Chaos & Cyber Culture

Welcome to ScreenLand, the picture window onto Cyberia! Noted LSD guru and pop-culture theorist Leary is back bringing his particular brand of logic to notions about what can and will happen when the masses merge onto the information superhighway. In Cyberia, says Leary, the mind-body paradox will be obviated as we trade in fleshware for brainware. Able to fantasize, hallucinate, learn, explore at will, we will gain a clearer image of our souls (``Think of the screen as the cloud chamber on which you can track the vapor trail of your platonic, immaterial movements.''). Leary additionally predicts that ``by the year 2000, pure information will be cheaper than water and electricity.'' Unfortunately, Leary deserts his most interesting ideas about computers after the first few chapters, turning instead to cyberpunk histories, awful fiction briefs and pointless interviews with celebs like Winona Ryder and William Gibson. What's more, he hasn't updated this collection of past articles and consequently seems stuck in the mid-1980s. Add to the mix statments like ``If you don't like acid, rest assured, you're not going to like the future'' and, well, to paraphrase Dionne Warwick's psychic hotline commercials, this book is best experienced by those with a computer and an open mind. (Jan.)