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마사무네 시로: Ghost in the Shell (Ghost in the Shell, #1) (2006) 4 stars

Review of 'Ghost in the Shell (Ghost in the Shell, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

An incredible journey, Ghost in the Shell is full of intrigue and action and it took me only about a week to get through with my slow pace of reading. Ghost in the Shell illuminates adventures of a secret police organization called Public Security Section 9, which is assigned on different cases, ranging from assassinations to political intrigue and infiltration. A theme most widely explored here is how the society will change when almost everyone has a "cyberbrain", which effectively connects all people together via communication media, and implications of widespread prosthetics, meaning entire bodies can be swapped at will.

As a disclaimer, I'm a huge fan of the 1995 animated film and the original Stand Alone Complex anime (2002-2005), and after diving deep into the manga version, I'd consider it an essential reading for anyone in any shape or form interested in cyberpunk or the philosophical implications of cyberization.

Ghost in the Shell synergizes quite well with the other stuff I've been reading recently (on Buddhism, quantum mechanics, societal changes upon industrial revolution...) and makes me wonder how every book I seem to pick up reminds me of something else I've been reading, talk about special interests... Might have to look into John Neumann, which was recommended in the margins of the ending of the story, just to fill in the gaps.