In the media-saturated world of this post-modern novel, the lines
between reality and virtual reality are blurred. A boy nicknamed Garbage
Head, the inevitable product of this world, has developed the ability to
predict what those on TV and the radio will say before they say it. At
first, he finds fame on television, the very medium to which he is
supernaturally privileged, but then is deemed a threat by the government
and taken before a fitting adjudicator: a president more consumed with
reruns and celebrity gossip than with leading a nation. The format of
the book's text simulates the manner in which much of the public now
gleans its information: surfing the Internet. Readers gather points of
view and sound bites from various spots in the text in real time and,
just as in today's world of endless stimuli, must construct Garbage
Head's story from this array of messages. Written with zeal and humor,
this cyber fable poses a pressing question: "When technology provides
the only links to humanity when everyone is searching for a meaning that
can only be found within where and by whom is human culture made and
unmade?"
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