The Fictional Man

by Al Ewing

Hollywood: Niles Golan is writing a remake of a camp-classic spy movie. The studio has plans for a franchise, so rather than hiring an actor, the protagonist will be 'translated' into a cloned human body.

It's common practice - Niles' therapist is a Fictional. So is his best friend. So, maybe, is the woman in the bar he can't stop staring at. Fictionals are a part of daily life now, especially in LA.

In fact, it's getting hard to tell who's a Fictional and who's not...

Funny, clever, profound and moving, The Fictional Man is set to be Al Ewing's break-through novel.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Novels, Weird Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2013

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

The Fictional Man by Al Ewing - a provocative novel, an entertaining novel, and, what might come as a bit of a surprise, a deeply philosophical novel.

Unlike a novel by Philip K. Dick where an entire lineup of science fiction oddities usually appear, in The Fictional Man, Al Ewing limits himself to one and only one: the creation of Fictionals.

What is a Fictional? As we quickly learn on the opening pages, a Fictional is someone created to star in a specific television show and/or film. More specifically, a Fictional comes not from a human womb but from a laboratory test tube or what's referred to as a “translation tube”. A Fictional is born as a fully mature adult, lives about eight years and then, as if a light bulb suddenly switched off, dies.

As main character Niles Golan tells us, by 1990 there were over four hundred Fictionals modeled on fictional characters from a novel or play or created especially for TV and movies. And by the year 2000, the number of Fictionals in Los Angeles has reached between forty and fifty thousand. That's a lot of Fictionals!

Fictionals having sex is a rarity since Fictionals were carefully designed to sublimate sexual desires into their roles in front of the camera. A Fictional man or woman would occasionally fall in love with a Fictional of the opposite sex (Hollywood, forever conservative, only created straight Fictionals) but a Fictional falling in love or having sex with a real person has always been completely unacceptable and any violation would ruin the career of both parties.

According to a landmark legal ruling, duplication of a Fictional is perfectly fine as long as there are clear physical and psychological differences between the different versions. For example: there are a good number of Sherlock Holmes Fictionals.

Does all this sound completely bonkers? It surely is. Al Ewing has written a very funny book where Niles Golan, a transplanted Brit novelist, author of nineteen Kurt Power private eye novels, sees a Fictional therapist and has a Fictional as his best friend. And Niles dreams of the day one of his Kurt Power novels will be turned into a blockbuster film starring a Fictional as Kurt Power.

For the entertainment industry there have always been those irksome philosophical issues: Are Fictionals real humans? Should they be granted the same rights as humans born the natural way, from a human womb? Many women and men, similar to Niles, judge Fictionals as different, maybe not inferior, but certainly different. And some even claim, as Niles himself does, Fictionals are not “real” since, after all, to be human one must have a mother, live through childhood and adolescence and experience what it means to gradually grow old year after year – quite unlike Fictionals who are the same exact person until the day their biological switch is turned off and they are no more.

But wait, let's take a more careful look. We come to understand, primarily through Bob Benton, Niles' best friend, that a Fictional possesses the entire range of human desires and human emotions. By this standard, Fictionals are most certainly real, as real as anyone reading this review.

And there's the whole ethical issue. Does the entertainment industry have the right to create Fictionals for the sole purpose of profit? After all, once a TV series fizzles out and a Fictional is no longer needed, the studio simply tosses them out like garbage. Fictionals have committed suicide.

Al Ewing also plays with the crossover between “real” humans and fiction. One woman Niles encounters yearns to become nothing more than an actress in an author or screenwriter's script. When Niles comes out and asks her if she herself is a Fictional, she's flattered, the high point of her life. Also, Al Ewing has Niles continually insert running fictional commentary in all his interactions, as when Niles is asked a penetrating question from his therapist Ralph Cutner: The author stared Ralph Cutner right in the eye as his ridiculous eyebrows waggled like caterpillars. With one insouciant glare, he dared the man to make his accusation and be done. Instead, the Fictional crumbled, utterly defeated.

Al Ewing addresses another aspect of being human: living with a very real, full past. This is highlighted by the life of one Henry Dalrymple of Boston who, as a twenty-six-year-old bank clerk and aspiring author of the great American novel, wishing to serve the country he loved, enlists in the Army. Henry Dalrymple, a smiling, elfin young man engaged to be married to the girl of his dreams is sent to Burma and winds up in a Japanese POW camp. The experience proves shattering for Henry Dalrymple. Niles reads the one and only short-story Henry wrote – unpublished and unpublishable – a ghastly, twisted tale entitled The Doll-Party, or, The Life and Death of a Doll. Henry's entire story is included as part of The Fictional Man. Reading this short-story, we're given glimpses of the trauma, the devastation wrought on the humanity of poor Henry who spend time as a prisoner of war.

Henry's case is extreme but as we follow Niles in his California odyssey it becomes clear one way we humans deal with our suffering and traumas is to create stories for ourselves, fictions – the fiction can range from an occasional or ongoing narrative to a full-blown alternative reality. But whatever form it takes, on some level, we're all part of a fiction.


British author Al Ewing, born 1977

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 3 out of 5]

A metafictional tragi-comedy that, while generally entertaining, feels a bit directionless and never really takes off.

Niles Golan is an English writer who has moved to Los Angeles to write screenplays (he isn't very good at novels). Technology has advanced a bit, and now fictional characters are bred through DNA-manipulation and cloning into living, breathing bodies, and are known as Fictionals. So there is a real "person" that is Indiana Jones, a real "person" who is Ethan Hunt, etc.

And here the world building around Fictionals gets a bit hazy - hazier than I would've liked. Because a world where you write and then breed characters throws up a lot of questions, questions most of the novel ignores. And I kept bumping my head against this. I tried ignoring it, just accepting the world as it's presented, but then some situations and occurrences lost meaning, or became unclear.

So Fictionals are assembled clones, and the book hints that they don't grow older. Do they really not age, or only not visually? Do they die? How long do they live? Surely they're not immortal.
Not all roles in a film or TV series are filled with Fictionals, human actors and actresses still exist. Why?
Fictionals are seen as non-human, or lesser than human. Why keep them alive after a movie series gets canned? (Harsh, I know, but less so if you truly see them as semi-animals..)
Sex between humans and Fictionals is seen as repulsive (or as a deviant kink, at best), but surely there'd be a thriving business in creating 'sexual models on demand'?
Are there other industries that use these fake people - basically people bred into slavery. Does the army now consist of Fictionals?

And so on. And I know, it's not the point of the novel. But then I find it really hard to formulate what the point is. I think it's trying to say something about what makes a person 'real' or not? The characters sure talk about it a lot, repeating the same arguments over and over, never really getting anywhere (everytime the novel started one of these dialogues up again, I'd find myself audibly sighing).

Our main character is supposed to adapt a 60s screenplay about a James Bond parody into modern times, and that is about as much plot momentum as we'll be getting. Golan is also a bit of a bastard, in the mold of the male anti-hero of last decade's prestige television. It makes it hard to root for him, but maybe that's the point? I really am not sure.

There is a point towards the end of the book where our protagonist reads another author's short story, a pastiche of a 60s Twilight Zone-like story, that is really terrific. It really emulates that style of writing very well, and the story itself is really good.

So, all that said, I did enjoy my time with the novel. It's snappily written, and it did make me laugh a couple of times. In the end, I just wish it had more direction and was less vague in its world building.

(Kindly received a review copy from Rebellion through Netgalley)

[Vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

THE FICTIONAL MAN by Al Ewing was not an easy book to read. The main character, Niles Golan is a jerk. He's spent his entire life in denial of his own faults (of which there are many) and now that he's alone and miserable he's finally beginning to understand why.

In Niles' world cloning technology exists, but there's too many legalities involved in making clones from real people. The workaround is "fictionals," which are people created from tubes that are the live embodiment of fictional people, for example Sherlock Holmes. Imagine what it would be like to see James Bond in real life--or at the least playing himself in a movie.

But if fictionals aren't real should they be able to have a relationship with real people? Will their wiring allow it? How would real and fictional people interact? What would life be like for a fictional--never growing old, always being stuck being a certain way?

Niles doesn't consider himself a "realist," or a person who considers fictionals to be second-class citizens. His best friend is a fictional (Bob Benton, the Black Terror!), he hired a fictional life coach since his last therapist was so ineffective, and at the bar he often visits sits a woman he stares at who's a fictional (maybe). But as the story progresses it becomes painfully obvious that Niles does have an issue with fictionals, the question is how long will it take him to realize it for himself?

Because Niles is not a very sympathetic protagonist, and he stumbles around his life without any purpose other than his own self-aggrandizement, I had a hard time caring about where the story went. Sure the premise is interesting, and Ewing presents it in a very close-up, visceral way that makes the reader think about prejudice in general and the stereotypes involved. And sure Ewing can tell a story about a very flawed man in a very flawed world where rose-colored glasses were long ago thrown down and ground under foot. But, ultimately this book wasn't for me, because...well, I happen to like roses and nice people and protagonists I want to root for.

Set in an alternate current-day Los Angeles, THE FICTIONAL MAN revolves around Niles' movement as he attempts to come up with a movie pitch based on a remake. But Niles finds layer after layer of background inspiration, and he's compelled to uncover the mystery. Among the mystery are Niles' memories, self-narration, visits with his ex-wife and friend Bob, and so on--all of it together, it's all just so weird. This is an uncomfortable book to read, and it doesn't help that the steady pace is slow and pedantic. The prose is great, very clean and smooth, and it's obvious Ewing's skill with words. Doesn't make the story less weird, though.

So if you like weird stuff with seriously flawed characters and a subtext asking what being "real" really means...then THE FICTIONAL MAN is for you.

Recommended Age: Adults only

Language: Frequent

Violence: Some punches thrown but that's about it

Sex: Lots of references and details

*** Find this and other reviews at Elitist Book Reviews. ***

[Alberto Palumbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantascienza di qualità quella proposta da 451 attraverso questo romanzo di Al Ewing, autore Marvel Comics. Un ottimo lavoro metanarrativo che non solo critica la deriva che ultimamente ha preso Hollywood con tutti quei remake politicamente corretti o che seguono la tendenza del momento, ma anche sul concetto di realtà e finzione, che in fantascienza molto deve a Philip K. Dick oppure all’”Invenzione di Morel” di Bioy Casares.

[Gavin Gates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, clever writing as is expected from a name such as Al Ewing but with his 2000ad pedigree you would expect a flat out action bloodbath, but while you do get some oldschool comic book narcissism, you couldn't be more wrong, instead, what you get is a seriously intelligent backdrop with complex plot lines and characters with more bite to them than you would have thought possible exploring a real dark side to the human and manufactured persona. Absolutely nothing about this novel from the brilliant artwork of the front cover to the very last word could be considered anything short of spot on.

[Alex DiDonato · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this. Please, PLEASE, everyone, read this! If you like weird, meta, and/or science fiction this book should be up your alley. PKD fans take note too. If anything, I would be OK with it being a little longer.

[Gina Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! There is so much going on here! Reading this book is kind of like holding a mirror up to another mirror and watching that tiny weird stream of infinity. It's fun, it's disturbing, and it makes you wonder what's real.

The whole book, which presents a universe wherein people have to wonder whether fictional characters can be real, comes down to this: "Change," he said. "If you can change...that's what makes you real."

Pretty much, sad, disturbed, jackass protagonist. Pretty much.

[Alex Sarll]

Al Ewing's previous novels have all been set (albeit often nominally) in shared worlds, and (while very smart) had roots in the sort of high concept action-with-comic-touches you'd expect from a man who also writes for the more brattish of Britain's two great science fiction institutions, 2000AD. So this Hollywood satire represents something of a change of pace. It's set round about now, but in a world where the lead roles in film and TV franchises are taken by Fictionals - vat-grown embodiments of the leading man (and it is usually a man). Everything that follows is a natural ramification of this premise, itself deeply plausible on an emotional level if not a scientific one (although there was one particular social taboo associated with the Fictionals that I didn't wholly buy, I can certainly understand the logic behind it). Many authors would have been content to lead with the subplot - the murder of one iteration of Sherlock Holmes, apparently by another, investigated by two more. But Ewing instead gives us LA through the eyes of Niles Golan, who may be a hack writer but is a world-class prick. Anyone who's ever internally narrated their own life will wince at meeting this monster. Jacket-quote style summary: 'Howard Jacobson with clones'.
And I didn't even get into the gothic-style story within a story and its previous, ever more disturbing versions, did I?

[Indi Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine a world that's perfected human cloning, but of course the ethical questions remain; laws are enacted to protect against cloning any actual human beings - but movie studios find a loophole in which they are able to use carefully-engineered cloned bodies to create real-life people out of fictional characters, the Fictionals. A slightly clunky premise, but it's more than made up for by the lushness of Ewing's writing. We follow Niles Golan, a prolific author who isn't nearly as good at his craft as he imagines himself to be, and who obsessively narrates his life in an inner monologue that glorifies himself as the hero of his life. He's a deeply, DEEPLY flawed protagonist, and a fascinating prism through which we view the rest of the characters, some "real," and some, like Bob Benton, his best friend and arguably the most interesting character in the novel, Fictionals. The plot wends its way through what feels more like a character study, a lazy river on which Golan's ego floats, but is nonetheless enthralling by the end. My favorite of my recent reads, I'd like to read more of Ewing's work and highly recommend it.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe even 4.5 Stars...

The Fictional Man is an absurd, wonderfully realized story. To start, it provides an excellent world filled to the brim with the ethically-challenging existence of Fictionals. Additionally, our 'hero' has absolutely laugh-out-loud inner narration that is oftentimes shocking but nearly always entertaining.

On top of all this, we have a side murder mystery (of sorts) and increasingly 'meta' layers introduced as our 'hero' delves into the origins of a screenplay he is offered a chance to rewrite for a new generation. Talk about stories within stories within stories!! Though sometimes dizzying, it was never overwhelming. Instead, it was impressively fascinating and thoroughly addictive.

By the end, I was stunned that each thread was tied up. Even more stunning was that this comically ludicrous tale could end up being so quietly personal, so tied to inner recognition of our selves and truly touching.

There's a little hint that the author might like to revisit Niles (the 'hero') again in the future and I would love to see that happen. Though The Fictional Man feels complete, I would love more.

[Kyra Dawkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars rounded up to 4 for Goodreads

The Fictional Man is a compelling challenge to enter into the realm of speculative fiction. Who wouldn't be drawn in by considerations of what it means to be real...

The premise of this book, the metanarrative world building, the wry humor, all three of these components were 100/10. With that said, it is really hard for me to love a book when I am thoroughly irritated by the main character and Niles was utterly annoying, which I think was intentional. Also, there were times things got a little too spicy for me, but somehow, it all felt detached enough for me to stomach it.

There are quite a few people in my life to whom I would recommend this book, particularly those who aren't as bothered by obnoxious main characters. And the meta nature of this story, even the one around the author's true identity, would make this a fascinating book club pick for sure...

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been reading this over at my partner's place, and this was an interesting ride, especially after mostly knowing Ewing from his comics over at Marvel. The pitch is that Hollywood has now replaced actors with short lived clones made to spec for each show (aka Fictionals), our main character is trying to break into Hollywood as a writer so he can someday create his own Fictional (and surprise surprise yes he does have a god complex complete with internal narration), and his life is slowly falling apart, which, frankly, is fantastic to watch happen. There is a background serial murder happening, but it honestly doesn't take too much prominence - it's something you hear about on the TVs in the background and in character conversations. If you are looking for a likable main character, you are not going to find one here, tbh. There's also new fun dimensions that people find to discriminate with, because people! It also ends up taking some interesting sexual turns towards the end, and it almost feels like he wanted more space to get into more of the societal aspects, but he realized that his character's story wasn't going to develop beyond a certain point and that he had to wrap it up. I don't mind the lack of resolution and that our main functionally disappears into the night at the end of it. Definitely worth reading, and I'd love to see Ewing do more original work tbh.

[talia]

DNF 13%
Really wanted to like this, but it wasn't for me. Main character is very unlikable (intentionally so), and this made it hard for me to connect. Fascinating premise though!

[Jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5.
Direi "Bojak Horseman che incontra Il Ladro di Orchidee" ma in qualche modo non sarebbe esatto. Ci si avvicina, ma non sarebbe comunque esatto. Sì, perché Ewing confeziona un romanzo unico nel suo genere. La Hollywood che si tuffa nel suo riflesso vivendo un mondo dove persone e immaginari (cloni creati in laboratorio di personaggi inventati) coesistono e si autodistruggono nell'oscillare sulla linea che li separa. Qual è la differenza tra un uomo e quello che inventa? Come si comporterebbe se i personaggi che pensa potessero vivere al di fuori della sua penna? Ewing ci dona un'opera terrena pur vivendo di fantascienza e tanta immaginazione, un romanzo sagace e fluido, piacevole, forte e irriverente, il cui unico difetto è, talvolta, finire in trappola del suo linguaggio settoriale. In sunto: davvero un bel colpo!

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Al Ewing has created a very interesting and original science fiction novel. The novel centres around Niles, a mediocre writer who lives a lonely and delusional life, with dreams of making a movie and creating a Fictional, a human clone-like-being made especially for the movies, which perfectly represent the characters they are made to play. The novel is humorous, in a deeply depressing sort of way, and does not skimp in the emotional blows. The characters in the novel are very real, which makes the subtlety of the alternate history/science fiction that is featured all the cooler.

[Richard Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

'We like to think we're the stars of our own story when we're just minor characters in someone else's.' I wish I could remember the source of the quote, as it is pertinent to the themes of this intriguing and original novel. Set in a parallel universe where clones are manufactured for entertainment, it examines what it means to be real: 'If you can change, then you're real.' the protagonist asserts ironically, as he is trapped in a repeated pattern of behaviour, narrating his own - imagined - story.

[SvartUlv · Rating 1 out of 5]

L'idea di cloni-attori, gli immaginari, con le caratteristiche fisiche e psichiche dei personaggi che devono interpretare sostituendo gli attori umani nello showbusiness è sicuramente interessante ma di fatto non viene sfruttata. Quest'idea resta in gran parte sullo sfondo e ció mi ha deluso. Non riesco a catalogarne il genere ma mi risulta quasi forzato definirlo un romanzo di fantascienza. Unica nota positiva il racconto horror "La festa delle bambole o Vita e morte di una bambola" contenuta nel penultimo capitolo, quello l'ho semplicemente adorato.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent novel, full of food for thought. It's a gripping and fascinating story that kept me hooked.
I loved the world building and the fleshed out characters.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

[Piero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un romanzo di personaggi che non fanno altro che scrivere le proprie vite come autori indipendenti, probabilmente il primo romanzo di questo genere che leggo

[Letizia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strano forte.

[Hazel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se letto al momento giusto è un libro che può rivoluzionare il tuo modo di vedere noi stessi e gli altri

[David Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

My lovely son brought this book with him on a visit, and I was hooked by the cover. Must say, I’m glad he did!

I very rarely read other reviews before reading a book, much less before writing a review, but I was curious to understand why so many people scored it so low.
It seems the majority of low scorers either didn’t get past the first few pages (so why review?) or they didn’t like the central character or (and this seems more common) people were expecting a more adventurous narrative.

Okay, so fair enough, there is a lot of self-absorbed Woody Alan-style neurosis in this story. Lots of dialogue and even monologue from unlikable characters who can’t lift their eyes over their own problems. But that’s kind of the point.
Hopefully this isn’t a spoiler, but things don’t necessarily turn out with nicely tied up plot lines, but this is also the point.

The book itself is quite a meta study of writers who look for the easy and lurid adventure tale, and don’t “get” the value of a character-driven story that discusses the nature of growth and identity…. Which kind of makes those reviews from people who didn’t get past 9% also the point.

I suspect Random House did their author - more famous for comic-book stories - a bit of a dis-service by putting the book out on the Rebellion label. This story owes a lot more to PKD than it does to Pat Mills, and I imagine (with apologies to comic fans - I do realise that there have been many excellent graphic sf stories)) that it’s pitched at the wrong market.

This is a highly thoughtful and original look at the mechanics of prejudice, taboo, and the nature of self, made all the more interesting by subtly playing with the idea that - in “real” people - identity is formed by an inner narration which is largely fiction.

This book also contains a gem of a short story, loosely based on The Steadfast Tin Soldier which explores the nature of narrative identity and free will. Different iterations of the same story keep adding more layers to the onion in a way that I’ll be unpacking for a while.

If you’re interested in reading more about the narrative self, you might like The Science of Storytelling or The Status Game: On Social Position and How We Use It, both by Will Storr.

For more fiction which discusses the nature of reality, try Ubik, which is actually mentioned in this book.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a weird one. I didn't really know where it was going until the end.
Almost DNFed this early on. You have to slog through 50-100 pages of the most insufferable narrator you can imagine before things start to get interesting. Toward the end we also get to see the author write in multiple styles for different purposes and that was a nice change of pace (because the main narrator is hella annoying).

I get the point of the book now, after finishing it, but DURING it? Not really. The things that kept me reading were points of curiosity that didn't always end up leading anywhere. I guess the character doesn't know where anything is going so we don't either, but I still think there had to have been a better way to show that. I enjoyed the wild goose chase to find the origins of the movie the narrator is supposed to be adapting, but nothing really came of it (the last story he finds is kinda relevant to his situation, but it's not like he *needed* that story on top of other events. I also found it awkward that the last story he finds is supposed to be relevant to him because it's a guy who's alienated everyone by being an asshole and now he's alone. But that's because he was in a war and has PTSD! The narrator was never in any war, he just drove everyone away because he's an asshole! He's so wrapped up in his own mind, narrating his own life and thinking he's the protagonist, that he just doesn't even notice that other people have feelings. Was there really supposed to be an equivalence between war PTSD and being self-centered?

I also can't decide if the end is actually satisfying or what. He basically throws his entire life away (after realizing that he really has fucked it up irreparably) and walks off to be 'rewritten' into a new character by someone else. So it could go well or it could go very badly. Either way he doesn't figure out how to deal with his own shit, so like... has he actually changed at all? Earlier he says that being real is the ability to change, and he claims to change at the end by getting rid of his own personal assholey narration, but he's just going to replace it with someone else's narration. Although I guess the whole point is that fiction isn't inherently unreal and real life isn't inherently real.

Like, looking back I can see how the book makes some amount of sense as a whole, but while reading it it never feels like it has a point. And the narrator is SO. ANNOYING. I guess you could read this if you're stuck on a plane or something. Or if you enjoy terrible characters.

Also, I was really expecting Niles to find out he was actually a Fictional all along, and that the reason Kurt Power was so ridiculous is because it was fictional the whole time. Sure, he did find out that he was fictional, but not THAT kind of Fictional.

[Pablo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Coincidentally enough, I have two titles for review that center around clones. Gene Wolfe's posthumous INTERLIBRARY LOAN is a wonderful follow-up to A BORROWED MAN that felt more like a parting gift rather than a coda when I read it last week. In it, it's 200 years in the future and clones are "recloned" by having information about deceased authors printed into their minds so they can emulate them as library resources to be checked out by their fans. Humans literally check reclones out of the library to discuss their books with them. It's a great concept and Wolfe handles it as well as he always does.

In THE FICTIONAL MAN we have an alternate 1980s where human cloning was developed for media entertainment purposes (they star in TV shows). The concept is just as original as Wolfe's but the execution was not something I could get into. The premise is our antagonist is in therapy with a "fictional man" (retired clone who played a therapist on TV) and this results in a long, whiny dialog (internal and with the therapist) that gets old fast.

I would look for another book by the author, or short stories, since the concept is appealing and this may be an author working out his approach.

[Melody Bowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the themes - what's the difference between a fictional person and a real person? Is your identity just a story you tell yourself? Is storytelling ever original or is it just a constant cycle of adapting other stories?

There's also something pleasingly ridiculous about the idea of having 5 versions of Sherlock Holmes running around and interacting with each other. If studios could make characters real, you bet they'd all compete with each other.

Unfortunately the narrative lacked snap. It got very soap opera at times and not in a good way. I didn't like the characters much. Maybe that was the point - but Niles made me cringe or made me angry. I did like his relatable quirk of self narrating but that's all.

Great to read if you're interested in stories or storytelling, not much to recommend it otherwise.

[Heather Warner · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.75* stars. I really enjoyed “The Fictional Man”. It was entertaining, funny, energetic, creative and thought-provoking. The protagonist Niles is pretty much a jerk but he grows on you as he figures himself out while stumbling through his life. Such an interesting world and I loved the other characters, especially his best friend Bob and his therapist. Seriously weird story!
(Book blurb): ““What’s it like, not being real?”
In LA, where today’s star is tomorrow’s busboy, discarded “Fictionals” – characters spun into flesh-and-blood by genetic engineering and hypnogogic brain-training – are everywhere. Screenwriter Niles Golan’s therapist is a Fictional. So is his best friend. So (maybe) is the woman in the bar he can’t stop staring at. It’s getting so you can’t tell who’s real and who’s not.
Niles isn’t completely sure how real he is…”

[Steve Bishop · Rating 1 out of 5]

What could have been an awesome PKD/Frederick Pohl sci-fi instead falls into the trap of postmodern self indulgence. What could have been a fascinating foray into psychologies of people in a world where even the human can potentially be mechanised, reproduced digitally, where uniqueness is a commodity, now one that is replicable, is simply a chronicle of the trials and tribulations of some jaded Hollywood hack. No character insight, very little philosophy, I was very disappointed because the central idea of simulants of fictional characters being fabricated as apparently real live humans is brilliant.

[Jeff Cosmi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid three stars, I think this is going to be one of those middle of the road books for the majority of readers. I don't think it can be a 5 star reread every other year type of book, but at the same time it wasn't a skim and only read 20% kind of book. The concept is an original quick and easy fun enough. It's not as PKD as I was expecting from the blurbs but it was a nice witty noir, which is why I liked it.

[Sondre Jacobsen · Rating 1 out of 5]

A novel whithout a story

A rambling river of words resulting in a incoherent narrative. The setup is not credible, the technology would have had larger implications on society and the creations of Fictionals represents a greed that not even the worst corporations would have attempted. This was difficult to complete. The ending was disappointing in the extreme, seems like the author didn't quite know what to do, ran out of space and was forced to cut it short.

[Costin Pătru · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, not what I expected.

The writer takes the idea, plays with it for a while then throws it right into the trash. Even the backcover intro has more twists and turns than the actual book itself.

Author doesn't really convinces me of this whole

'How does it feel to be unreal?' thing.

Don't know what happened. Maybe he got bored halfway through.

Anyway, good premise.

***

7/10