Wow! Someone else has read that book! You know, it was supposed to be a series of novels but did so poorly that the author never bothered with the rest of them. Bummer, that. I remember liking the book and was eagerly waiting for the others to come out.
That’s a shame. I actually enjoyed it. It was rather bizarre, but in a good way. Like some of Phillip Jose Farmer’s far future stuff. And admit it–that blind old man was a complete badass. 
You wouldn’t happen to know if the author did anything else, do you?
Michael Coney is the author of The Song of the Earth, a two book series. The two individual titles were The Celestial Steam Locomotive and Gods of the Greataway. A previous novel, Cat Karina, can be considered a spinoff of the series.
He did a great many other novels but very little after the 1980s.
I believe he did, and it was met with the same spectacular success as his first book. What those books were, and who the author was, I’ve no idea. It’s probably been about 20 years since I read the thing. I’d totally forgotten about it until you mentioned it.
I would be very interested if you’re right, but I’m almost positive you’re misremembering. If nobody else can confirm it, I’ll remember to check for it next time I get the chance.
More like not getting it at all.
Not that I’ve actually seen The Matrix.
I have a degree in philosophy, so I consider it beneath me.
See, the only advantage to having a degree in philosophy is getting to be snotty about things like this.
Well, that and the hot babes. Hot babes are always impressed by my mad f1l0s0f33 skillz.
You know, it’s funny, the couple of professional philosophers I know who have strong opinions about The Matrix love it! It seems to me that most of the people who find it trite only have as good an education in and understanding of philosophy as, say, me.
I don’t think that disqualifies them from having an opinion, of course. I just think it’s interesting.
The IMDB entry for The Matrix credits it as being “written by Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski”. If you click on the link for WGA you will discover that
Since they have a “written by” credit, there is no book or short story upon which The Matrix is based. It’s clear that the movie drew images, ideas, and inspiration from numerous sources, but the actual story and screenplay are completely the Wachowski brothers’ own.
I have a Ph. D. in philosophy, I teach at a major university, and I thought The Matrix was downright silly.
And my wife is a hottie. I’m going to go see if she wants to have sex–with me.
Uh… yeah… Let us know how that goes.
warning: spoilers ahead
Two inspirations for The Matrix that I haven’t seen mentioned yet are Harlan Ellison’s short story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (although it may or may not be the source of the idea of humans trapped in a world controlled by technology, I’m guessing that it inspired the scene in the first movie where Agent Smith removes Neo’s mouth) and Patrick McGoohan’s TV show The Prisoner (which has a similar theme of a man trying to escape from an artificially constructed world, and might have inspired the scene in the second movie where Neo talks to the Architect).
I would appreciate that. Terminus Est is the closest to emperical evidence.
All else debate Aristotle instead of counting the horse’s teeth.
She had a headache. Turned out she’d been watching The Matrix.
Whoa… déjà vu…