Kim Miller
An easy reading romp of a novel that swaps between being a tribute to Raymond Chandler's noir detectives and mildly dystopian science fiction. It was a single sitting rainy Saturday read for me that was undemanding as long as I kept track of the weird stuff.
Metcalf is a gritty and cynical private 'inquisitor', the change in his job title represents the dystopic culture of the time. He's employed by a client, the client turns up dead and another man asks him to investigate it as he's in the firing line to be charged with the murder. The 'Inquisitor Office' gets in the way of his investigation and the novel proceeds as a game of cat and mouse as the facts of the case slowly get revealed. Along the way his 'karma' card keeps being docked by the Office to scare him off. Zero karma points could see him taken out of the society.
There are the normal noir detective tropes of cynical banter, women to be ogled, people being followed into dark places, bars with cigarette butts in pools of beer on the floor, all the expected stuff. There are also 'evolved' animals, modified animals that mimic humans, walking upright, wearing clothes, talking, carrying guns. And everybody is snorting drugs variously named as Forgettol, Avoidol, Acceptol, to smooth out their experience of living.
The book won the Locus Award for best first novel in 1995 so it came with a pedigree. However, the thirty years since has pushed the misogyny into the 'no go' zone. And even for a 1995 novel to hark back fifty years was pushing it. The weirdness of the characters held my attention and I was less interested in the 'who dunit' aspect as I was in the play between the human and animal power tripping. OK, as an Australian I wanted to know more about that kangaroo on the cover.
As things came to a head between Metcalf and the Office the story took an unexpected u-turn and the whole endeavour seemed lost. The final chapters take us into a new world and Metcalf has to adapt with instant reflexes to bring the investigation to a close. This final part of the story elevated it up a notch and gave a sense of satisfaction to my day of reading.
PS. The novel took inspiration from a quote by a Chandler character, "... the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket."
An easy reading romp of a novel that swaps between being a tribute to Raymond Chandler's noir detectives and mildly dystopian science fiction. It was a single sitting rainy Saturday read for me that was undemanding as long as I kept track of the weird stuff.
Metcalf is a gritty and cynical private 'inquisitor', the change in his job title represents the dystopic culture of the time. He's employed by a client, the client turns up dead and another man asks him to investigate it as he's in the firing line to be charged with the murder. The 'Inquisitor Office' gets in the way of his investigation and the novel proceeds as a game of cat and mouse as the facts of the case slowly get revealed. Along the way his 'karma' card keeps being docked by the Office to scare him off. Zero karma points could see him taken out of the society.
There are the normal noir detective tropes of cynical banter, women to be ogled, people being followed into dark places, bars with cigarette butts in pools of beer on the floor, all the expected stuff. There are also 'evolved' animals, modified animals that mimic humans, walking upright, wearing clothes, talking, carrying guns. And everybody is snorting drugs variously named as Forgettol, Avoidol, Acceptol, to smooth out their experience of living.
The book won the Locus Award for best first novel in 1995 so it came with a pedigree. However, the thirty years since has pushed the misogyny into the 'no go' zone. And even for a 1995 novel to hark back fifty years was pushing it. The weirdness of the characters held my attention and I was less interested in the 'who dunit' aspect as I was in the play between the human and animal power tripping. OK, as an Australian I wanted to know more about that kangaroo on the cover.
As things came to a head between Metcalf and the Office the story took an unexpected u-turn and the whole endeavour seemed lost. The final chapters take us into a new world and Metcalf has to adapt with instant reflexes to bring the investigation to a close. This final part of the story elevated it up a notch and gave a sense of satisfaction to my day of reading.
PS. The novel took inspiration from a quote by a Chandler character, "... the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket."
Deadbeat Chuck is being divorced by his more successful marriage counselor wife. He's a programmer for simulacrum robots for the CIA but it seems he's better at writing lifelike code for robots than he is at living his own life. Chuck sees two possibilities, suicide or murder his ex wife.
His wife decides to go off to one of the moons in the Alphane star system to work with the communities that have formed since the psychiatric hospital closed down. The patients have gathered into villages according to their shared psychoses and suddenly Earth has decided they need 'help' - ie. We'd like to take their moon.
Chuck wangles his way into taking charge of the CIA robot that will accompany his wife on the mission, planning for the robot to kill her. Trouble is, a new second job he's been offered writing comedy scripts for a TV personality wants him to write a script where a man programs a robot to murder his wife. This is beginning to sound very suspicious to Chuck.
This novel is a comedic look at the human personality when it splits into its many components. The various moon dwellers, Chuck's current mental state, his wife's incipient violence, a couple of other female characters, the CIA management, there's an intelligent telepathic slime mold alien life form, are all metaphors for the aspects of the inner life that PKD has been setting out in his books from the beginning. As a self-referential look at the ridiculousness of human life, this is PKD saying, "If your life is anything like mine, welcome to the crazy club."
Deadbeat Chuck is being divorced by his more successful marriage counselor wife. He's a programmer for simulacrum robots for the CIA but it seems he's better at writing lifelike code for robots than he is at living his own life. Chuck sees two possibilities, suicide or murder his ex wife.
His wife decides to go off to one of the moons in the Alphane star system to work with the communities that have formed since the psychiatric hospital closed down. The patients have gathered into villages according to their shared psychoses and suddenly Earth has decided they need 'help' - ie. We'd like to take their moon.
Chuck wangles his way into taking charge of the CIA robot that will accompany his wife on the mission, planning for the robot to kill her. Trouble is, a new second job he's been offered writing comedy scripts for a TV personality wants him to write a script where a man programs a robot to murder his wife. This is beginning to sound very suspicious to Chuck.
This novel is a comedic look at the human personality when it splits into its many components. The various moon dwellers, Chuck's current mental state, his wife's incipient violence, a couple of other female characters, the CIA management, there's an intelligent telepathic slime mold alien life form, are all metaphors for the aspects of the inner life that PKD has been setting out in his books from the beginning. As a self-referential look at the ridiculousness of human life, this is PKD saying, "If your life is anything like mine, welcome to the crazy club."
A tale of increasing unpleasantness. I picked this up as I loved Noon's Vurt. Had I read this first I would probably have not read Vurt at all.
This starts out as a bit of a mystery story with a weird underlying theme of people being either a writer of their own life or a character in somebody else's writing. It seems to be developing into a metaphor for the Thought Police of 1984. However, half way through it turns towards being body horror and after that a strange and ancient magic works its way into the foundation of whatever has been happening. It ends with a bunch of people out in a field with all the magic stuff rising off them as if they are in medieval England on 'witching day' or something.
The prose is thick with over-described thought processes that left me wondering when I was going to feel some emotional attachment to any of the characters. In the 'show, don't tell' arena, this had many losing moments. It was as if Noon was forcing his narrative to drag me along, knowing it wasn't succeeding very often.
The detective, Nyquist, is a pretty normal noir investigator. He's dogged in his determination to follow his nose no matter the cost, and his nose never seems to get it wrong. There's a woman, there's the police, although in this setting they are The Narrative Police making sure people are writing their story properly (i.e. spying on everyone), and there are lots of dark corridors in tall buildings. If Nyquist's gonzo side had been let loose we might have had a taste of Dark City or Gilliam's Brazil.
The theme of 'everything depends on the words' that underlies the story tries to take it into an hallucinogenic direction that it just doesn't want to go.
A tale of increasing unpleasantness. I picked this up as I loved Noon's Vurt. Had I read this first I would probably have not read Vurt at all.
This starts out as a bit of a mystery story with a weird underlying theme of people being either a writer of their own life or a character in somebody else's writing. It seems to be developing into a metaphor for the Thought Police of 1984. However, half way through it turns towards being body horror and after that a strange and ancient magic works its way into the foundation of whatever has been happening. It ends with a bunch of people out in a field with all the magic stuff rising off them as if they are in medieval England on 'witching day' or something.
The prose is thick with over-described thought processes that left me wondering when I was going to feel some emotional attachment to any of the characters. In the 'show, don't tell' arena, this had many losing moments. It was as if Noon was forcing his narrative to drag me along, knowing it wasn't succeeding very often.
The detective, Nyquist, is a pretty normal noir investigator. He's dogged in his determination to follow his nose no matter the cost, and his nose never seems to get it wrong. There's a woman, there's the police, although in this setting they are The Narrative Police making sure people are writing their story properly (i.e. spying on everyone), and there are lots of dark corridors in tall buildings. If Nyquist's gonzo side had been let loose we might have had a taste of Dark City or Gilliam's Brazil.
The theme of 'everything depends on the words' that underlies the story tries to take it into an hallucinogenic direction that it just doesn't want to go.
Updated a reading goal:
Read 75 books in 2025
Progress so far: 25 / 75 33%
A comedic romp as a time traveler from the not so distant future bumbles his way through the English aristocracy of the late 1880s.
Ned Henry is a time traveler whose job is to go back in time to search for collectible items from jumble sales for his boss Lady Schrapnell. This time he's sent back to find a hideous piece of ironware called The Bishop's Bird Stump that went missing from Coventry Cathedral in the bombing. Along the way he manages to divert the course of history of one of Lady Schrapnell's ancestors and frantically tries to fix his error before it derails the whole of the twentieth century history.
There's Ned and his secret accomplice, accompanied by a rich and lovesick university student, an Oxford don obsessed with history and fish, a wealthy landowner in a stately home, a bunch of aristocratic young women intent on marrying, lots of household servants, train timetables, parish fetes, jumble sales, a once drowned cat, and a dog.
It's a bit Monty Python / Hitchhiker's Guide as Ned bounces from one mistake to another, but as the story progresses we get the impression that there is something vitally important underlying his assignment. And slowly the discussions between the Oxford don and the landowner on the importance of minor events in history's major battles start to take on a new significance.
A comedic romp as a time traveler from the not so distant future bumbles his way through the English aristocracy of the late 1880s.
Ned Henry is a time traveler whose job is to go back in time to search for collectible items from jumble sales for his boss Lady Schrapnell. This time he's sent back to find a hideous piece of ironware called The Bishop's Bird Stump that went missing from Coventry Cathedral in the bombing. Along the way he manages to divert the course of history of one of Lady Schrapnell's ancestors and frantically tries to fix his error before it derails the whole of the twentieth century history.
There's Ned and his secret accomplice, accompanied by a rich and lovesick university student, an Oxford don obsessed with history and fish, a wealthy landowner in a stately home, a bunch of aristocratic young women intent on marrying, lots of household servants, train timetables, parish fetes, jumble sales, a once drowned cat, and a dog.
It's a bit Monty Python / Hitchhiker's Guide as Ned bounces from one mistake to another, but as the story progresses we get the impression that there is something vitally important underlying his assignment. And slowly the discussions between the Oxford don and the landowner on the importance of minor events in history's major battles start to take on a new significance.
Jason considers himself fortunate. He has a beautiful wife and teenage son and life generally is good to him. One night walking home from drinks with friends a man pushes a gun into the back of his head. He's abducted, stripped, injected with something and blacks out. He wakes up strapped to a gurney with people he's never met greeting him like an old friend. This is no longer his world.
He finds himself in a lab with strange things happening. He recovers some semblance of normal and goes home but his house is empty, and there is no sign that his wife or son ever lived there. The lab people bring him back and he finds that he's a celebrated nuclear physicist who has managed to understand and control quantum superposition. And that's when the real trouble starts.
Jason goes on a wild ride through alternative parallel worlds, trying to get back to his own home. It's here that the novel threatens to break down into a travelogue of landscapes, each with its own catastrophe. Crouch pulls it back from the brink and Jason figures our how to 'drive' the system some other version of himself has created.
The final part of the book is getting back to his wife and son and trying to escape a multitude of parallel Jasons, each one desperate to be the one 'real' husband and father.
The book is let down by the constant exposition of quantum theory, superposition, parallel worlds, parallel lives, and parallel people. There is a lot of 'Jason-splaining' going on. The characters are up to the task although some of the dialogue gets a bit cheesy. I suppose telling one version of your husband why another version of him is better or worse than the one in front of her is a bit tricky. The final resolution, their escape, opens up the possibility of a further novel but I hope Crouch does not take that bait. The would be too much what Netflix would do.
Jason considers himself fortunate. He has a beautiful wife and teenage son and life generally is good to him. One night walking home from drinks with friends a man pushes a gun into the back of his head. He's abducted, stripped, injected with something and blacks out. He wakes up strapped to a gurney with people he's never met greeting him like an old friend. This is no longer his world.
He finds himself in a lab with strange things happening. He recovers some semblance of normal and goes home but his house is empty, and there is no sign that his wife or son ever lived there. The lab people bring him back and he finds that he's a celebrated nuclear physicist who has managed to understand and control quantum superposition. And that's when the real trouble starts.
Jason goes on a wild ride through alternative parallel worlds, trying to get back to his own home. It's here that the novel threatens to break down into a travelogue of landscapes, each with its own catastrophe. Crouch pulls it back from the brink and Jason figures our how to 'drive' the system some other version of himself has created.
The final part of the book is getting back to his wife and son and trying to escape a multitude of parallel Jasons, each one desperate to be the one 'real' husband and father.
The book is let down by the constant exposition of quantum theory, superposition, parallel worlds, parallel lives, and parallel people. There is a lot of 'Jason-splaining' going on. The characters are up to the task although some of the dialogue gets a bit cheesy. I suppose telling one version of your husband why another version of him is better or worse than the one in front of her is a bit tricky. The final resolution, their escape, opens up the possibility of a further novel but I hope Crouch does not take that bait. The would be too much what Netflix would do.
A very fitting end to the story started in Daemon. Suarez serves us up a non-stop assault on our senses and imagination of a 'three front war'. One one front is the Daemon, the AI that is disrupting end-stage capitalism. The second front is the emerging social movement as ordinary people start to join it and force a new egalitarian society. And the third front is the combined might of the oligarchs and moneyed class alongside a secretly complicit government.
The action starts on the first few pages and is relentless through the novel. It's seductive and almost magnetic in how it holds the reader's attention. My son and I have a rating system for action movies. It either gets a pass or a "Not enough exploding helicopters." This book has not only exploding helicopters but robotically controlled killer cars, riderless motorcycles swinging murderous rotating blades, avatars that can walk out of an online game and into real life, and lots of high tech stuff for those wondering how imaginative Suarez can get in one book. Very definitely a pass.
There are lots of scenes of over the top violence that leave scattered body parts, but lets face it, noone takes over the world without a trail of dismembered arms and legs. His VR headsets and the accompanying online world of the followers of the Daemon are way beyond their day when this book appeared. And there will be those who consider the political conversations and viewpoints scattered throughout are preachy, but they sit well in the overall story, especially considering that state of federal politics of the US in 2025.
All that remains is for somebody to pick up a bunch of funding and turn these two books into a top tier movie.
A very fitting end to the story started in Daemon. Suarez serves us up a non-stop assault on our senses and imagination of a 'three front war'. One one front is the Daemon, the AI that is disrupting end-stage capitalism. The second front is the emerging social movement as ordinary people start to join it and force a new egalitarian society. And the third front is the combined might of the oligarchs and moneyed class alongside a secretly complicit government.
The action starts on the first few pages and is relentless through the novel. It's seductive and almost magnetic in how it holds the reader's attention. My son and I have a rating system for action movies. It either gets a pass or a "Not enough exploding helicopters." This book has not only exploding helicopters but robotically controlled killer cars, riderless motorcycles swinging murderous rotating blades, avatars that can walk out of an online game and into real life, and lots of high tech stuff for those wondering how imaginative Suarez can get in one book. Very definitely a pass.
There are lots of scenes of over the top violence that leave scattered body parts, but lets face it, noone takes over the world without a trail of dismembered arms and legs. His VR headsets and the accompanying online world of the followers of the Daemon are way beyond their day when this book appeared. And there will be those who consider the political conversations and viewpoints scattered throughout are preachy, but they sit well in the overall story, especially considering that state of federal politics of the US in 2025.
All that remains is for somebody to pick up a bunch of funding and turn these two books into a top tier movie.