JANUARY 2018 - AudioFile
Jason Lanier's response is modest when people call him "The Father of VR." Narrator Oliver Wyman gives him a touch of humility as Lanier points out that a lot of others were also involved in creating virtual reality technology. Wyman narrates in a reflective tone that fits well with Lanier's mix of recollections, philosophy, and explanations of technology. Wyman shares Lanier's enthusiasm for explaining VR concepts, as when the author compares the listener's head to a spy submarine to convey an idea. Lanier takes the listener through VR breakthroughs like Nintendo's Power Glove and delves into the psychology involved in the VR experience. He also warns of dangers, including the rise of surveillance. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Cathy O'Neil
Lanier's book is…intimate and idiosyncratic. He carries us through his quirky and fascinating life story, with periodic nerdy side trips through his early thinking on more technical aspects of virtual reality…Lanier plows into philosophy and expands the limits of what V.R. might achieve, blurring definitional lines and sometimes making it all sound truly surreal.
Publishers Weekly
10/16/2017
Alternating between personal memoir and the history of virtual reality technology leading up to take, computer scientist Lanier (Who Owns the Future?) transports readers to the experimental, obsessive, and even messianic intellectual tech guru circuit of the 1970s and 1980s, where he first spawned the idea for virtual reality. Writing with a performative style of prose that switches between self-help book and self-involved philosophical treatise, Lanier spews optimism about human potential and cognitive enhancement, alongside stories of long-held grudges and bitterness about situations around the early history of his startup, VPL Research, and his frustration around the field’s disinterest in what he feels ought to be the current focus of VR, somatic and haptic experience. Lanier’s insights on the human parameters of VR experiences, the relationship between minds and bodies, and even the art of perfecting the tech demo suggest that he understands people well, but his stories of relationships—both professional and personal—gone bad imply otherwise. With this cleverly crafted autobiography of sorts, Lanier convinces readers that he’s both brilliant and inspiring enough to keep the podium in a field that’s gone from fringe to corporate. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
A Wall Street Journal Business Leaders’ Favorite Book of 2017
A The Economist Best Book of 2017
A Vox Best Book of 2017
“A highly eccentric memoir that traces the author’s quest for VR back to its roots, not as some sort of geeky engineering challenge but as a feeling he had as a child of being overwhelmed by the magic of the universe.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Evocative . . . vivid and often interesting . . . Nowadays most people with knowledge to write convincingly about cybertechnology are either industry participants or enthusiasts. So Lanier’s intelligible grievances with social media, data management, and artificial intelligence are not only insightful but also increasingly rare . . . Whether one shares Lanier’s optimism about virtual reality or his sense of proportion about artificial intelligence, one should appreciate his determination to go against current trends and discuss these issues in human terms."
—TheHumanist.com
“Intimate and idiosyncratic . . . quirky and fascinating . . . Lanier’s vivid and creative imagination is a distinct character in this book . . . His vision is humanistic, and he insists that the most important goal of developing virtual reality is human connection.”
—Cathy O’Neil, The New York Times Book Review
“Deeply personal . . . compelling: a poetic and humanistic view of technology . . . His style is wonderfully discursive, reflecting his wide range of interests and experiences.”
—Emily Parker, The Washington Post
“Dawn of the New Everything spirits us back to a time when a plurality of ideas about what the Internet could be were still in play . . . it pulses with kaleidoscopic insight . . . It also contains some of the more artful, numinous writing you’ll find on technology . . . Lanier offers a vision for an enhanced reality for everyone.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Jaron Lanier is both cheerleader and doomsayer in a highly personal story of virtual reality . . . a studied and nuanced interrogation of VR’s potential, as well as a gentle critique of what he sees as a failure of imagination when it comes to the medium’s current proponents.”
—The Guardian
“Essential reading, not just for VR-watchers but for anyone interested in how society came to be how it is, and what it might yet become.”
—The Economist
“A very personal scientific autobiography . . . He emerges as an exceptional and engaging character.”
—Nature
“Dawn of the New Everything is part coming-of-age chronicle . . . part swinging Silicon Valley memoir . . . and it’s stuffed with enough fantastical soothsaying to fill a Holodeck. Or at least an expansive, occasionally vaporous conversation in avatar-free meatspace.”
—Wired
“Trust tech genius Lanier to use an innovative format to deliver an innovative idea. Integrating memoir, science writing, philosophical reflection, and down-to-earth advice, he reveals that virtual reality can clarify how the brain and the body connect to the world, giving us a deeper understanding of what it means to be human . . . Anyone interested in culture today will want to read Dawn of the New Everything.”
—Library Journal
“Lanier impresses with his sincerity and insight. This culturally significant title with its compelling personal narrative proves yet again that Lanier is a thinker whose work should be read and contemplated.”
—Booklist
“Cleverly crafted . . . brilliant and inspiring.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Perhaps surprisingly for a book about the birth of virtual reality, this is a deeply human, highly personal, and beautifully told story.”
—Dave Eggers, author of The Circle
“Dawn of the New Everything covers fascinating ideas about technology and the future, but from a very personal place. It’s entirely unexpected and disarming to read about these concepts from an unabashedly subjective point of view. Reading this book inspired me to spend more time with my Vive. Not just for entertainment, but because Mr. Lanier has thoroughly convinced me that it’s the beginning of an enormous paradigm shift in the very way humans relate and communicate.”
—Joseph Gordon-Levitt, actor and director
“The author is an evangelist for the good side of VR, which now offers insights into human perception and cognition that are forcing a radical re-evaluation of who we are. That’s definitely cool stuff . . . with lots of solid tech-manual ponderings on phenotropic systems and formulas to boot. A spirited exploration of tech by a devotee who holds out the hope that bright things are just around the corner.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal
10/15/2017
Lanier (Who Owns the Future), often considered the founder of virtual reality (VR), tells about his unconventional childhood in Las Cruces, NM, and his years creating this emerging discipline in Silicon Valley. In several challenging chapters, the author explains the science and applications of VR, alongside a mix of captivating family stories. Lanier's father escaped Ukrainian pogroms during World War II, and his mother was a concentration camp survivor who was killed in a car crash; a loss that has haunted Lanier throughout his life. As a teenager, Lanier became a teaching assistant at New Mexico State University. Much of the book recounts his years at VPL, a company he founded in 1984 to sell VR-related equipment. VPL and the author parted ways in 1992 when this self-acknowledged "laid back country hippie morphed into a high-stress CEO." Lanier writes with grace and humor; his empathy shines throughout. VERDICT The author patiently describes the scientific nuances of VR, but these chapters may be challenging for general readers. All audiences will enjoy Lanier's tales of his youth and the early years of Silicon Valley's emergence as an international center of VR and artificial intelligence.—Karl Helicher, formerly with Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
JANUARY 2018 - AudioFile
Jason Lanier's response is modest when people call him "The Father of VR." Narrator Oliver Wyman gives him a touch of humility as Lanier points out that a lot of others were also involved in creating virtual reality technology. Wyman narrates in a reflective tone that fits well with Lanier's mix of recollections, philosophy, and explanations of technology. Wyman shares Lanier's enthusiasm for explaining VR concepts, as when the author compares the listener's head to a spy submarine to convey an idea. Lanier takes the listener through VR breakthroughs like Nintendo's Power Glove and delves into the psychology involved in the VR experience. He also warns of dangers, including the rise of surveillance. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2017-08-06
The author has seen the future, and it wears a headset.Perhaps better known for his hairstyle and hippie-ish ways ("in those days, it was super rare for white people to have dreadlocks, so I was quite exotic") than for any specific bit of technology, computer pioneer and civil libertarian Lanier (Who Owns the Future?, 2013, etc.) has two purposes here. The first is to offer a vision of what virtual reality is and the cool things it can do, while the second is an amiable tour through his life and his perhaps unlikely course through the very beginnings of VR. As to the former, suffice it to say that Lanier was a smart, geeky kid who was thinking outsize thoughts even as a child ("I was obsessed with what's usually called philosophy, and it helped"), and he had the benefit of growing up in an eccentric household that encouraged his explorations. As to the latter, working in a state university computer lab to wrestle out the secrets of code and algorithm, Lanier writes that he got hooked early on—not just by the nerdy coolness of the computer world, but also by the outright wonder of the sci-fi things it can bring to real life. In that aspect, the author is an evangelist for the good side of VR, which now offers insights into human perception and cognition that are forcing a radical re-evaluation of who we are. That's definitely cool stuff. In relating it, Lanier veers between the plainspoken ("the human brain is so finely tuned to watching the human face that if anything is slightly off, the strangeness quickly becomes creepy") and the mystical ("if the whole universe is your body, then talking would be beside the point"), with lots of solid tech-manual ponderings on phenotropic systems and formulas to boot. A spirited exploration of tech by a devotee who holds out the hope that bright things are just around the corner.
