- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; paperback / softback edition (1 Feb 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 057506899X
- ISBN-13: 978-0575068995
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15.4 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,342,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Our planet is falling apart from tectonic palsy in this offbeat debut novel, thanks to crazed fundamentalists eager for the End Times: "The Earth was dead from the moment ReGenesis triggered the chain of nuclear devices it had set along the floor of the Marianas trench in the Pacific Ocean". With fault-lines cracking everywhere and even safe zones like England wracked by tremors and landslips, society is in a sanity-challenged mess. Escape into virtual reality becomes ever more popular.
VR "gamezones" have a special, painful meaning for Far Warriors like reluctant hero Jon Sciler, who were sent to clean out the hostile native life of the colony world Dirangesept. What seemed a simple task, a shoot-'em-up game with Earth's invincible remote-controlled "autoids" pitted against primitives, went horribly, inexplicably wrong. The remnants of Sciler's team returned scarred and publicly shamed.
Now a vengeful serial killer is apparently targeting Far Warrior veterans--at least those who sign up with the VR outfit Maze. Maze is running endless, mysterious tests on its impossibly realistic gameworld Cathar, haunted by magic and presence that even the operators don't understand. Must dying in Cathar always mean dying in reality? Sciler's struggle to make sense of how he is being manipulated by Maze and stranger forces leads to serious danger in and out of VR--for friends as well as himself--eventually uncovering the true legacy of the Dirangesept disaster. A fast-moving, street-wise, intensely paranoid SF thriller. --David Langford
Book Description
An extraordinarily exciting SF debut of conspiracies and mistaken realities from a writer who has it in him to be the British heir to Philip K. Dick
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the guy's first book (according to the interview he did on the site) and wasn't as polished as it could have been but that is really being picky. This is an exciting read -- I got three quarters of the way through and then read the final bit in one sitting. It's by no means a classic but is one of the better new sci-fi reads around. give a shot, you won't be disappointed.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am very picky about my science fiction, so I was pleased to find this offering. As the first review says, it is patchy, but ultimately delivers the goods in a convincing and innovative way. The grim futuristic picture of London during a global meltdown is realistic without being overwhelmingly pessimistic. The characterisation is good and the love story is central to the plot, avoiding the usual sloppy (or soppy) pitfalls when bringing a strong female character into a SF novel such as this. If you're interested in the crossovers between vitual worlds and real ones, particularly in terms of gaming, this book is definately worth a read.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For all its dystopian leanings (set in a world torn apart by earthquakes and buried ankle-deep in volcanic ash, where the streets are policed by remote-controlled 'trigs' and the populace seek escape in virtually real other worlds), this book is more fantasy than sci-fi, and there are way too many warlords,wolves and magic spells for my liking.
It's very long, confused, repetitive and badly-paced, with tedious passages where not much happens interspersed with brief, muddled, action sequences; several times I had to re-read chapters to try and make sense of them. And when you finally discover the true nature of the Cathar game-world, and learn who is responsible for the deaths of the Far Warriors, the 'explanation' is little more than gibberish.
Levy has been frequently and unjustly compared to Philip K Dick, and the plot of Reckless Sleep owes something to Dick's masterpiece, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, where off-world colonists seek refuge from their harsh living conditions in the virtual suburbia of their Perky Pat layouts. But don't be fooled; on the basis of this novel (apparently his first), Levy has none of Dick's imagination, humour, compassion or literary skill. Maybe his subsequent work is better. The trouble is, Reckless Sleep is such utter twaddle that you probably won't be tempted to find out.
It's very long, confused, repetitive and badly-paced, with tedious passages where not much happens interspersed with brief, muddled, action sequences; several times I had to re-read chapters to try and make sense of them. And when you finally discover the true nature of the Cathar game-world, and learn who is responsible for the deaths of the Far Warriors, the 'explanation' is little more than gibberish.
Levy has been frequently and unjustly compared to Philip K Dick, and the plot of Reckless Sleep owes something to Dick's masterpiece, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, where off-world colonists seek refuge from their harsh living conditions in the virtual suburbia of their Perky Pat layouts. But don't be fooled; on the basis of this novel (apparently his first), Levy has none of Dick's imagination, humour, compassion or literary skill. Maybe his subsequent work is better. The trouble is, Reckless Sleep is such utter twaddle that you probably won't be tempted to find out.
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