First Review of Borg Like Me!

Casey Rae, of The Future of Music Coalition, Adjunct Prof. of Communications, Culture & Technology at Georgetown, and chief contrarian at The Contrarian, has published the first review of Borg Like Me. Hope this is an auspicious sign.

Gareth Branwyn is one such pioneer. His birds-eye account of underground media at the dawn of the Internet is part of what makes his new book of collected writings, Borg Like Me, so fascinating. Actually, BLM should be required reading in 2014, where conversations around culture and innovation have become troublingly polarized. But that’s not the only reason to celebrate Borg’s arrival. Gareth is a masterful storyteller with a gift for making even arcane topics entertaining.

[…]

Any attempts at summarizing Gareth’s personal and professional background fall flat in the face of his own recounting. But here’s an overview: having run off to a commune as a teen, Gareth became drawn to the emerging world of DIY media-making even as he found his footing as a writer. A young man with a voracious appetite for information and experiences—from music to more exotic indulgences—Gareth dove headfirst into bootstrapping bohemia at a moment when the democratization of technology was opening up new possibilites. He soon found himself enmeshed in early ‘zine culture, contributing to Boing Boing when it was a print rag and getting his freak on at Mondo 2000. He also ran roughshod at Wired, Esquire, and more recently, MAKE magazine. Gareth played sherpa to a dazed and confused Billy Idol as he navigated the cyberpunk wilderness and was instrumental in creating Beyond Cyberpunk!—a celebrated and influential early “hypermedia” work.

Read the rest of his review here.
Buy your own copy of Borg Like Me here.