events that have been readily ignored by most of us in our "imaginary worlds", such as Bhopal and Kurdistan. So relax into the tale, and be prepared for a jolt.

Wise man's gentle warning to us all

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, for two reasons. Firstly, I should declare a personal interest: I was a colleague of Mr Sinha's during the period in which the events (all true, I believe) described in the book took place. Secondly, as a person of similar mindset, The Cybergypsies helps me to keep uppermost in mind the importance of balance, perspective and 'all things in moderation'. It was a privilege to work with Mr Sinha, and a great pleasure to read his powerful, elegant, intelligent prose - without being seduced into buying something! I have no doubt that this book will become a legendary volume, describing the beginnings of the internet. Indra Sinha successfully illuminates the significant events of his lifetime, capturing the essence of net culture. He blends story, characters and background detail to spellbinding effect. The Cybergypsies is a page-turner that left me exhilerated, sated and wiser. Balu, you are indeed a love god. Bomshanka.

Frantic world of time travelers on the cyber frontier!

I jumped into Cybergypsies with one quick bound..it grabbed me as its prisoner until the very end..Zany characters prance in and out to the click of the keyboard and the roar of the modem..I found myself being caught up in the frantic pace..neither here nor there..from one world to the next and back again in a split second.Jarley remains the true Hero!Bear his Alter ego! A wild burst of wind speeds the characters on into the nether world of the cyber addict. A delightful bit of intrigue worthy of Ian Fleming with all the wild hilarity of Kurt Vonnegut. A good read to the very end!

Enchanting, beautifully written

In the mid-'80s, Sinha, a London ad writer, became seriously addicted to the earliest and most fanatical internet outposts--multiuser games and bulletin boards frequented by hackers, virus makers, software pirates, dungeons and dragons role players and other "cybergypsies". How this nice married father of two with a new house in Sussex almost lost it all to his modem becomes an enchanting tale, full of jarring, hallucinatory, humorous blurrings between worldly and wired events. So many books have tried to capture the heady horizons and disappointing mirages of cyberspace; Sinha's beautifully written virtual travelogue actually does--at least one strange corner of it.

The best book that I've read since 'Alice in Wonderland'

What a utterly fantastic book! It has all the right elements and completely in balance with each other - suspense, intrigue, romance, fantasy, and yet it's all true - this is the thing which makes this book so truly remarkable. It would have been so easy for the writing to let it down, a book of this sort cannot be easy to write, yet Sinha has told this extraordinary tale perfectly. His style is just witty enough without being annoying yet weighty enough without taking itself too seriously. It even faces very important issues in the world today which I, personally, had no idea about. Not only is it a literary work of art, it is also the book that I have enjoyed the most since early childhood and 'Alice in Wonderland'. I couldn't recommend it more highly. Let's have more from this guy!