2001-05-14 strange, but true!

Warning - do not read this book if you expct answers! Do read this book if you are fascinated by the multi-layered nature of births, and deaths, of modern technologies. In Aramis, Latour attempts the invention of a new literary genre -'scientifiction'. It seems his aim is to describe the strange genesis of technological inventions, from their inception as 'ideas', through their many states of change, to their sucessful 'birth' or consequent termiantion. The book is a hybrid, both of form and content - being neither fully fiction, nor plainly scientific report. Latour, weaves a narrative network that takes the reader on a journey through the all stages of technological creation, political, ethical, social, scientific, economic. But more than this, the story of Aramis is the story of the desperate attempt of a piece of technology to become; to be endowed with life in the realm of public transport, and so cease being an abstract idea and become a concrete thing. A strange, but strangely compelling read.