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3.0 out of 5 stars
A grim, futuristic, disjointed tale, 28 Nov 2002
This novel is a little weird. We begin with the protagonist Josh just having come out of a long sleep. He spends his time trying to remember his recent past, and the reader is treated to a series of confusing, meandering, problematic flashbacks. He has tons of information stored on his werp (which is a futuristic, souped-up laptop basically), but his own notes and observations are problematic in themselves. The memories that begin to return are often contradictory and vague-for instance, he remembers killing his friend Sadi, and he also remembers Sadi killing him. Since the narrator himself is not even sure what is real and what isn't, the book's constant jaunts back and forth in time can be a little frustrating. The bare bone facts-Josh had a very bad childhood, joined the KGB which later became the Organization, got his hands dirty in all sorts of secret, highly-paid missions, raped, killed, and tortured any number of people. Some of his actions truly are despicable, and his different personas sometimes grieve over what he has apparently done in the past, yet ultimately he keeps doing the very same things. Josh is a longtimer; ever 15 years or so, he transitions, falling into a sickness for months only to "come back" 10 years younger that he was previously. Each transition erases his recent memories, and each time he must struggle to figure out who and what he is. Things get even more complicated later in the novel when Barnes really starts playing around with time.In many respects, this is a pretty good book. The premise is solid, yet Barnes seems to overexplain the means by which time travel is accomplished here. It gets a little confusing if you think about it too much, especially when Barnes describes how one goes back in time without circumventing the hard and fast rule he has already laid out that time travel to the past is not possible. Still, Barnes makes a concerted effort to get the science into his science fiction. It is interesting to read the types of warfare that take place in this dark future for earth-ecological attacks play a huge role. For instance, diseases and viruses are developed to attack specific parts of the environment-wipe out the rice crops in Asia and kill untold millions, for example. Computer AI comes to develop a life of its own, culminating in a war between competing "memes." The most important meme is One True, and it essentially hooks up with the brain of its human subjects, giving them virtually identical lives and personalities by taking away their individual freedom and desires. Barnes' ideas of future warfare are exceedingly interesting (and staggeringly deadly for the human race), particularly in terms of terrorism. There is a good bit of sex and violence in this novel. The violence is OK and fits well with the storyline-Josh is basically a mercenary soldier throughout the 21st century, an unofficial veteran of several deadly wars. The sex, however, just seems gratuitous at times, making Josh a wholly ambivalent character whom the reader can never actually like. One comes away from this novel feeling very little about it, ultimately. Certainly, one cannot feel that he really knows Josh because there are all kinds of contradictions, untruths, and gaps in his own memory. The extended time travel explanation toward the end further bogs the reader down. In the end, one is left with far fewer answers than questions. The novel's saving grace, at least for me, is its description of 21st century warfare and its truly apocalyptic effects.
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by Neal Asher
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