Reviews for Full Metal Apache: Transactions Between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America

The average rating for Full Metal Apache: Transactions Between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-03-28 00:00:00 Annie Bombardier I've been reading this over break and it's pure brilliance. Every time I pick it up it blows my mind. From transsexual nanoviral gynoids to S&M transcultural metafictions, to cyborgian hybrid chimeric identities, its amazing.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-08-20 00:00:00 Aaron Eck When I first heard of this book, I preordered and awaited it breathlessly. When it came earlier than I expected, I was thrilled. After I opened the pages, I found myself emerged in a dry, difficult-to-follow, academic book that is full of more quotes from other books than it has original text. I am not saying that Takayuki Tatsumi isn't knowledgeable on his subject, quite the opposite. I think perhaps he is too close to the subject to be able to write to a layman audience and it shows. My difficulties with the book ranged from it's style to references. Perhaps it is more for the academic minded; it was definitely published via an academic press, and definitely reads like a dissertation. I believe the author is somewhere between 10 and 15 years older than myself, creating a gap in the information streams in which we were exposed to. He makes reference to far too many movies/books/relevant figures (authors, playwrights, directors), etc, that I am simply not familiar with. And while normally this is not a problem, he fails to explain to my understanding who these people and their works are. I felt in the completely dark throughout this book. But perhaps the worse part was, it was a slow, painstaking read for the 200-odd pages of half-page text that graced the pages. It didn't help that I would have to stop again and again to consult online references to who people or their works were. Normally, I would give this kind of book only 1 star, but it covers two subjects I am very fond of: Japan and cyberpunk. So it gets an extra star, for anyone NOT deeply interested in these subjects, I recommend to steer clear away. This is not a casual read by any stretch of the imagination.