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Synopsis
Nelson used to be a radical journalist, but now he works for Monad, one of the world's leading corporations. Monad make the Dr Easys, the androids which patrol London's streets: assisting police, easing tensions, calming the populace. But Monad also makes the Red Men - tireless, intelligent, creative and entirely virtual corporate workers - and it's looking to expand the programme. So Nelson is put in charge of Redtown: a virtual city, inhabited by copies of real people going about their daily business, in which new policies, diseases and disasters can be studied in perfect simulation. Nelson finds himself at the helm of a grand project whose goals appear increasingly authoritarian and potentially catastrophic. As the boundaries between Redtown and the real world become ever more brittle, and revolutionary factions begin to align themselves against the Red Men, Nelson finds himself forced to choose sides: Monad or his family, the corporation or the community, the real or the virtual.'The Red Men' is at heart a novel about a character wrestling with his conscience, set against a pervasive and Orwellian vision of contemporary society: surveillance, automation, biotechnology, and their implications for our humanity.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a brilliant read, a first novel full of technology-bewitched ideas and sharp, modern imagery of landscapes, workspaces and despair. There are evocative lines of prose and great one-liners, and the novel is tied together by the exploration of the mind and reality. It's rough around the edges in a way that makes me excited to see this author's talent develop. I had some rare moments of real connection with this work, I feel that it is expressing something important about the modern condition.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
De Abaitua's debut novel is an excellent read. If you like Philip K Dick, or like you literary fiction to have some science fiction elements, or your SF to be more literary, this is a must.
Like Philip K Dick, De Abaitua chronicles that sense of bewilderment with life, bafflement at the changing world, at technology and progress and how your mind struggles to reconcile with it, while you're still gripped, fascinated.
It's gripping, horrifying, pertinent and a fascinating potrait of the modern world (specifically London's Hackney and Canary Wharf, and other parts of Britain), twisted slightly but still recognisable: for how the marketeers manipulate society, how we mortgage our souls to technology, and for how we feel torn between nature and nurture, tradition and innovation.
Like Philip K Dick, De Abaitua chronicles that sense of bewilderment with life, bafflement at the changing world, at technology and progress and how your mind struggles to reconcile with it, while you're still gripped, fascinated.
It's gripping, horrifying, pertinent and a fascinating potrait of the modern world (specifically London's Hackney and Canary Wharf, and other parts of Britain), twisted slightly but still recognisable: for how the marketeers manipulate society, how we mortgage our souls to technology, and for how we feel torn between nature and nurture, tradition and innovation.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Individualism, creativism, artificial intelligence, gnosticism, corporate entities crushing the little man, mental illness, drugs, classical allusions and a sense of humour can all be found in this lovely, five minutes in the future science fiction story. If the author didn't mention Philip K. Dick in the acknowledgements, I would have drawn the comparison anyway. Of course, in this case the writer is British and writing from the perspective of a media-savvy Londoner and there is no comparison to be made in the style of writing, but I felt such a buzz from reading a literate, questioning novel again, that I was taken back to when I discovered PKD.
Monad is developing artificial intelligence by simulating people as red men. The red men are there to help the real person get along in business, but inevitably jealousies arise. Monad itself is something other than the standard corporation. Run by the Cantor intelligence, its initially forward-thinking ways (employing poets as customer service) are replaced by something more sinister and ultimately kind of biblical.
The story is told by Nelson Millar, an ex-magazine editor who is drafted by Monad to help them with branding. Millar is a family man, an average guy who has given up on idealism and ambition, and coasts along in life. It features a number of self-important corporate types who are treated as aggressive, amoral figures of fun and mentally damaged artistic types, like Raymond Chase, who has never held a job down in his life but finds himself yoked to the corporate life, only for his life to go downhill rapidly.
The book builds and builds as misuse of technology equates to societal disharmony until the big apocalyptic conclusion, complete with portentous revelations.
It's a wonderful book, that does not talk down to its reader and I'm hoping for a follow-up soon.
Monad is developing artificial intelligence by simulating people as red men. The red men are there to help the real person get along in business, but inevitably jealousies arise. Monad itself is something other than the standard corporation. Run by the Cantor intelligence, its initially forward-thinking ways (employing poets as customer service) are replaced by something more sinister and ultimately kind of biblical.
The story is told by Nelson Millar, an ex-magazine editor who is drafted by Monad to help them with branding. Millar is a family man, an average guy who has given up on idealism and ambition, and coasts along in life. It features a number of self-important corporate types who are treated as aggressive, amoral figures of fun and mentally damaged artistic types, like Raymond Chase, who has never held a job down in his life but finds himself yoked to the corporate life, only for his life to go downhill rapidly.
The book builds and builds as misuse of technology equates to societal disharmony until the big apocalyptic conclusion, complete with portentous revelations.
It's a wonderful book, that does not talk down to its reader and I'm hoping for a follow-up soon.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Trans Genre
'I felt like I was chairing a group therapy session for the four horsemen of the apocalypse'.
We all prefer a certain 'type', whether in music, film or literature, or in most... Read more
We all prefer a certain 'type', whether in music, film or literature, or in most... Read more
Published on 10 April 2008 by Mr. Ian R. Sibert
Come for the idea, stay for the beautiful writing
This isn't a sci-fi novel. It's a literary novel with a sci-fi theme. Matthew De Abaitua has been a master-craftsman of the language ever since he started writing short stories for... Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2008 by Mr. P. Tyrrell
Finely written dystopia
This is an excellent debut novel, packed with fascinating ideas. It examines the impact of corporations on all of us, and our complicity in their corruption. Read more
Published on 10 Dec 2007 by Mrs. Eleanor Baker
Excellent piece of sci fi
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I had not read anything by de abaitua before and found this a very clever and entetaining piece.
Published on 13 Oct 2007 by Alistair Gator
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