Number9dream [Paperback]

David Mitchell's second novel, number9dream, uses a similar episodic format to his brilliant but fragmentary debut Ghostwritten to create a more coherent and assured narrative that is part detective, part coming-of-age, story. Eiji Miyake, 20, naïve and wholly loveable, encounters a frantic, exotic world when he comes to Tokyo from his small island home to find the father he has never met.

Pin-stripped drones, a lip-pierced hairdresser, midday drunks ... Not a single person is standing still ... a thousand faces per minute ... oven-hot ... ready to buckle under the weight of cloud at any moment.

Eiji is a dreamer, a Billy Liar for the Cyberpunk generation. His fantasies structure this frenetic kaleidoscopic narrative, conducting the reader on an exhilarating, disorientating tour of metropolis and mind. One minute Eiji is contending with arcade-game cybourgs, the next caught up in a Blue Velvet-type nightmare with real-life (perhaps) gangsters: "dragged into a turf war between wolves with rabies". So what was crazed and charming becomes dangerous and gripping.

This exotica and cyber-unreality allow more traditional novelistic concerns--a boy's coming of age, the exploration of ethical responsibilities or the great human universals of love and duty--to creep up unobtrusively. Pretty soon the realisation dawns: this isn't just fun, this isn't just clever, this is a great, perhaps a very great, novel. A Joycean delight in language and parody combines with affectionate characterisation and an impressive narrative control to make number9dream an extraordinary and rewarding experience. --Robert Mighall

Endlessly ingenious and hugely enjoyable ... A rich showcase for 21st-century fiction.

Even more dazzling than Ghostwritten.

Captures aspects of modern Japan with a compelling authenticity and beauty.

Unique: clever, unusual, gripping and beautifully written.

A writer of such rare imaginative energy.

‘A wonderfully amphibious writer' --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

‘Wildly inventive' --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

‘Even more dazzling than Ghostwritten' --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

‘The novel's imaginative power re-energises everything it touches' --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

'Rumours of this book's excellence are all true.' --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Eiji Miyake arrives in a sprawling Japanese metropolis to track down the father he has never met, but the city is a mapless place if you are 18, broke, and the only person you can trust is John Lennon.

David Mitchell is a former bookseller who was born in 1970. He currently teaches in Hiroshima. His first novel, GHOSTWRITTEN, a section of which was included in New Writing 8, was published in August 1999 to huge acclaim.

PanOpticon’s lobby – cavernous as the belly of a stone whale – swallows me whole. Arrows in the floorpads sense my feet, and guide me to a vacant reception booth. A door hisses shut behind me, sealing subterranean blackness. A tracer light scans me from head to foot, blipping over the barcode on my ID panel. An amber spotlight comes on, and my reflection stares back. I certainly look the part. Overalls, baseball cap, toolbox and clipboard. An ice maiden appears on the screen before me. She is blemishlessly, symmetrically beautiful. security glows on her lapel badge. ‘State your name,’ she in-tones, ‘and business.’ I wonder how human she is. These are days when computers humanize and humans computerize. I play the overawed yokel. ‘Afternoon. My name is Ran Sogabe. I’m a Goldfish Pal.’
She frowns. Excellent. She’s only human. ‘Goldfish Pal?’
‘Not seen our ad, ma’am?’ I sing a jingle. ‘We cater for our finny friends––’
‘Why are you requesting access to PanOpticon?’
I act puzzled. ‘I service Osugi and Kosugi’s aquarium, ma’am.’
‘Osugi and Bosugi.’
I check my clipboard. ‘That’s the badger.’
‘I’m scanning some curious objects in your toolbox.’
‘Newly imported from Germany, ma’am. May I present the ionic flurocarb pellet popper – doubtless you know how crucial pH stability is for the optimum aquarium environment? We believe we are the first aquaculturists in the country to utilize this little wonder. Perhaps I could offer a brief––’
‘Place your right hand on the access scanner, Mr Sogabe.’
‘I hope this is going to tickle.’
‘That is your left hand.’
‘Beg pardon.’
A brief eternity elapses before a green authorized blinks.
‘And your access code?’
She is vigilant. I scrunch my eyes. ‘Let me see: 313 – 636 – 969.’
The eyes of the ice maiden flicker. ‘Your access code is valid.’ So it should be. I paid the finest freelance master hacker in Tokyo a fortune for those nine numbers. ‘For the month of July. I must remind you we are now in August.’
Cheapskate bum jet-trash hackers. ‘Uh, how peculiar.’ I scratch my crotch to buy myself a moment. ‘That was the access code I was given by Ms’ – a doleful glance at my clipboard – ‘Akiko Kato, associate lawyer at Osugi and Kosugi.’
‘Bosugi.’
‘Whatever. Oh well. If my access code isn’t valid I can’t very well enter, can I? Pity. When Ms Kato wants to know why her priceless Okinawan silverspines died from excrement poisoning, I can refer her to you. What did you say your name was?’
Ice Maiden hardens. Zealous ones are bluff-susceptible. ‘Return tomorrow after rechecking your access codes.’
I huff and shake my head. ‘Impossible! Do you know how many fish I got on my turf? In the old days, we had a bit more give and take, but since total quality management got hold of us we operate within an hour-by-hour timeframe. One missed appointment, and our finny friends are phosphate feed. Even while I stand here nitpicking with you, I got ninety angel-fish at the Metropolitan City Office in danger of asphyxiation. No hard feelings, ma’am, but I have to insist on your name for our legal waiver form.’ I do my dramatic pen-poise pause.
Ice Maiden flickers.
I relent. ‘Why not call Ms Kato’s secretary? She’ll confirm my appointment.’
‘I already did.’ Now I’m worried. If my hacker got my alias wrong too, I am already burger-meat. ‘But your appointment appears to be for tomorrow.’
‘True. Quite true. My appointment was for tomorrow. But the Fish Ministry issued an industry-wide warning last night. An epidemic of silverspine, uh, ebola has come in from a contaminated Taiwanese batch. It travels down air conduits, lodges itself in the gills, and a disgusting sight to behold. Fish literally swelling until their entrails pop out. The boffins are working on a cure, but between you and me––’
Ice Maiden cracks. ‘Anciliary authorization is granted for two hours. From the reception booth proceed to the turbo elevator. Do not stray from the sensor floor arrows, or you will trigger alarms and illegal entry recriminations. The elevator will automatically proceed to Osugi and Bosugi on level eighty-one.’

‘Level eighty-one, Mr Sogabe,’ announces the elevator. ‘I look forward to serving you again.’ The doors open on to a virtual rainforest of pot plants and ferns. An aviary of telephones trill. Behind an ebony desk, a young woman removes her glasses and puts down a spray-mister. ‘Security said Mr So-gabe was coming.’
‘Let me guess! Kazuyo, Kazuyo, am I right?’
‘Yes, but––’
‘No wonder Ran calls you his PanOpticon Angel!’
The receptionist isn’t falling for it. ‘Your name is?’
‘Ran’s apprentice! Jo-ji. Don’t tell me he’s never mentioned me! I do Harajuku normally, but I’m covering his Shinjuku clients this month on account of his, uh, genital malaria.’
Her face falls. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Ran never mentioned it? Well, who can blame him? The boss thinks it’s just a heavy cold, that’s why Ran didn’t actually cancel his name from his clients’ books … All hush-hush!’ I smile gingerly and look around for video cameras. None visible. I kneel, open my toolbox with the lid blocking her view, and begin assembling my secret weapon. ‘Had a hell of time getting in here, y’know. Artificial intelligence! Artificial stupidity. Ms Kato’s office is down this corridor, is it?’
‘Yes, but, look, Mr Joji, I have to ask you for a retinal scan.’
‘Does it tickle?’ Finished. I close the toolbox and approach her desk with my hands behind my back and a gormless grin. ‘Where do I look?’
She turns a scanner towards me. ‘Into this eyepiece.’
‘Kazuyo.’ I check we are alone. ‘Ran told me, about, y’know – is it true?’
‘Is what true?’
‘Your eleventh toe?’
‘My eleventh what?’ The moment she looks at her feet I pepper her neck with enough instant-action tranquillizer micro-pellets to knock out the entire Chinese Army. She slumps on her blotter. I make a witty pun in the manner of James Bond for my own amusement.