What do you think?
Rate this book
Steeldriver
Half-man, half-machine, Jon Hundred faces the challenge of a lifetime when he agrees to compete with a computerized mining machine to tunnel through a titanic mountain in order to free the inhabitants of the planet, Pellay. Original.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
336 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
23 people want to read
About the author
Don DeBrandt
10 books17 followersPseudonyms: Donn Cortez, DD Barant, Don H. Debrandt & Dixie Lyle
Don DeBrandt is a Canadian author who also writes under the pen-names Donn Cortez and DD Barant. Born in Saskatchewan, he currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. In addition to North America, his books have been published in Germany, France, Italy, and Russia.
His influences include Spider Robinson and John D. MacDonald, among others.
As DeBrandt, he has written numerous essays, short stories, plays and comics. His first novel, the cyberpunk The Quicksilver Screen was part of Del Rey Books' 'Discovery' line, and featured a cover by classic Science-Fiction painter Vincent Di Fate. This was followed by work for Marvel Comics and a novel in the series of book tie-ins for the Angel TV series.
Don DeBrandt is a Canadian author who also writes under the pen-names Donn Cortez and DD Barant. Born in Saskatchewan, he currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. In addition to North America, his books have been published in Germany, France, Italy, and Russia.
His influences include Spider Robinson and John D. MacDonald, among others.
As DeBrandt, he has written numerous essays, short stories, plays and comics. His first novel, the cyberpunk The Quicksilver Screen was part of Del Rey Books' 'Discovery' line, and featured a cover by classic Science-Fiction painter Vincent Di Fate. This was followed by work for Marvel Comics and a novel in the series of book tie-ins for the Angel TV series.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 17, 2022
Jon Hundred has been made into a cyborg against his will. He retains about 20% of his original body, including his brain, but is not happy with his situation. Jon escapes his owners and makes his way to the planet Pellay, where he works in a mine helping to drill a mountain tunnel. If he focuses on his work hard enough he finds that memories of his previous life come back to him.
Also working the mine is an alien race referred to as Toolies. They are jelly-like beings that can incorporate solid objects into their bodies to perform various functions. The Toolies are a very interesting race with a unique method of reproduction.
MEL is an AI whose job is to oversee the work on the tunnel from the other side of the mountain. MEL has more in common with Jon than he is aware.
This was a great introduction to an author recommended to me by a local SF bookstore owner. I'll have to thank her. STEELDRIVER is a story about the characters and their struggle for freedom in a frontier world, in fact the setting has a Wild West feel to it. There are a number of very interesting stories told by certain characters which add spice to proceedings and would make great stand alone works.
Also working the mine is an alien race referred to as Toolies. They are jelly-like beings that can incorporate solid objects into their bodies to perform various functions. The Toolies are a very interesting race with a unique method of reproduction.
MEL is an AI whose job is to oversee the work on the tunnel from the other side of the mountain. MEL has more in common with Jon than he is aware.
This was a great introduction to an author recommended to me by a local SF bookstore owner. I'll have to thank her. STEELDRIVER is a story about the characters and their struggle for freedom in a frontier world, in fact the setting has a Wild West feel to it. There are a number of very interesting stories told by certain characters which add spice to proceedings and would make great stand alone works.
May 28, 2021
Steeldriver is a futuristic cyberpunk novel, and it fits that genre to the tee, very similar to say BladeRunner. The novel centers around Jon Hundred, a hulking blue-skinned cyborg on a distant slave-labor planet called Pellay. Alongside a hardworking crew of slave-labor aliens Toolies (pejoratively called Toolies, their true name is the Insussklik) imprisoned and shipped in from another planet, Jon blasts and beats away at a mountain on the planet to support the construction of a deep underground tunnel. The setting is gruff, with everything dystopian and bleak, to such a point that even the city names are uninspiring: Cabooseville, Landing City, Boomtown, No Name Street; the mountain Jon is mining through is called God's Gravestone, and the book is filled with hardened, surly characters like One-Iron Nancy, Whiskey Joe, Dmitri, AC, Seaborne, Schoolmarm, and countless Toolies known only for their utility (Dashaway, Mountainkiller, Moneykeeper).
Jon drinks heavily at bars and sleeps alone each night in a small bunk apartment, working harder than anyone else in the mine. He is tormented by wanton murders and destruction he had done in his past, "I listen to the music of my victims out of respect. I have funeral drges from almost every race and nationality there is, because I never knew who my victims were. I don't ever want to forget what I did-- those people were obliterated. Erased and then forgotten. Maybe I'm just a hollow shell, but at least I'm walking around, I'm still making memories. Those people that died--mybosses tried to wipe out everything about them, makeit like they never existed. I can't bring them back to life--but I can keep a part of them alive." (p. 102) and the narrative pains the reader to see him as a man working hard each and every day simply to push away the guilt and internal angst he has inside. Irrespective of any hurtful memories, Jon seems every bit the noble workman in this story. So much so that any romantic touch, or meaningful interaction would be magnified ten-fold for the reader.
Jon's very being as a cyborg is explored in very wistful, sorrow-laden terms throughout the novel, "...He took pride in being a man, pride with a touch of desperation in it. But deep down inside, the hard facts refused to go away. Physically, he was only 20 percent organic. Four-fifths of his being had been forged, not born. If Jon had been the type who lived in his head, it might not have bothered him so much; but Jon was a physical man, a man who liked to solve problems with his hands, a man who savored the heft and balance and texture of things. He still had all those senses, but they weren't his anymore--they were too precise, too sensitive, too efficient. They were sensors, not senses. Jon remembered the first time he'd heard the hunting cry of a skycat, one of Pellay's predatory birds. He'd only been on the planet a month. It was a high, haunting sound, fading into the distance; he didn't know what it was, and when he asked, no one knew what he was talking about. It wasn't pitched for human ears..." (p. 170)
Thankfully, after hundreds of pages of miserable loneliness and harsh working conditions, Jon develops a love interest at work - a robot named MEL. MEL, short for Melody, is an artificial intelligence spirit of sorts, floating from one database and one robot to another. She is in fact his challenger on the other side of the mountain, the two are in competition to reach the center first, both having thousands if not millions being wagered on them by their workcrews. Whoever reaches the center will win freedom from their slave-labor contract, and whoever loses will be forced to continue for hundreds of years more, working away on another mining planet. The competition between MEL the machine versus Jon Hundred, the novel Terran/cyborg, is intensified as MEL and Jon realize what is at stake - Jon will free all the Toolies on the planet if he wins, MEL will be forced into another 840 years of hard labor if she loses.
Jon and MEL slowly grow closer by events out of their control; Jon is attacked by One-Iron Nancy, another cyborg who was mind-altered to kill him, and the two sleuth around to discover the who-dunnit behind this attempted murder. As would be expected in a cyberpunk novel on a frontier planet the sheriff's office is corrupt and ineffectual, and the two must join forces to find justice for Jon and Nancy. As Jon and MEL grow to know and trust each other, they become deeply in love, and MEL indulges Jon on supernatural, mind-blowing sensory adventures through space and sensual love-making, all through physical proxies and virtual reality stimulation sessions. The narrative runs scattered as a result, where some scenes are visceral and earth-bound, but many deviate into fantasy-making without warning. Readers may feel the story gets 'jumpy' as a result, but for the most part it builds suspense and action towards the ending climax.
The AI-element of MEL's sexual sessions with Jon make for a tantalizing read, but the book falls into the same ex-Machina type conundrums that eats away at the story. Was Melody truly in love with Jon? Why would she help him? Why sacrifice her potential chance for freedom? Do AI's even understand the human condition? Ironically, a drunk at a bar ponders this question, reasoning that AIs have personalities and contradictions inside themselves, but they are entrapped by their programming to observe order and follow the rules. The book abounds with preponderances like these, and it becomes nauseating to read these muses from Jon Hundred, MEL, and fellow cyborg Hone throughout the novel. "...my creators started out with a set of complex equations--my DNA, you might say--and then linked them to a shaped chaos program. This introduces the random factor needed for sentience--and also makes the AI program grow in unexpected ways. Some go autistic, cycling through endless loops; some randomize completely. Others accrete personality nodes around particular characteristics and begin to grow..." (p. 224)
I especially loved the sensory fantasy sessions between Jon and MEL, and feel it tied together the stagnant start to the book. I could completely imagine the two in an out-of-body fantasyland existence for time immortal, and happily read through some of these passages a few times to really grasp what Don DeBrandt was getting at, "...and then he found Melody's center, a supernova burning at her core. Jon hesitated--then slowly let himself be drawn within. It wasn't what he expected. It looked like he was falling slowly toward the rounded top of a huge, multicolored bush. He sank into a maze of Y-shaped branches, and when he brushed against them emotions flooded through his mind, recognizable but not overpowering. He reached out, touched the end of a blue twig and tasted sadness. He ran his finger along the twig's lengthand the sadness lightened to melancholy; when he ran it the other way it increased back towards sorrow....it was Melody's emotional matrix, all her ranges of feeling wrapped around each other in a rainbow..." (p. 230) This was one of several such sessions between MEL and Jon, and by story's end, the two end up 'living together' in this otherworldly existence forever.
It's strange, but I feel anyone who doesn't finish this book 100% to the end will be utterly disappointed, while those who slog it out for the last 50 or so pages will feel fully satisfied, and like Jon Hundred, their hard work and doldrum labor will not be in vain.
I rate it a 2 out of 5, I liked it, but was tempted to drop the book several times over, picking at it slowly.
Jon drinks heavily at bars and sleeps alone each night in a small bunk apartment, working harder than anyone else in the mine. He is tormented by wanton murders and destruction he had done in his past, "I listen to the music of my victims out of respect. I have funeral drges from almost every race and nationality there is, because I never knew who my victims were. I don't ever want to forget what I did-- those people were obliterated. Erased and then forgotten. Maybe I'm just a hollow shell, but at least I'm walking around, I'm still making memories. Those people that died--mybosses tried to wipe out everything about them, makeit like they never existed. I can't bring them back to life--but I can keep a part of them alive." (p. 102) and the narrative pains the reader to see him as a man working hard each and every day simply to push away the guilt and internal angst he has inside. Irrespective of any hurtful memories, Jon seems every bit the noble workman in this story. So much so that any romantic touch, or meaningful interaction would be magnified ten-fold for the reader.
Jon's very being as a cyborg is explored in very wistful, sorrow-laden terms throughout the novel, "...He took pride in being a man, pride with a touch of desperation in it. But deep down inside, the hard facts refused to go away. Physically, he was only 20 percent organic. Four-fifths of his being had been forged, not born. If Jon had been the type who lived in his head, it might not have bothered him so much; but Jon was a physical man, a man who liked to solve problems with his hands, a man who savored the heft and balance and texture of things. He still had all those senses, but they weren't his anymore--they were too precise, too sensitive, too efficient. They were sensors, not senses. Jon remembered the first time he'd heard the hunting cry of a skycat, one of Pellay's predatory birds. He'd only been on the planet a month. It was a high, haunting sound, fading into the distance; he didn't know what it was, and when he asked, no one knew what he was talking about. It wasn't pitched for human ears..." (p. 170)
Thankfully, after hundreds of pages of miserable loneliness and harsh working conditions, Jon develops a love interest at work - a robot named MEL. MEL, short for Melody, is an artificial intelligence spirit of sorts, floating from one database and one robot to another. She is in fact his challenger on the other side of the mountain, the two are in competition to reach the center first, both having thousands if not millions being wagered on them by their workcrews. Whoever reaches the center will win freedom from their slave-labor contract, and whoever loses will be forced to continue for hundreds of years more, working away on another mining planet. The competition between MEL the machine versus Jon Hundred, the novel Terran/cyborg, is intensified as MEL and Jon realize what is at stake - Jon will free all the Toolies on the planet if he wins, MEL will be forced into another 840 years of hard labor if she loses.
Jon and MEL slowly grow closer by events out of their control; Jon is attacked by One-Iron Nancy, another cyborg who was mind-altered to kill him, and the two sleuth around to discover the who-dunnit behind this attempted murder. As would be expected in a cyberpunk novel on a frontier planet the sheriff's office is corrupt and ineffectual, and the two must join forces to find justice for Jon and Nancy. As Jon and MEL grow to know and trust each other, they become deeply in love, and MEL indulges Jon on supernatural, mind-blowing sensory adventures through space and sensual love-making, all through physical proxies and virtual reality stimulation sessions. The narrative runs scattered as a result, where some scenes are visceral and earth-bound, but many deviate into fantasy-making without warning. Readers may feel the story gets 'jumpy' as a result, but for the most part it builds suspense and action towards the ending climax.
The AI-element of MEL's sexual sessions with Jon make for a tantalizing read, but the book falls into the same ex-Machina type conundrums that eats away at the story. Was Melody truly in love with Jon? Why would she help him? Why sacrifice her potential chance for freedom? Do AI's even understand the human condition? Ironically, a drunk at a bar ponders this question, reasoning that AIs have personalities and contradictions inside themselves, but they are entrapped by their programming to observe order and follow the rules. The book abounds with preponderances like these, and it becomes nauseating to read these muses from Jon Hundred, MEL, and fellow cyborg Hone throughout the novel. "...my creators started out with a set of complex equations--my DNA, you might say--and then linked them to a shaped chaos program. This introduces the random factor needed for sentience--and also makes the AI program grow in unexpected ways. Some go autistic, cycling through endless loops; some randomize completely. Others accrete personality nodes around particular characteristics and begin to grow..." (p. 224)
I especially loved the sensory fantasy sessions between Jon and MEL, and feel it tied together the stagnant start to the book. I could completely imagine the two in an out-of-body fantasyland existence for time immortal, and happily read through some of these passages a few times to really grasp what Don DeBrandt was getting at, "...and then he found Melody's center, a supernova burning at her core. Jon hesitated--then slowly let himself be drawn within. It wasn't what he expected. It looked like he was falling slowly toward the rounded top of a huge, multicolored bush. He sank into a maze of Y-shaped branches, and when he brushed against them emotions flooded through his mind, recognizable but not overpowering. He reached out, touched the end of a blue twig and tasted sadness. He ran his finger along the twig's lengthand the sadness lightened to melancholy; when he ran it the other way it increased back towards sorrow....it was Melody's emotional matrix, all her ranges of feeling wrapped around each other in a rainbow..." (p. 230) This was one of several such sessions between MEL and Jon, and by story's end, the two end up 'living together' in this otherworldly existence forever.
It's strange, but I feel anyone who doesn't finish this book 100% to the end will be utterly disappointed, while those who slog it out for the last 50 or so pages will feel fully satisfied, and like Jon Hundred, their hard work and doldrum labor will not be in vain.
I rate it a 2 out of 5, I liked it, but was tempted to drop the book several times over, picking at it slowly.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews