Kaleidoscope Century

Century Next Door #2

by John Barnes

Joshua Ali Quare lives life to the full - decades before, he was infected with a virus that ensures that for every fifteen years he lives, he gains another ten. After each virus induced coma, he wakes with his memory erased and ten years younger. This time round, in 2109, someone is looking for him and it is time to put the record straight once and for all; doing so takes us through a century of gripping future history.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Alternate History, Science Fiction Fantasy, Post Apocalyptic, Dystopia

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

John Barnes (born 1957) is an American science fiction author, whose stories often explore questions of individual moral responsibility within a larger social context. Social criticism is woven throughout his plots. The four novels in his Thousand Cultures series pose serious questions about the effects of globalization on isolated societies. Barnes holds a doctorate in theatre and for several years taught in Colorado, where he still lives.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bar...

Reviews

[Aly Lauck · Rating 3 out of 5]

On one hand I’m like what did I just read? On the other, I learned what a werp was, references to the Cold War, and learned where the term “memes” originated. Sci-fi isn’t my strongest suit…I want it to be…it’s not. Extremely graphic sex and rape is depicted. The characters don’t seem likable and have little redemption throughout the book. Look, this isn’t a fun book to read. It’s well-written, it’s intelligent, it’s original. If you like different, futuristic, unreliable narrator books, this is for you!

[Gar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our narrator is a "long-timer" with the Organization. Longtimers have received a longevity treatment that, once every fifteen years or so, causes them to lose slightly less than that in physical age, along with large chunks of their memory, but retain skills. The Organization grew out of elements of the KGB, and spends most of the book as apparently a cartoon Evil League of Evil--but that actually ends up being justified by the reveals.

He's a powerfully unlikeable protagonist; he is, no questions about it, a force for evil throughout all the historical events he passes through. Most of the book is his episodic recollections of periods of the 21st century he's lived through, and the things he's done on behest of the Organization. There's murder and rape both purposeful and recreational. Alongside him is frequently his Org partner, Sadi, who is even more twisted than he is--as he has flashes of remorse.

Then the main plot twist happens, and the story folds back on itself. Its central bit of technobabble is a "closed timelike curve"--a limited form of time travel, allowing repeated travel back to one point in time--right before his recollections of Organization life really begin. The realization, which the savvy reader will have long before our "hero" does, is that he's putting his memory together after many, many trips around the loop. He's been taken through unknowingly, his life has been constantly shaped to shape him, his circumstances have been constantly, purposefully shaped to shape him, by his psychopathic guardian angel--and the century of the book's title is such a morass of shit precisely because of, in the "end", the effectively infinite repeating loops of a pair of for what are in all practical purposes, evil gods.

It's all the more disturbing because it's sort of a love story.

[Jesse Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barnes as usual is better with setting than with story, crafting an unusually interesting future and one of the most terrifying antagonists I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the main character is hinted at being interesting without being shown to be, with what could have been an engaging central conflict ignored for worldbuilding and what could have been an exciting conceit reserved until the end as a twist. Neither as disturbing or heartwarming as it was recommended to be.

[Devero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Estremamente distopico, violento e in parte anche molto sopra le righe questo è un romanzo su cui si potrebbe dire molto. Esagerato è forse l'aggettivo giusto. Abbiamo in un unico calderone, o meglio, caleidoscopio, per usare il titolo originale (Kaleidoscope Century) il viaggio nello spazio ed il viaggio nel tempo ricorsivo, una donna che diventa uomo e poi di nuovo donna per cercare il suo amore, il suo amore che è l'amorale bastardo cinico figlio di putt...protagonista del romanzo, Marte in colonizzazione, la Terra devastata, la III guerra mondiale, la guerra tra intelligenze artificiali che usano gli umani, il comunismo, il post comunismo e il KGB che domina tutto dietro le righe, complottismi vari e ringiovanimenti periodici dei protagonisti con perdite di memoria associata.
Insomma, un gran guazzabuglio.

Comunque si legge e si fa leggere, ma non lo consiglierei a tutti. Certo è adatto a chi ama Bukowski e simili autori.

3 stelle.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 4 out of 5]

review of
John Barnes's Kaleidoscope Century
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 26-28, 2020

For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

Another new writer to me whose work I enjoyed. This one despite the anti-hero's being someone not even a mother cd love.

"I turn to the battered old werp case and open it up. Inside, the werp looks like it's seen better days; there's a prominent dent in the keyboard and the screen has two stains that won't wipe off with my bathrobe sleeve.

"The touch of my thumb on the security plate activates it. Must be mine. The screen clears. Words swim up:

"YOUR NAME IS JOSHUA ALI QUARE. HIT RETURN.

"I do.

"THIS IS YOUR WERP. MANY OF YOUR MEMORIES ARE IN HERE. PASSWORD CHECK: WHAT DID YOUR FATHER CALL YOUR MOTHER THE VERY LAST TIME YOU SAW HIM?

"The question startles me. I speak the answer aloud, "A Commie cunt." I reach to type it in but apparently the werp has voice processing because it's already responding.

"When did werps get voice processing? And when did werps come along, anyway? When I was younger there were only laptops, and I sure couldn't afford one." - p 11

Not to be picky or anything, but do you think the author gave sufficient thought to whether "Commie cunt" might've been more appropriately capitalized "commie Cunt" or "commie cunt" or "Commie Cunt" or even "COMMIE CUNT"? I mean I think a case cd be made for all of those possibilities. Personally, I'm a bit inclined to "cOmmie cUnt" but maybe that's a bit too graphic.

"YOU ARE ON MARS. THE YEAR IS 2109 AND YOU NO LONGER WORK FOR THE KGB, MURPHY'S COMSAT AVENGERS, NIHON AMERICA, OR THE ORGANIZATION. THERE IS NO MORE SOVIET UNION, NO MORE FREE SOVIET ASSOCIATION, NO MORE EUROPEAN COMMONWEALTH, AND NO MORE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. EARTH IS COMPLETELY CONTROLLED BY RESUNA, YOU ARE PHYSICALLY JUST OVER SIXTY YEARS OLD. YOU HAVE ONLY FRAGMENTARY MEMORIES OF YOUR FORMER LIFE AS JAMES NORREN, NOR DO YOU RECALL MUCH OF YOUR FORMER LIVES AS JASON TESTOR, BRANDON SMITH, ULYSSES GRANT, FRED ENGELS, EURIPEDES FREDERICKSON, ELISHA TESTOR, OR KINDNESS O'HART. A NEW IDENTITY HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED FOR YOU AS "REAGAN FOSTER HINCKLEY," A JOKE WHICH YOU AND MAYBE A DOZEN HISTORIANS WILL GET." - p 12

But you get it, right? Right? & you're not an historian, right? John Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan ostensibly to impress actress Jodie Foster. Reagan died but it didn't matter because they had a clone waiting to replace him with. Even Nancy cdn't tell the difference. Maybe it was b/c Hinckley's parents were major Republican donors, maybe it was because it's always good PR to classify assassins of presidents as insane but Hinckley ended up in St Elizabeth's Hospital, the same place where Ezra Pound was put instead of being executed as a traitor. Some people have all the luck. I don't think Hinckley got lucky w/ Foster, though.

"Hinckley's mental problems did not magically disappear after being committed to St. Elizabeth's. He attempted suicide at least three times after his arrest, and his obsession with Jodie Foster continued. From St. Elizabeth's, Hinckley wrote a letter to Time magazine professing his feelings for Jodie:  "The most important thing in my life is Jodie Foster's love and admiration. If I can't have them, neither can anyone else. We are a historical couple, like Napoleon and Josephine, and a romantic couple like Romeo and Juliet."" - https://www.famous-trials.com/johnhin...

Just imagine if it worked: Let's say that you have a thing for a celebrity, let's say you're a hetero guy & you'd like to get w/ a woman actress whose talents you're impressed by, or whatever. Let's say you're in France & you're really fucking tired of Macron, or whatever his name is, so you kill him &, presto chango!, the next thing you know you're shacking up w/ sd actress. Now imagine that it worked perfectly every time, it sets a trend, that might really shake up the world a bit.

"I look around and see that the gadget that I thought was a microwave is a "Westinghouse Foodzup! Reconstitutor." Taking a wild guess, I toss a square labelled "tomato soup" and another labelled "Four grilled cheese sandwichs" into it—it looks like a microwave inside, but who can tell?—carefully putting "tomato soup" into a large bowl first.

"The readout on the reconstitutor says "select finished or prep for manual." I have no idea so I select "finished" and push the button.

"It hums for about two minutes, then chimes. I open the door. In the large bowl I had put the square package of "tomato soup" in, there's a small covered bowl, and it's full of hot tomato soup. A stack of four grilled cheese sandwiches sits on a plate in there with that package. And there's no sign of the wrappers from the food packages." - p 13

That's not really fair, is it? I mean the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is gone but a Westinghouse appliance still works? Cdn't they at least revive Nicola Tesla & pay him the money Westinghouse owed him? W/ interest? That wd be fair. Still, I want one of those Foodzup! Reconstitutors except I'll just betcha they leak all sorts of harmful radiation that makes you sterile or a Manchurian Candidate or something. Imagine combining it w/ coffee?!

"The text reads: "The use of coffee is associated with bowel cancer, genetic damage, and several disorders of the nervous system. If you are a proven frequent and/or irresponsible coffee user you can be denied health benefits under the Uniform Care Act of 2094."" - p 14

That's apparently why my uncleaned coffee-stained uniform was a fetish object for that nurse I usta date. It might make more sense to you if you knew that she liked douching w/ a certain Pittsburgh beer. I cdn't even drink the stuff under those conditions.

"The text documents don't reveal much. I wasn't much of a writer. When I do write it's mostly things like shopping lists. From these I learn I like Iron City beer." - p 15

Of course, I'm curious about this guy, just as he is about himself — but when we finally start learning the details!: What a shit! But it's when the concept of memes as AIs that fight w/ each other using human agents for control of the world that I start to get really interested.

""Meme. Noun, Obsolete meaning coined originally by Richard Dawkins, twentieth century, by analogy to 'gene,' to mean fundamental communicable ideas, such as melodies, pottery patterns, literary forms, taboos, fashions, superstitions, customs, et cetera.["]"

[..]

""Meme. Noun. Any of several thousand very large self-replicating artificial intelligences["]" - p 35

[..]

"The War of the Memes was down to about twenty-five competing memes worldwide, and just over half the world population was carrying some dominant meme—some program running in their heads had replaced whatever personality grew there naturally." - pp 35-36

Some anti-vaccination people, who I'm sympathetic to, might claim that the purpose of the current drive to vaccinate everyone in the world is more of an attempt to genetically modify everyone in a way akin to what's described above.

As it's gradually revealed, the protagonist is a particularly violent & brutal mercenary who's selling his services to a meme to wipe out & terrorize the meme's human opposition.

"The face that popped up on the vid was the first surprise: One True, for some strange reason, had decided to look like Dan Rather, or like Harrison Ford—then I realized it was probably an intermediate morph of the two. Kind of like everyone wanted an American president to look like back when there had been American presidents. Lots of signs of having lived and thought and felt, none of which it had done really, if you were a hardcore humanist, which is what I was trying to be while I talked to the thing." - p 42

Because I feel like we're living in extraordinary times when an oligarchy is taking its most extreme steps ever to try to bring the general human populace under control I've been tending to find & to highlight related themes in the books I've been reading. It's not hard to do in SciFi. I posted what I call "text panels" (museum-speak, I worked for museums), what other people call "memes", on social media attacking the propaganda of this oligarchy for 5 months & then froze my account because I'd had enough strife struggling against GROUPTHINK & wanted to move on to other things in my life. (This was all part of the process that produced my latest book, Unconscious Suffocation - A Personal Journey through the PANDEMIC PANIC, readily available for sale online - credited to "Amir-ul Kafirs"). The following text was one I excerpted from & made into such a panel:

"The old guy went on. "Well, I can understand why alot of people choose to run a meme, to invite it into their existence. Really, I do; there are plenty of people out there whose own personalities will never allow them any happiness, who tie themselves in one knot after another, people for whom the biggest curse in the world is freedom of choice because they're programmed to keep choosing wrong and blaming themselves for it. There's no meme out there that's as cruel to the people running it as their own personalities would be. They should have the choice to pick up one, even though it's the last choice they can ever make.

""But you and I—or you and this Yuri, if that's really his name, and Monica, and me, probably your Murphy is he's still alive, all of us—for some reason we're fussy. We want to make those choices. The thought of not making them makes us even more unhappy than our own failures. We can't help it, we only want happiness we can get for ourselves, as ourselves, by our own efforts and choices.["]" - pp 48-49

I mentioned the main character's nasty past. The following's not even as nasty as it gets. I didn't want to share those parts with you.

"I'd had a straight strong-arm to put on some politician, way out in the sticks around Spokane Dome, a guy named Bizet who was into good government and no corruption and like that, and who needed it explained to him that he could run his own territory as clean as he wanted it but Spokane was going to have prostitution because that was ours. He was one of the those progressive good boys that can't believe that you can do it; he had called the cops, found out who they really worked for when they wouldn't come out. I beat him pretty good" - p 81

The character, & his fellow mercenaries, has a way of prolonging his life & escaping consequences by going into a sortof time loop suspended animation & ending up at a future where he has little or no memory & where he has to restart, as at the beginning of the book.

"within the time loop, you could move on the forward leg of the loop toward the future" - p 64

In his newest incarnation, the main character is turned off by discovering who he was.

"I shudder. I'm not sure I want to live that way again, do those things again. It's turning my stomach to remember a lot of it." - p 66

There's some cynicism about drs that I don't remember at all but I might as well throw it in, eh?

"["]they stay there for year after year, getting free tuition and advanced training. Then when it's time for them to start paying back the benefits they received, to be a doctor or engineer for the people who paid to train them, they skip over to the West because the salaries are higher here. The year before they built the Wall, the German Democratic Republic lost practically the whole graduating class of every medical school. Don't tell me doctors have some special love for freedom. We know what doctors love, and it ain't that. But what they do love—and I mean money—oh, there's plenty of that over here. That's what they come for. Because they want to make cash, not make people well."" - p 68

Keep that in mind when you think of the 'frontline hero' DOCTOR GODS during COVID-19(84).

""There's one other thing," he said, and pulled out something that looked like a ray gun from a cheap sci-fi movie. He saw how startled I looked. I think he smiled. "It's an air-injector," he said. "You're getting a vaccination. Give me your arm."

[..]

"I didn't give him a fight, not even an argument. I wonder about that. If I had, would he have said, "Fine, die of mutAIDS?" Probably not, since CDC had not named mutAIDS yet" - p 75

"For the rest of it, there's the history books. First reports of a rapidly acting, airborne mutant HIV, December 1993. Riots and panics all over. South Central LA blew up. Then on January 28, 1994, President Bush was found dead in bed. He had been ill for about three weeks before, and probably contagious since July." - p 78

Given that this bk was published in 1998, President Bush's death from an STD might've been wishful thinking on the author's part. Ah.. if only.. Given today's emphasis on pandemic & vaccination, this bk's plot that involved people being given a vaccine before the human-made pandemic began might spark ye olde imagination, eh?!

But enough about Earth, what about terraforming on Mars? What about marsforming on Earth?

"Finally it flies away. I check via werp. Yes, Marsform is a word, has been for a long time. Yes, Moonforms are now developing and the first ones beginning to spread out over the face of Luna, where the first rains have already fallen for a decade or so. The moon is the colonies' major base against Resuna. Yes, Resuna's Earth." - p 84

Ah.. the memories!

"He slid an envelope into my pocket. I waited half an hour, got on the first train that seemed to be headed somewhere, hoped a rocket wouldn't hit it for a while, and then went into the bathroom. The first bathroom I picked held a dead conductor. Close that door, walk further down. Next one was unoccupied. I put a newspaper down on the seat, sat down on it, and opened the note the guy had given me.

"A short note like all of them: a British regiment in Amsterdam was showing signs of effectiveness. Go there and kill any two men I thought would do maximum damage." - p 101

I continue to find the human tendency to create maximum mayhem to be repulsive. Does that make me old-fashioned? It doesn't make me an old-fashioned. I know that much.

""The worms?" I asked.

""Eating through dikes and destroying levees, far upstream. They're having to spray poison but the worms don't die easy.["]" - p 112

Ecowarfare, of course.

For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book more the second time around.

This is the second time I have read this book. I first read back in 1995 - the year it was released. Many of the reviews here on Goodreads lament all of the brutality, sex, violence and drugs but when this book came out the publishing had yet to become so politically correct though all of it is just window dressing around the plot and none of it any more graphic than a Quentin Tarantino film. That said I doubt such a novel could find a publisher today* though I'd dearly love to read a sequel**.

What struck me the second time around was that it still read a plausible future from a technology and even a socio-political standpoint.

* No I don't see this as a conspiracy in Publishing it is just that the publishing business has consolidated into a handful of big players and the boutique publishers that can never grow beyond marginal success. All of the middle range publishing houses have been absorbed by the big players or gone out of business. The Big players stick to what they know will sell and they are risk averse. The middle range publishers were more likely to take chances and they gave us most the Hugo and nebula winners. I miss them.

** I am aware of the other 3 novels in the series but I mean a novel that continues this character's story where it left off.

[Jeff Stafford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fucking fantastic. Kaleidoscope Century is my all time favorite book. I know that some people might find it extremely disturbing or disgusting. Frankly, the characters do a lot of unspeakable things (not going to go into that here). Nevertheless, the narrator is one of the most "real" people I've come across in a book. I don't know how, but John Barnes somehow creates a world that is so real and authentic that I get lost in it every time I read this book. The ending is fantastic.

I know this is a love it or hate it book, but I wholeheartedly suggest reading it if you have the time. It's depressing, and you will not smile while reading this. I can't explain it, but I find reading this extremely fulfilling.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is chalk full of graphic sex and violence.

I liked it when I was fourteen. I also really really liked gangster rap and bad sci-fi when I was fourteen.

Fourteen year old boys are idiots.

[Lindig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Once again, the problem with first person narratives rears its ugly little head. I didn't like the protagonist and so didn't want to be in his head. After reading the first two chapters, skipped around some, read the last chapter, then said to myself "I'm glad that's over."

[Ryon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cynical, depressing book with a horrible antihero of a protagonist. I loved it!

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R3T6...

Future history as seen by (and written by) the sociopathic underbelly of humanity.

John Barnes' stories are always engaging. He tosses out "gosh-wow!" ideas and usually situates a Really Nice Guy in the center of his stories as the protagonist. Readers will typically identify and root for his protagonists because they are decent and noble.

This is not that kind of book. The protagonist of this story, Joshua Ali Quare, is a sociopath with no redeeming virtues, and, yet, Barnes still presents him as a human being so we find ourselves attracted to him, and rooting for him, despite the fact that he is a loathsome sociopath whose principle character trait is to do whatever it takes to survive and prosper.

Quare's resume is a the resume of a sociopath. He enlists in the United States Army as a Russian agent. He deserts and engineers an international incident involving the gang rape of native women and the mass murder of the women and his former fellow soldiers. He does freelance assassinations for the Russians. He subcontracts as a mercenary where he nonchalantly "serbs" - rapes - women in front of their family. He terrorizes and murders scientists engaging in a particular area of interest for the Organization, i.e., the KGB after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Because he was inoculated with an experimental drug by the KGB, every 15 years he falls sick, loses his memory and reverses his aging by ten years. As a result, the story opens in 2108, when he has lost memories again. A large part of the book is a retrospective memoir of Quare's past 100 years of sociopathy.

And, yet, it is a fascinating read for a few reasons.

First, Barnes does not dwell on the grisly details of rape and murder. The fact that Quare has "serbed" someone is mentioned but not dwelled upon. In a way, Quare's nonchalance about the subject, his disconnection with the event and/or his perspective that serbing and murder is a technique, make him out to be more of a sociopath but somehow keep him from being entirely evil (although he is.)

Second, Barnes manages to invoke our sympathies for Quare. For example, Quare's father was an abusive drunk. Quare ran away from home at 16 in order to avoid his father, and it is from there that he is recruited by a KGB agent who knows him because his family are Communists, which is explained in a matter of fact way by Quare. On another occasion, Quare adopts a street urchin, mostly because he needed someone to play the role of his daughter so that he could escape a destroyed Europe, but it seems that Quare does care for this person.

Third, Barnes' imagined future is sweeping and horrific. He imagines a Europe that is ripped apart in a technological war of the future. This is also one of Barnes' "Meme War" books, and we see how One True - explored further in Candle - develops from the kind of military technology we seem to be developing.

The most interesting feature of the book for me is its alt-history style. Quare notes that he has different versions of events recorded in his memoirs, which he explains as untrustworthy narration. However, the reader can't help but notice that Bush gets re-elected in 1992, that there is a mutant AIDS plague in 1994, and RFK, Jr. becomes president in 1996. I thought the book was written prior to 1992, which could explain these imperfect predictions of the future by Barnes, but it was originally published in 1996. So, either Barnes was being lazy in not re-writing the book or Quare's history is not our own.

And that is a tip for the big reveal of the story.

What really sold me on this book was the idea of the untrustworthy narrator who might be involved in writing his own story. What if a psychopath wanted to create a world where their psychopathy had the greatest freedom?

From that perspective, the final lines of the novel are chilling.

Let me reiterate that this book is not openly violent or bloody or frightening. It is the implications that an attentive reader has to work through for himself that are nihilistic. Reviewers who recommend against this book because the main character is a rapist are missing the point. Barnes is in now way exploiting the rape; he mentions serbing maybe four times and has two or three scenes where rape is described in an R rated fashion. Barnes is presenting a character of a kind that one can find in any war torn area. If you find the concept of rape too offensive to see the word, then, by all means, stay away, but if you have a normal ability to deal with unpleasant ideas in a generally non-graphic way, you should not let the other reviews scare you off from a worthwhile part of Barnes' collection.

PSB

[Beth Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jo Walton already reviewed this book and said everything I could probably say about it. This is my first (and probably only) reread, but I wanted to read all four books of the set. It's brilliant but horrible and extremely readable. If it weren't for the fact that the ending falls apart somewhat, it might get that fifth star. But despite that, read it only with extreme caution. Do not go into it expecting it be be anything like its prequel Orbital Resonance, which is a dystopic but delightful YA.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never really understood quite what was going on here - there was so much jumping back and forth from the current moment to things the Josh, the main character, was remembering (or thought he might be remembering) that I had the story arc never made sense to me. I suppose it didn't help much that I could never really empathize with Josh. That's a real disadvantage when a story is told in the third-person. The book wasn't bad; I just didn't really enjoy it much, which was disappointing because I liked the first one in the series so much.

[Leila P · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, this was the first Barnes book I didn't love, mainly because the main character was a mercenary who enjoyed a bit of violence and rape every now and then. It was the memoirs of Joshua Quare Ali, who wakes up in Mars in 2109 with most of his memory gone. He appears to be over 140 years old, how is that possible? He slowly picks up pieces of his past, and the history of Earth and the solar system. He experienced the Oil Wars, the Diasporas and The Meme Wars.

[Dave Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve read 5 or 6 of John Barnes’ books and generally enjoy them a great deal. This book, however, didn’t work for me. I found the story confusing and the main character deeply flawed. I’m left with the opinion that Barnes must have penned this manuscript during a particularly difficult period because some of the scenes are pretty brutal and disturbing.

[Anthony O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit gratuitous. Full of blood and gore and savagery. A most unlikable protagonist. A Dark, evil bastard to put it more bluntly.
But vividly written and very readable. Chaos and pain through fragmented memories and identities.
A possible twenty first century ...
But the real one is likely to be far more savage than even John Barnes can imagine and describe.

[Roy White · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is largely a celebration of rape, torture, and murder. Since Barnes doesn't usually write snuff porn, I kept reading in hopes of some redemption, but it never arrived.
One of the most distasteful and dispiriting books I have ever read. Plus I didn't think the time-travel aspect was especially well done, but that's a minor issue.

[Corvid · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I've read a book where I hated everyone in it so much for a while. The premise was okay but unfortunately it's filtered through a murdering rapist war criminal. I do not like the war criminal. I do not like the war criminal's baffling homophobic...love interest? This book was thoroughly unpleasant.

[Liam Proven · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely roller coaster ride of a novel. I thought I remembered it vividly from first time around when it was quite new, but large parts had escaped me. As they do Joshua. The most unlikeable antihero in fiction and yet Barnes compels you to feel something for him.

I still feel that the real 21st century will be wise, and grimmer and darker, than this one.

Exceptional.

[Bookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last few chapters were probably the best part.
I didn't really enjoy the majority of the book. It was definitely a bit sad, good to read for a few days otherwise you don't really need to go out of your way to read it.

[Monique Bakker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Science fiction is a genre I like. However, it is not my favorite genre. This book is intriguing and nice to read. The whole idea is nice. Character development is a bit less.

[Raphael]

https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comm...

[Dagmar Haiku · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this book is utterly fucked up, it has a special place in my heart. Those who enjoy interesting thoughts and violence will love this book, those who do not, will not enjoy it very much.

[Guido]

Why you might like it: Polity/world design with engineering texture. Rubric match: not yet scored. Uses your engineering/rigor/first-contact/world-building rubric. Tags: near-future, polity, ideas

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a while, I really liked this book - as teen male fantasy as it is - though it defies all attempt at categorization. "Like Vonnegut" is close. It's based a century in the future around episodic bits of Joshua Ali Quare's memories, slowly trickling into place after complete amnesia. The first he remembers is his brutal childhood way back in the 1980's, then a job for a meme that employed him to kill and rape for its war in the mid-21st century, back to early adulthood and the US Army, and even in flashbacks there were flashbacks, with occasional narration from the end of the line. Long flashes from working for the KGB in the Eurowar (the kind of grim European techno-WW3 everyone has long feared), the War of the Memes, the escape from Earth and more interleave vexing questioning of who he really is and how many of the memories are correct, before he leaves and encounters the final surprise. If that sounds like cold war thrillers and cyberpunk thrown in a blender, well, it is.

The first half is catchy, when you're thrown well off balance and just trying to come to grips with the future, mixtures of memories keeping you from getting a solid toehold anywhere, when many things remembered conflict outright or are hazy enough to perhaps be dreams. The memories are vivid and real, familiar and at the same time futuristic and eerie. The second half lost steam, lost its charm, and settled into a dull sort of quest to find his enemies, without the grandiose vision and trippiness of the beginning. An astute reader will notice anachronisms in his memories, but I think they're intentional to show his unreliability.

The surprise ending was a surprise, but much too drawn out explaining a confusing and improbable time travel, losing all of the emotional power. A handwave and one short flashback would have sufficed, not several chapter-long ones. The reader ends up with a full grasp of the world by last third, when some confusion should be left. (Except for that strange time travel never did make sense.)

The end result was that the book was a muddle that didn't seem to know what it wanted to be or where it was going. The ending was rather abrupt, and there was no sense of conclusion. The writing just stopped at a convenient point. Overall the writing itself wasn't bad at all, and I enjoyed the time reading it; but it does become a bit of a history lesson trying to show too long a timeline. The plot didn't quite hang together (or act chaotic enough for that to not matter) or leave me satisfied in the end.

Beware the gratuitous violence, sex, language, and all the other grift that comes with the seamy side of humanity. They are present in spades, along with a very bleak view of humanity and the future. But there is some counterpoint.

[John Loyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kaleidoscope Century (1995) 252 pages by John Barnes.

Josh Quare wakes up in 2109 with his memory almost gone. Fragments start falling into place. More comes back as he reads notes that he left for himself.

The story goes back & forth between the present and an episode from the previous century. It turns out that Joshua has had seven different identities. At an early age he is recruited by an Organization, and soon after given an injection. The consequences are that he'll have an almost perfect memory for fifteen years, and then be violently sick for sick months, at which point he will wake up, recover, be ten years younger, but have little or no memory of anything that happened after the injection.

Barnes comes up with several ideas in this book, The Meme Wars, where artificial intelligences are taking over humans. The AI's started as smart weapons that took out opponent's resources until they finally started taking over control of the people.

The story had lots of good ideas, but the picture of the world is almost always in some sort of global conflict. There seems to be little or no virtue, even in our protagonist. He feels sorry (some of the time) about some of the terrible things he has done, but this book doesn't have a lot of redeeming qualities.

The book is OK, but don't make a special trip to get it. There is tons of other stuff that you can read.

[Karl Stark di Grande Inverno · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romanzo onesto, senza infamia e senza lode, scritto mediamente bene.
Abbastanza intrigante, con un continuo utilizzo di flashback, funzionali al tipo di storia narrata, e con un impianto narrativo solido. Il lettore sarà sicuramente intrigato dallo sviluppo, ma non al punto tale da perderci il sonno. Un romanzo interessante, quindi, ma non memorabile; buono, ma che non lascia molto una volta concluso.
L'inizio è sicuramente la parte più coinvolgente, poichè il lettore è ignorante come il protagonista, circa il passato di quest'ultimo; è quindi stimolante continuare la lettura.
La parte finale è un pò tirata per le lunghe.
Consigliato a chi cerca alcune nuove idee fantascientifiche. Troverete qui almeno un concetto per me nuovo, come le "curve temporali chiuse", degno di interesse.
Sconsigliato a chi dalla FS vuole solo il meglio. Questo romanzo è semplicemente nella norma.

[Michelle Fraser-Page · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the heck out of Barnes' "Storm of the Century" and thought I'd try something else of his. It's a good thing he can write engaging characters in interesting situations. Unfortunately, the narrator of this story (first person) is unreliable and does some really horrible things in his very long life. Even at the end, when you think he might have a chance to pull it all together, he decides to waste a spectacular opportunity on some more horrible things. It was interesting seeing the plot eventually come together, but I'm not sure the story was worth it.

[Larchi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.
The crazy plot,
the violence...lots of it!!
The relationship between the two mercs is what really
grabbed me, and their adventures in a fucked up future.
And one of the most memorable endings I have read.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and somewhat different. Left me a thinking a bit, but perhaps only in confusion?