Ecstasy Club: A Novel - Hardcover

Rushkoff, Douglas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060173092 ISBN 13: 9780060173098

Publisher: HarperOne, 1997

Synopsis

When the young, hypertalented idealists who call themselves ECSTASY CLUB find an abandoned piano factory in Oakland, they make it the focus of a round-the-clock rave the likes of which the Bay Area has never seen before. They also make the factory a base camp in their search for a method of time travel that combines computer wizardry, esoteric spirituality and mind-altering substances. The club's mesmeric leader, Duncan, and the story's resourceful narrator, Zach, actually manage to "break time" online, only to discover that an unsettling array of characters has beaten them to it. Government agents, corporate saboteurs, religious zealots and even the local cops are suddenly out to get the club. As they battle an ingeniously conceived conspiracy (think Thomas Pynchon meets The X-Files), Zach battles his own growing affection for Duncan's lover, Lauren, and begins to wonder whether enlightenment is all it's cracked up to be.

About this title

Review:

The end of the millennium is just a couple of years away, and folks, it's getting squirrelly out there. Survivalists are stockpiling weapons in the hills as they wait for black helicopters and a new world order; Heaven's Gate cultists returned to the mother ship via poison-laced applesauce while members of the Solar Temple believed their suicides on earth would result in a better life on the planet Sirius. Can it get any stranger? In Douglas Rushkoff's novel, Ecstasy Club, it can and does. Rushkoff's club is an abandoned piano factory in Oakland, California, where members of a small group of idealists hold round-the-clock raves even as they seek to combine computer technology, mind-altering substances, and New Age spirituality to create a method of time travel.

Along with end-of-the-world scenarios, the millennium brings with it a heavy dose of conspiracy theory, and Ecstasy Club has its fair share. Once narrator Zach Levi and his merry band actually succeed in "breaking time" online, they are beset by menacing government agents, religious zealots, and a host of other special interest groups who are out to shut them down. So while we're all waiting for 1999, what better way to pass the time than with Douglas Rushkoff's Ecstasy Club?

About the Author:

Douglas Rushkoff is the author of 10 bestselling books on media and culture, including Cyberia, Media Virus!, Playing the Future, Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say, and the novels Ecstasy Club and Exit Strategy.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0060173092
• ISBN 13: 9780060173098
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320