I know this has been around for a number of years at this point (and some of the graphics are a bit dated - Mac OS 9!) but I bet I'm not the only one who hasn't read e-sheep before now. I'm starting with
Spiders, which is a sci-fi alternate-history story of the Afghanistan War on the Taliban, where Al Gore is president and the war is decidedly high-tech, open-source, network distributed neuroengineering oriented. Non-lethal weaponry is in heavy use, including ecstasy bombs to pacify enemy combatants. The plot revolves around the experience of one soldier accidentally exposed to the gas; and things start to get interesting.
The story is psychologically, and psychopharmacologically, insightful. The graphic design and layout is, in addition to "awesome", also decidedly psychedelic where appropriate; the artist has a psychedelic bent for sure, especially considering the one episode of another title,
Delta Thrives I read, which is DMT all the way.
I've been reading
Spiders compulsively the last couple of hours, with another highly recommended piece of media in the background: the internet radio station
Dream Factory at HBR1 on Futurenet. This is far and away my favorite radio station; non-stop commercial-free DJ-mixed downtempo trance/chill music. Unfortunately they stream only in Ogg Vorbis, or rather, unfortunately iTunes doesn't support Ogg streams, so I have to listen to it in some other player. However, psychedelic music, late into the night, compressed well and cleanly, as a backdrop to mind-bending, graphically intensely innovative future tech is a recipe for a good time.
So consider this to be a "thumbs up" for a plus-two for the combo HBR1 plus e-sheep. :)
Now that I think of it, since I like HBR1 so much, I should have given it its own listing to promote it better. Oh well! With me, marketing is secondary to thematic integration, I guess.
P.S. e-sheep is by Berkeley-based Patrick Farley, and yes, it is a PKD reference, to the original title of Bladerunner.
