A pretty great book. Thought provoking. Exhaustive (exhausting) in it's play after play of historical breakdown of who has copied who and what's really new and what wasn't. Read it and be ready for a serious download of retro/revival/etc movements of the last 80 years.

Great coverage of some of the current awesomeness.

Great thoughts on record collecting and downloading etc.

I think where the book gets pretty shiny is where he starts connecting with Gibson, Sterling, Lanier and starts looking at culture at large and asking bigger questions. His questions about music might be pointed at western culture in general.

We've got huge swaths of folks who refuse global warming, clean energy, evolution, space, etc. We're turning our backs on progress and goals out in front of us for a free mp3 download right now and a Facebook account.

This book has been great to read alongside Ernest Cline's "Ready Player One"... an SF book about 30+ years in the future looking back on the 80s, etc.