Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs - A Parody - Hardcover

Fake Steve Jobs

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0306815842 ISBN 13: 9780306815843

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2007

Synopsis

Welcome to the mind, to the world of Fake Steve Jobs. Fake Steve the counterintuitive management guru: Obviously we can't literally put our employees' lives at risk. But we have to make them feel that way.” Fake Steve the political hobnobber: I can see why they keep Nancy Pelosi under wraps. Wacky as a dime watch.” Fake Steve quoting friend/musician/philosopher Bono on road etiquette: Tink about dat next toim yer cuttin off some bloke and you don't know who it is, right? Could be Jay-sus. Or Boutros Boutros-Ghali or sumfin.” And on, yes, himself: Geniuses have feelings, too.” In the tradition of Thank You for Smoking and in the spirit of The Onion, Options is a novelistic sendup and takedown of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Washington, D.C., as viewed by a central character who exists, to his immense self-satisfaction, at the crossroads of all three worlds: It's like in one of those movies where a guy realizes he's got telekinetic powers and it's just too bad if he doesn't want them, he's got them. Likewise, I have this gift. It's who I am.”

About this title

About the Author:

Fake Steve Jobs is an award-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction with something of an insider's knowledge of the high-tech industry. He decided to use his powers for good by starting up the wildly popular blog The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs” (http://fakesteve.blogspot.com), which created the persona and voice for this novel.

Review:

"A funny send-up of Apple's CEO, the go-go culture of Silicon Valley, and the cult of Mac, iPhone, and iPod." -- Boston Globe, 10/14/07

"A wickedly funny, first-person parody...Politically incorrect and breezy...oPtion$ skewers Silicon Valley, with touches of `Bonfire of the Vanities,' `Dilbert' and `Revenge of the Nerds.'" -- Associated Press

"Just as Tom Wolfe skewered Wall Street in the `80s, Fake Steve lights a mini-Bonfire in Silicon Valley...The narrator of this dead-tree account is so textured and real that even his most idle thoughts amuse...A-." -- Entertainment Weekly, 10/19/07

"Kind of fun, especially if you're a computer geek." -- Kirkus Reviews, 8/15/07

"This over-the-top send-up of Valley excess isn't a best-of anthology. It's a surprisingly cohesive narrative." -- Wired, October 2007

"Tongue-in-cheek and piquantly insiderish...The book weaves the blog's greatest hits into a cohesive narrative that enfolds recent events at Apple...Mr. Lyons's portrait is hilarious and eerily specific; you get the feeling he planted a spycam in one of Mr. Jobs's mock turtles." -- Liesl Schillinger, New York Times, 10/7/07

"I couldn't put it down. Somehow, Fake Steve's--I mean Lyons'--style, is compelling." -- New York Post

"In the establishment-skewering tradition of Voltaire, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift and Laurence Sterne we now have a voice for our own digital age...Mac-slappingly funny...The book is hilarious." -- Newsweek.com

"Lyons inspires our prurient, page-turning fascination with a thoroughly unlikable narrator whose antics are at once unbelievable and vaguely plausible...Readers familiar with the Silicon Valley scene will have fun guessing who the pseudonymous characters represent...The novel is peppered with deft comic touches...Even the real Steve Jobs, who isn't known for his ability to laugh at himself, might want to pick it up for a quick, self-enlightening way to pass some time on the Jobs Jet." -- Katie Hafner, New York Times Book Review

"Lyons, using the same hilarious voice he created for the blog, tells the story of a Fortune 500 chief executive hippie Reed College dropout...Sheer hubris, seemingly never ending, is what makes this novel such a romp. You know he's going down, and it just makes you feel, well, happy." -- Los Angeles Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0306815842
• ISBN 13: 9780306815843
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256