Authors Electric

The instant I saw the fool reading that book, I knew he was going to die. He'd come to the job, a right son of a bitch, instantly deciding who his rivals and allies would be...who to suck up to and who to ignore. When I greeted him, he eyeballed me, then walked away without a word. At his desk, with elaborate care, he took out the fat book that signaled his ruin. One month later, he was fired. Robert Greene may have written the most famous guide to power next to Machiavelli's  The Prince.  It's a frightening tapestry interweaving principles, analysis and detailed applications. Greene's readers seem to fall into three camps, excluding the Avengers, Lady Gaga and Godzilla (none of whom need written help): 1)  Eyepoking Established Pricks (EEPs)  who have already mastered the basics and want to sharpen their wiles and claws to protect their fortunes. They share next to nothing of their own trade secrets but are remarkably skillful at getting rivals to con...

'Going to the Opera in the year 2000' - as imagined in 1882. By Albert Robida      I was in the pub with some of my favourite people, talking and talking. The topic, this time, was science-fiction we have known and loved, and what it made of the future we're living in now.      My brother Andrew said, "What they didn't foresee was that the future would be invisible."      We all turned on him at once, and urged him to explain what he meant.      "Take that high street out there. Back in the 50s and 60s, they thought it was going to be full of glass buildings with triangular doors that slide sideways to open. All the people dressed in skin tight silver foil - but nobody walking because they'd all be flying through the air in little flying cars. And no pubs, like this, serving food, because everybody would just take pills instead of eating. Big changes, you see. That's what they thought about. When you wanted ...