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Plastic Jesus
Plastic Jesus grabs you by the throat. From the opening paragraph, without warning, it plunges you into a world of fear and confusion and visceral emotion. When it spews you back out again, you are left dizzy, overwhelmed – and desperate to read more. And it’s then that you take your first fearful steps into Lark City…
It is the near future, following a devastating Holy War. Once part of the US colonies, Maalside, the New Republic, now stands alone in the Pacific, separated from the heartland by 200 miles of salty ocean. Lark City is its capital, watched over by a 50 foot, pouting, stiletto-heeled and garter-belted ‘Miss Liberty’, a crude parody of the famous landmark across the water.
In this brutal neon jungle, Code Guy Johnny Lyon writes a Jesus social networking AI, to rebrand religion following the war. But something goes wrong; a virtual hell breaks on the streets of Lark – a violent, surreal and uncontrollable social breakdown.
Caught in this terrifying web of danger are Sarah Lee, Johnny’s co-worker, drug lord Paul McBride who is determined to exploit the chaos to wipe out his enemies, and McBride’s junkie daughter, a prostitute called Kitty.
Now, only Johnny can save Sarah, Kitty and the city.
It is the near future, following a devastating Holy War. Once part of the US colonies, Maalside, the New Republic, now stands alone in the Pacific, separated from the heartland by 200 miles of salty ocean. Lark City is its capital, watched over by a 50 foot, pouting, stiletto-heeled and garter-belted ‘Miss Liberty’, a crude parody of the famous landmark across the water.
In this brutal neon jungle, Code Guy Johnny Lyon writes a Jesus social networking AI, to rebrand religion following the war. But something goes wrong; a virtual hell breaks on the streets of Lark – a violent, surreal and uncontrollable social breakdown.
Caught in this terrifying web of danger are Sarah Lee, Johnny’s co-worker, drug lord Paul McBride who is determined to exploit the chaos to wipe out his enemies, and McBride’s junkie daughter, a prostitute called Kitty.
Now, only Johnny can save Sarah, Kitty and the city.
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2013
3 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
About the author
Wayne Simmons
36 books178 followersWayne Simmons is a writer and journalist with several genre novels published in the UK, Germany, Spain, Turkey and North America.
His zombie novel, Flu, was serialised by Sirius XM's Book Radio.
His cyberpunk novel, Plastic Jesus, was described by the Guardian as 'a stunning read, but not for the faint hearted.'
Wayne is a regular contributor to Skin Deep Tattoo Magazine.
His zombie novel, Flu, was serialised by Sirius XM's Book Radio.
His cyberpunk novel, Plastic Jesus, was described by the Guardian as 'a stunning read, but not for the faint hearted.'
Wayne is a regular contributor to Skin Deep Tattoo Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 2, 2013
This review first appeared on Books, Bones & Buffy.
In a word: A futuristic city on the brink of collapse, full of dangerous and broken characters, and perfectly honed writing that paints a gloomy, yet hopeful, vision of the future.
He walked to her, and her eyes remained focused on whatever spot they had found. He reached for her, but she had nothing for him. Nothing save that cold and dry stare, a deep chasm of blue or black; a colour indescribable, indecipherable.
He was holding her shoulders, now. They felt brittle, like ice, and he was worried that even by pressing his hands against them that he might break her. Or break her more.
He let go of her and she drifted away from him, down the hallway and out the front door.
This is the second book I’ve read from the small UK-based Salt Publishing, and I’m very impressed with the high quality of writing and story-telling I’ve seen from them so far. Wayne Simmons has quite a few books under his belt, but this is his first foray into science fiction. You may recognize him as the author of Doll Parts, Flu and Fever, which are all horror stories. Plastic Jesus is set in an unspecified future, after a Holy War has changed the face of the world as we know it. Simmons takes the idea of a future where religion has died, but one man has a vision to reinvent Jesus and capitalize on his come-back. Plastic Jesus reminded me of the moodiness of Blade Runner and the drug-fueled plot and stylistic writing of Jeff Noon’s Vurt, but with a unique quality all its own. Dangerous and atmospheric, Plastic Jesus is a futuristic thrill ride with unexpected heart.
Johnny Lyon is a coder for Alt, a company that provides hydropower to Lark City. But Johnny’s wife Becky has just died, and he’s taking some time off work. His boss, a man named Garcon, has a brilliant idea and needs Johnny to come back to work: he wants to create a virtual reality Jesus and stage a resurrection, and he wants Johnny to write the code. Johnny agrees to do it, but things don’t go quite the way he expects. As Johnny writes the program and tries not to think about his wife, the denizens of Lark City go about their sordid business, including the Reverend Harold Shepherd whose church is the last one in the city, a cop named Rudlow who is trying, and failing, to shut down the illegal drug trade, and the drug lord himself, Paul McBride, a nasty character who rules Lark City and is feared by just about everyone.
Plastic Jesus is written in short chapters that at first seem to jump around as Simmons introduces his large cast of characters, but then slowly take shape when the reader realizes that all these characters are connected in one way or another. His writing is precise and as sharp as the blade that McBride uses on one of his victims. The people in Plastic Jesus are mostly unhappy, and many of them are either drug addicts or “wireheads” who link directly into the world of VR to escape their miserable lives. I loved the small details of the not-too-far-in-the-future technology, like cell phones that sync to each other when you step into a room, and the use of hydropower in lieu of electricity (fossil fuels are gone). On the surface this is science fiction, but it’s also a gritty crime story populated by prostitutes, drunks, drug dealers and thieves. I loved the way this story felt both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, which I’ll admit made me feel uneasy while reading it.
Simmons brings his characters to life with very little effort. In just a few words he makes you hate McBride, a violent and controlling man who was one of the most terrifying characters I've ever run across. McBride’s daughter Kitty is a very young girl who is always strung out on drugs but shows her vulnerable side by attending church. And Johnny simply wants to forget the pain of losing his wife and make his boss happy by finishing the VR Jesus on time. Nearly every character in the story is trying to forget something horrible from their past, but not all of them are succeeding.
It may seem as if Plastic Jesus is nothing but despair and pain, but the author gives some of his characters short glimpses of hope. I was worried at first that there were too many characters to keep the plot from falling apart, but Simmons manages to tie up all the dangling story lines in the end. One such story line with Johnny and an unopened email, which the author carried throughout the entire book, finally resolved into an emotional punch that gave me goosebumps. Wayne Simmons is definitely a writer to watch, and I can't wait to read his next book. Violent and shocking, but filled with hidden pockets of humanity and heart, Plastic Jesus is highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.
In a word: A futuristic city on the brink of collapse, full of dangerous and broken characters, and perfectly honed writing that paints a gloomy, yet hopeful, vision of the future.
He walked to her, and her eyes remained focused on whatever spot they had found. He reached for her, but she had nothing for him. Nothing save that cold and dry stare, a deep chasm of blue or black; a colour indescribable, indecipherable.
He was holding her shoulders, now. They felt brittle, like ice, and he was worried that even by pressing his hands against them that he might break her. Or break her more.
He let go of her and she drifted away from him, down the hallway and out the front door.
This is the second book I’ve read from the small UK-based Salt Publishing, and I’m very impressed with the high quality of writing and story-telling I’ve seen from them so far. Wayne Simmons has quite a few books under his belt, but this is his first foray into science fiction. You may recognize him as the author of Doll Parts, Flu and Fever, which are all horror stories. Plastic Jesus is set in an unspecified future, after a Holy War has changed the face of the world as we know it. Simmons takes the idea of a future where religion has died, but one man has a vision to reinvent Jesus and capitalize on his come-back. Plastic Jesus reminded me of the moodiness of Blade Runner and the drug-fueled plot and stylistic writing of Jeff Noon’s Vurt, but with a unique quality all its own. Dangerous and atmospheric, Plastic Jesus is a futuristic thrill ride with unexpected heart.
Johnny Lyon is a coder for Alt, a company that provides hydropower to Lark City. But Johnny’s wife Becky has just died, and he’s taking some time off work. His boss, a man named Garcon, has a brilliant idea and needs Johnny to come back to work: he wants to create a virtual reality Jesus and stage a resurrection, and he wants Johnny to write the code. Johnny agrees to do it, but things don’t go quite the way he expects. As Johnny writes the program and tries not to think about his wife, the denizens of Lark City go about their sordid business, including the Reverend Harold Shepherd whose church is the last one in the city, a cop named Rudlow who is trying, and failing, to shut down the illegal drug trade, and the drug lord himself, Paul McBride, a nasty character who rules Lark City and is feared by just about everyone.
Plastic Jesus is written in short chapters that at first seem to jump around as Simmons introduces his large cast of characters, but then slowly take shape when the reader realizes that all these characters are connected in one way or another. His writing is precise and as sharp as the blade that McBride uses on one of his victims. The people in Plastic Jesus are mostly unhappy, and many of them are either drug addicts or “wireheads” who link directly into the world of VR to escape their miserable lives. I loved the small details of the not-too-far-in-the-future technology, like cell phones that sync to each other when you step into a room, and the use of hydropower in lieu of electricity (fossil fuels are gone). On the surface this is science fiction, but it’s also a gritty crime story populated by prostitutes, drunks, drug dealers and thieves. I loved the way this story felt both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, which I’ll admit made me feel uneasy while reading it.
Simmons brings his characters to life with very little effort. In just a few words he makes you hate McBride, a violent and controlling man who was one of the most terrifying characters I've ever run across. McBride’s daughter Kitty is a very young girl who is always strung out on drugs but shows her vulnerable side by attending church. And Johnny simply wants to forget the pain of losing his wife and make his boss happy by finishing the VR Jesus on time. Nearly every character in the story is trying to forget something horrible from their past, but not all of them are succeeding.
It may seem as if Plastic Jesus is nothing but despair and pain, but the author gives some of his characters short glimpses of hope. I was worried at first that there were too many characters to keep the plot from falling apart, but Simmons manages to tie up all the dangling story lines in the end. One such story line with Johnny and an unopened email, which the author carried throughout the entire book, finally resolved into an emotional punch that gave me goosebumps. Wayne Simmons is definitely a writer to watch, and I can't wait to read his next book. Violent and shocking, but filled with hidden pockets of humanity and heart, Plastic Jesus is highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.
December 14, 2013
It is the near future, following a devastating Holy War. Once part of the US colonies, Maalside, the New Republic, now stands alone in the Pacific, separated from the heartland by 200 miles of salty ocean. Lark City is its capital, watched over by a 50 foot, pouting, stiletto-heeled and garter-belted ‘Miss Liberty’, a crude parody of the famous landmark across the water.
In this brutal neon jungle, Code Guy Johnny Lyon writes a Jesus social networking AI, to rebrand religion following the war. But something goes wrong; a virtual hell breaks on the streets of Lark – a violent, surreal and uncontrollable social breakdown.
Caught in this terrifying web of danger are Sarah Lee, Johnny’s co-worker, drug lord Paul McBride who is determined to exploit the chaos to wipe out his enemies, and McBride’s junkie daughter, a prostitute called Kitty.
Now, only Johnny can save Sarah, Kitty and the city.
All the characters in Plastic Jesus are lost or broken in one way or another. They’re all looking for something that’s missing from their lives. For Johnny Lyon, the rawness of a recent bereavement still weighs heavy. He’s conflicted, looking for some sort of closure, but in the same breath unable to give up the past. He throws himself into his work and the result is an artificial intelligence designed to help save souls.
While Lyon unwittingly unleashes his own take of “Buddy Christ” onto the world, we also get to meet Paul McBride. He’s the local crime boss, and a suitably nasty piece of work he is too. McBride’s preferred method of coercion is a kind word and a very, very sharp knife. He has a sinister henchman known only as The Bar Man, and their criminal enterprises manage to inadvertently become caught up with Johnny’s narrative.
Soon after I started reading Plastic Jesus, I realised that it reminded me of something. I wracked my brain, I’ll admit it took me a while, and eventually it all came flooding back. Many moons ago, in the late nineteen eighties, Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill created a comic book back called Marshal Law. The eponymous hero patrolled the streets of a grimy metropolis called San Futuro. Everything in this neon-coated candy-land was delightfully sleazy. Crime was rampant and justice was delivered with a heavy hand. Lark City is cut from similarly pre-apocalyptic cloth. Past its best, barely managing to exist, the city and its populace are just about surviving. This was my favourite component of the novel. Lark City is so well observed. There are loads of tiny little details that make the locations seem to come alive. Simmons has created an entire city, and by extension a world, that has been fundamentally changed after the outcome of a violent conflict. Lark City is the perfect backdrop for this particular story.
It’s an intriguing idea, attempting to re-boot religion. Hi-tech business has taken a concept that has failed so many in this world and is trying to make it appear palatable again. If I have any criticism I think that it probably lies here. The climax of the novel could have been drawn out a bit more. The Jesus AI has effectively gone all Skynet and this could/should have been explored in a bit more depth. I think perhaps I was hoping for something a bit more visceral and apocalyptic. I liked what was there I just wanted to see more wrath of an electric God type stuff! A digital Armageddon needs a much bigger and bolder canvas.
I rattled through this novel pretty damn quickly. Simmons writes in a short, punchy style that I clicked with immediately, it gives proceedings a nicely noir-ish feel. I was surprised just how quickly I got caught up in the lives of this shabby metropolis. Plastic Jesus reads like it is just a single episode in the larger story of Lark City. It felt as though there were still more stories waiting to be told. I do hope this is a place that the author chooses to revisit again in the future. I’d certainly be more than happy to read more. This story has a touch of sci-fi, a hint of B-movie crime and just a smidge of theological insight. It’s an interesting mix of ideas that overall I enjoyed.
In this brutal neon jungle, Code Guy Johnny Lyon writes a Jesus social networking AI, to rebrand religion following the war. But something goes wrong; a virtual hell breaks on the streets of Lark – a violent, surreal and uncontrollable social breakdown.
Caught in this terrifying web of danger are Sarah Lee, Johnny’s co-worker, drug lord Paul McBride who is determined to exploit the chaos to wipe out his enemies, and McBride’s junkie daughter, a prostitute called Kitty.
Now, only Johnny can save Sarah, Kitty and the city.
All the characters in Plastic Jesus are lost or broken in one way or another. They’re all looking for something that’s missing from their lives. For Johnny Lyon, the rawness of a recent bereavement still weighs heavy. He’s conflicted, looking for some sort of closure, but in the same breath unable to give up the past. He throws himself into his work and the result is an artificial intelligence designed to help save souls.
While Lyon unwittingly unleashes his own take of “Buddy Christ” onto the world, we also get to meet Paul McBride. He’s the local crime boss, and a suitably nasty piece of work he is too. McBride’s preferred method of coercion is a kind word and a very, very sharp knife. He has a sinister henchman known only as The Bar Man, and their criminal enterprises manage to inadvertently become caught up with Johnny’s narrative.
Soon after I started reading Plastic Jesus, I realised that it reminded me of something. I wracked my brain, I’ll admit it took me a while, and eventually it all came flooding back. Many moons ago, in the late nineteen eighties, Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill created a comic book back called Marshal Law. The eponymous hero patrolled the streets of a grimy metropolis called San Futuro. Everything in this neon-coated candy-land was delightfully sleazy. Crime was rampant and justice was delivered with a heavy hand. Lark City is cut from similarly pre-apocalyptic cloth. Past its best, barely managing to exist, the city and its populace are just about surviving. This was my favourite component of the novel. Lark City is so well observed. There are loads of tiny little details that make the locations seem to come alive. Simmons has created an entire city, and by extension a world, that has been fundamentally changed after the outcome of a violent conflict. Lark City is the perfect backdrop for this particular story.
It’s an intriguing idea, attempting to re-boot religion. Hi-tech business has taken a concept that has failed so many in this world and is trying to make it appear palatable again. If I have any criticism I think that it probably lies here. The climax of the novel could have been drawn out a bit more. The Jesus AI has effectively gone all Skynet and this could/should have been explored in a bit more depth. I think perhaps I was hoping for something a bit more visceral and apocalyptic. I liked what was there I just wanted to see more wrath of an electric God type stuff! A digital Armageddon needs a much bigger and bolder canvas.
I rattled through this novel pretty damn quickly. Simmons writes in a short, punchy style that I clicked with immediately, it gives proceedings a nicely noir-ish feel. I was surprised just how quickly I got caught up in the lives of this shabby metropolis. Plastic Jesus reads like it is just a single episode in the larger story of Lark City. It felt as though there were still more stories waiting to be told. I do hope this is a place that the author chooses to revisit again in the future. I’d certainly be more than happy to read more. This story has a touch of sci-fi, a hint of B-movie crime and just a smidge of theological insight. It’s an interesting mix of ideas that overall I enjoyed.
January 12, 2014
Plastic Jesus by Wayne Simmons
Published by Salt Publishing
It is the near future, following a devastating Holy War. Once part of the US colonies, Maalside, the New Republic, now stands alone in the Pacific, separated from the heartland by 200 miles of salty ocean. Lark City is its capital, watched over by a 50 foot, pouting, stiletto-heeled and garter-belted ‘Miss Liberty’, a crude parody of the famous landmark across the water.
In this brutal neon jungle, Code Guy Johnny Lyon writes a Jesus social networking AI, to rebrand religion following the war. But something goes wrong; a virtual hell breaks on the streets of Lark – a violent, surreal and uncontrollable social breakdown.
Caught in this terrifying web of danger are Sarah Lee, Johnny’s co-worker, drug lord Paul McBride who is determined to exploit the chaos to wipe out his enemies, and McBride’s junkie daughter, a prostitute called Kitty.
Lodged somewhere firmly between Fallout: New Vegas, Blade Runner, Total Recall and that Red Dwarf episode (and novel) Better than Life, comes Plastic Jesus, a foray into our impending futures where we plug in and tune out the world with the aid of realistic virtual reality. Simmons does a decent job of exploring the seedy decadence of a world where technology and hard drugs go hand in hand. This is the way we’re going, Simmons is telling us, and it’s not hard to imagine a future much different than this one, rife with designer drugs and a time consuming obsession for technology (did you see the twitter screen grabs with tweet after tweet of insolent youths bad mouthing their parents? “I fucking hate my parents” “They’re fucking dead to me” etc, just because they didn’t get an I-Pad- shocking, if a Children of Men type of scenario needs to take a few, please Lord, start with these.)
So via the method of AI, Jesus is returned to the hearts and minds of those often lost in drugs and/or VR, promptly giving those sad many whatever they damned well want. But the Jesus character is woefully underused. Simmons could have had some fun here with Jesus as a supposed villain as his virus/gospel spreads through Lark City.
Simmons paints this vision of the future as if he’s seen it with his own eyes, writing with noir-ish bent in mind. Although I didn’t really gel with the characters I enjoyed the ride and the cynical view of what our future could (very well) look like. Simmons writes well enough but I by the end just didn’t care enough for the many characters (dead and alive) and felt so underwhelmed by the ending in all honesty I wouldn’t have minded if they all died in a fiery cataclysm of burning bibles. I’ll admit now that this is the first book I’ve read by Wayne Simmons, so maybe I needed to start earlier on. But that’s just me.
Too much plastic, not enough Jesus.
Sci-fi fans might gobble up the Matrix-esque use of VR to free minds and what not, but if you want a little more blood to shock you might need to log on elsewhere.
Three for the style and half a point for making me smile a few times.
3.5/5
Published by Salt Publishing
It is the near future, following a devastating Holy War. Once part of the US colonies, Maalside, the New Republic, now stands alone in the Pacific, separated from the heartland by 200 miles of salty ocean. Lark City is its capital, watched over by a 50 foot, pouting, stiletto-heeled and garter-belted ‘Miss Liberty’, a crude parody of the famous landmark across the water.
In this brutal neon jungle, Code Guy Johnny Lyon writes a Jesus social networking AI, to rebrand religion following the war. But something goes wrong; a virtual hell breaks on the streets of Lark – a violent, surreal and uncontrollable social breakdown.
Caught in this terrifying web of danger are Sarah Lee, Johnny’s co-worker, drug lord Paul McBride who is determined to exploit the chaos to wipe out his enemies, and McBride’s junkie daughter, a prostitute called Kitty.
Lodged somewhere firmly between Fallout: New Vegas, Blade Runner, Total Recall and that Red Dwarf episode (and novel) Better than Life, comes Plastic Jesus, a foray into our impending futures where we plug in and tune out the world with the aid of realistic virtual reality. Simmons does a decent job of exploring the seedy decadence of a world where technology and hard drugs go hand in hand. This is the way we’re going, Simmons is telling us, and it’s not hard to imagine a future much different than this one, rife with designer drugs and a time consuming obsession for technology (did you see the twitter screen grabs with tweet after tweet of insolent youths bad mouthing their parents? “I fucking hate my parents” “They’re fucking dead to me” etc, just because they didn’t get an I-Pad- shocking, if a Children of Men type of scenario needs to take a few, please Lord, start with these.)
So via the method of AI, Jesus is returned to the hearts and minds of those often lost in drugs and/or VR, promptly giving those sad many whatever they damned well want. But the Jesus character is woefully underused. Simmons could have had some fun here with Jesus as a supposed villain as his virus/gospel spreads through Lark City.
Simmons paints this vision of the future as if he’s seen it with his own eyes, writing with noir-ish bent in mind. Although I didn’t really gel with the characters I enjoyed the ride and the cynical view of what our future could (very well) look like. Simmons writes well enough but I by the end just didn’t care enough for the many characters (dead and alive) and felt so underwhelmed by the ending in all honesty I wouldn’t have minded if they all died in a fiery cataclysm of burning bibles. I’ll admit now that this is the first book I’ve read by Wayne Simmons, so maybe I needed to start earlier on. But that’s just me.
Too much plastic, not enough Jesus.
Sci-fi fans might gobble up the Matrix-esque use of VR to free minds and what not, but if you want a little more blood to shock you might need to log on elsewhere.
Three for the style and half a point for making me smile a few times.
3.5/5
February 17, 2014
The problem with this novel is that all the SF exposition is in the first couple of pages: Ms Liberty, the hooker-type parody of the Statue of Liberty, presiding over Maalside or the New Republic. Beckoning tart-like in her high heels and star-spangled tits, this is a striking and emblematic image … but she makes no further appearance.
Similarly, all we learn about the New Republic is in these opening pages: that, along with its capital New Lark, this is all that is left of the US colonies after the Holy War (a global conflagration that has [conveniently] turned the entire Middle East into the Barrenlands).
Collateral damage from the Holy War (apart from a gaping tear in the planet’s crust) is the death of organised religion, with New Republic representing a den of vice that makes Sodom and Gomorrah seem like a little Olde Worlde country hamlet.
This fallen world is presided over by druglords, gangsters, hookers and an assortment of shady and despicable creatures passing for human beings. The biggest entertainment is a VR show called Deathstar, in which real victims vie against terrible odds in the Barrenlands to be turned into reality-television cannon fodder.
Users have to deploy ‘wiretaps’ in order to access Deathstar; the result is rather not what Timothy Leary had in mind when he instructed the unwashed masses to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” What is interesting is the gamut of cyber-crime this gives birth to: “It was an amoral haven for tech freak and yahoo alike; credit cards hacking, cells syncing, APPS firing, data bleeding.”
Enter our eponymous hero, Johnny Lyon, a VR coder whose boss tasks him to create a VR construct based on the historical Jesus Christ, in order to pacify the masses and make them easier to subjugate and coerce. Here VR becomes a potent symbol of tapping into people’s deepest desires and fears.
It is an interesting idea, but one is never quite convinced if Simmons is being satirical or allegorical. It reminded me of Valis by the incomparable PKD; certainly Plastic Jesus would have worked much better as social commentary if Simmons had adopted a more Dick-like tone rather than lean too heavily on the Gibson tropes.
This is a high-concept SF novel where, unfortunately, the concept is given short shrift. Much of the intellectual and aesthetic pleasure of SF is obtained from world-building: too much, and you have gratuitous info-dumping. Too little, and you may as well not have an SF premise or context at all.
The writing here is pedestrian at best, and the characters are all easily recognisable stock tropes from the sort of hard-boiled Chandleresque pastiche perfected by the likes of Bruce Sterling and William Gibson. Similarly, there is not much subtlety, with Simmons’ attempts at being provocative coming across as heavy-handed and not nearly nuanced enough. Disappointing.
Similarly, all we learn about the New Republic is in these opening pages: that, along with its capital New Lark, this is all that is left of the US colonies after the Holy War (a global conflagration that has [conveniently] turned the entire Middle East into the Barrenlands).
Collateral damage from the Holy War (apart from a gaping tear in the planet’s crust) is the death of organised religion, with New Republic representing a den of vice that makes Sodom and Gomorrah seem like a little Olde Worlde country hamlet.
This fallen world is presided over by druglords, gangsters, hookers and an assortment of shady and despicable creatures passing for human beings. The biggest entertainment is a VR show called Deathstar, in which real victims vie against terrible odds in the Barrenlands to be turned into reality-television cannon fodder.
Users have to deploy ‘wiretaps’ in order to access Deathstar; the result is rather not what Timothy Leary had in mind when he instructed the unwashed masses to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” What is interesting is the gamut of cyber-crime this gives birth to: “It was an amoral haven for tech freak and yahoo alike; credit cards hacking, cells syncing, APPS firing, data bleeding.”
Enter our eponymous hero, Johnny Lyon, a VR coder whose boss tasks him to create a VR construct based on the historical Jesus Christ, in order to pacify the masses and make them easier to subjugate and coerce. Here VR becomes a potent symbol of tapping into people’s deepest desires and fears.
It is an interesting idea, but one is never quite convinced if Simmons is being satirical or allegorical. It reminded me of Valis by the incomparable PKD; certainly Plastic Jesus would have worked much better as social commentary if Simmons had adopted a more Dick-like tone rather than lean too heavily on the Gibson tropes.
This is a high-concept SF novel where, unfortunately, the concept is given short shrift. Much of the intellectual and aesthetic pleasure of SF is obtained from world-building: too much, and you have gratuitous info-dumping. Too little, and you may as well not have an SF premise or context at all.
The writing here is pedestrian at best, and the characters are all easily recognisable stock tropes from the sort of hard-boiled Chandleresque pastiche perfected by the likes of Bruce Sterling and William Gibson. Similarly, there is not much subtlety, with Simmons’ attempts at being provocative coming across as heavy-handed and not nearly nuanced enough. Disappointing.
August 20, 2019
A 'hold on to your knickers' ride of a story!
This novel kept me hooked right until the end. In this day of tech and fake news, it is a subtle history of the fear of computer programs and their uses. At least it had a happy ending. Definately worth reading. Something a little different to steampunk or vampires.
This novel kept me hooked right until the end. In this day of tech and fake news, it is a subtle history of the fear of computer programs and their uses. At least it had a happy ending. Definately worth reading. Something a little different to steampunk or vampires.
Read
May 7, 2020I was so excited for this book. From the description it sounds similar to a book I read as a young child called shadow of the Minotaur, although a more adult concept. I was SO disappointed. Absolutely nothing happened in this book. I got to the end and felt like I’d read two chapters. I felt nothing towards any characters and no concepts were developed more than introducing them.
January 14, 2014
Belfast born, and now Cardiff incomer, Wayne Simmons is an author best known for his string of excellent zombie novels: Drop Dead Gorgeous, Flu, Fever, and Doll Parts, which have been published in the UK, Austria, Germany, Spain, Turkey and North America.
With Plastic Jesus he has turned his hand to a near future, dystopian science fiction treat of a thriller which brings us the twisted love child of Blade Runner, Lawnmower Man and Judge Dredd. This novel could easily have been a gritty and dirty crime novel, with a seedy underbelly of a broken city cleverly shown within each and every page. From crime lords to junkies, to corrupt police and corrupting big business, this novel had every making of a noir special ...but Wayne wasn't satisfied with `just' a great crime book, oh no. This book shows us what just may happen when religion and capitalism collide in unholy matrimony and the world `ends' as a result. Well, when I say ends I mean society pretty much collapses: drugs, prostitution, and virtual reality technology hold sway in a future where religion is forgotten, disparaged, or is a dirty word.
As with his other books Wayne jumps right into things and keeps a pretty frenetic pace all the way through. Disparate characters are introduced at break neck speed and only near the end do they all started to come together, strands of a very large web that Wayne deftly weaves in his story. There isn't really a `good' guy amongst the bunch. Johnny Lyons is a widower who is drowning in his own grief. Garcon, his boss, is willing to go to any lengths to give his company the success that it needs. Harold Shephard, the last preacher in a city without religion, has lost his faith. Rudlow, the chief of police, is desperate to bring the ruling crime lord to justice. McBride, the said crime lord, is all-powerful and, rightly, feared by everyone ...other than Kitty, his daughter, how lives in a permanent drug-fuelled high, paid for by prostitution.
It is Simmons' characters that steal the show in Plastic Jesus. I mean this as a compliment entirely but Wayne doesn't waste time writing complex plot around storylines that you need a PhD in `wtf' to understand. He writes about the zombie apocalypse, he writes about situations that people can grasp and, mostly, he writes about people in those situations. He makes you despise who you should despise, he makes you root for who you should root for, but he never makes his heroes wear white, or his villains wear black ... he makes every character flawed, broken, detailed, and, above all, real.
In a story where an Island off the coast of America is falling apart at the seams, where a virtual reality Jesus may be the thing that saves or damns humanity, where families come together and are torn apart, and where everyone seems to succumb to despair and hit rock bottom, reality is the thing that stood out the most. Wayne writes about the fantastical with the ability to keep the reader firmly entranced within the story and with the characters.
Is this book perfect? No. I think that perhaps it is sometimes too dark, too unrelenting in terms of despair and humanity's failings. No one comes out of the book unscathed and, perhaps, that will be too dark for some. There are elements of light and humour in it, of course, and depending on your perspective there may even be a form of happy ending for some. Also, speaking of endings, the resolution for the book is the only time that the pace lets itself down; there are a lot of characters, with individual stories that tie into the overarching narrative of the book and while they are all handled nicely it feels like the pace speeds up just a little too much near the end. I think that this story could easily have spanned a couple, maybe even three, books, and by doing so there would have been more space to not only breathe but to discover the characters in more detail ...and to experience the fear/horror of virtual reality gone wrong.
That is a minor niggle, and Wayne may have plans to bring back some (not all ...not everyone comes out alive in a Wayne Simmons book, after all) of the characters that we met. For me I'd love to find out more about Charles 7!
To sum things up Plastic Jesus gives us an uncomfortable look at ourselves, and what we could become ...what some of us are already... in a world filled with avarice and addiction, to money, to drugs, and to technology. It could be described as cyberpunk, or sci-fi thriller, but whatever it is it is undoubtedly very good indeed.
With Plastic Jesus he has turned his hand to a near future, dystopian science fiction treat of a thriller which brings us the twisted love child of Blade Runner, Lawnmower Man and Judge Dredd. This novel could easily have been a gritty and dirty crime novel, with a seedy underbelly of a broken city cleverly shown within each and every page. From crime lords to junkies, to corrupt police and corrupting big business, this novel had every making of a noir special ...but Wayne wasn't satisfied with `just' a great crime book, oh no. This book shows us what just may happen when religion and capitalism collide in unholy matrimony and the world `ends' as a result. Well, when I say ends I mean society pretty much collapses: drugs, prostitution, and virtual reality technology hold sway in a future where religion is forgotten, disparaged, or is a dirty word.
As with his other books Wayne jumps right into things and keeps a pretty frenetic pace all the way through. Disparate characters are introduced at break neck speed and only near the end do they all started to come together, strands of a very large web that Wayne deftly weaves in his story. There isn't really a `good' guy amongst the bunch. Johnny Lyons is a widower who is drowning in his own grief. Garcon, his boss, is willing to go to any lengths to give his company the success that it needs. Harold Shephard, the last preacher in a city without religion, has lost his faith. Rudlow, the chief of police, is desperate to bring the ruling crime lord to justice. McBride, the said crime lord, is all-powerful and, rightly, feared by everyone ...other than Kitty, his daughter, how lives in a permanent drug-fuelled high, paid for by prostitution.
It is Simmons' characters that steal the show in Plastic Jesus. I mean this as a compliment entirely but Wayne doesn't waste time writing complex plot around storylines that you need a PhD in `wtf' to understand. He writes about the zombie apocalypse, he writes about situations that people can grasp and, mostly, he writes about people in those situations. He makes you despise who you should despise, he makes you root for who you should root for, but he never makes his heroes wear white, or his villains wear black ... he makes every character flawed, broken, detailed, and, above all, real.
In a story where an Island off the coast of America is falling apart at the seams, where a virtual reality Jesus may be the thing that saves or damns humanity, where families come together and are torn apart, and where everyone seems to succumb to despair and hit rock bottom, reality is the thing that stood out the most. Wayne writes about the fantastical with the ability to keep the reader firmly entranced within the story and with the characters.
Is this book perfect? No. I think that perhaps it is sometimes too dark, too unrelenting in terms of despair and humanity's failings. No one comes out of the book unscathed and, perhaps, that will be too dark for some. There are elements of light and humour in it, of course, and depending on your perspective there may even be a form of happy ending for some. Also, speaking of endings, the resolution for the book is the only time that the pace lets itself down; there are a lot of characters, with individual stories that tie into the overarching narrative of the book and while they are all handled nicely it feels like the pace speeds up just a little too much near the end. I think that this story could easily have spanned a couple, maybe even three, books, and by doing so there would have been more space to not only breathe but to discover the characters in more detail ...and to experience the fear/horror of virtual reality gone wrong.
That is a minor niggle, and Wayne may have plans to bring back some (not all ...not everyone comes out alive in a Wayne Simmons book, after all) of the characters that we met. For me I'd love to find out more about Charles 7!
To sum things up Plastic Jesus gives us an uncomfortable look at ourselves, and what we could become ...what some of us are already... in a world filled with avarice and addiction, to money, to drugs, and to technology. It could be described as cyberpunk, or sci-fi thriller, but whatever it is it is undoubtedly very good indeed.
July 10, 2016
Wayne Simmons, Plastic Jesus (Salt Publishing, 2013)
Back in the days of the early eighties, when William Gibson coined the term “cyberpunk” and a bunch of other sci-fi writers of the same mindset jumped on board, cyberpunk was a very high-concept thing. Neuromancer left me feeling as if I were floating in space—even though Case is obviously supposed to be a degenerate, he's still got that pristine feeling, you know? Crystalline-cold. And, man, Sterling was even harder to grok. As much as I loved the idea of cyberpunk, I ended up passing on most of it over the years because I simply didn't get it. (The one exception since the mid-eighties has been Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and even that took me almost a hundred pages to get to where it was compulsive reading.) Enter Wayne Simmons, a guy who up till now has been a specialist in zombie horror that comes from exactly the opposite direction; Simmons' characters are working-class, low-rent, eminently empathetic. And all the sudden cyberpunk, or at least Simmons' take on it, makes sense.
Plot: a number of parallel stories run through the first three-quarters of this novel. The one that gives Plastic Jesus its title centers on Johnny Lyon, a VR coder who has walked away from his job, his life, and everything else following the death of his wife. No one seems to care much except Sarah Lee, one of his co-workers. His boss, Garçon, barely notices—but when Garçon hatches a plan for a new VR and asks Sarah Lee who needs to be put to work on it, she sees an opportunity to break Johnny out of his self-imposed shell. Johnny reluctantly agrees...but the VR he creates ends up working better than he ever thought it would. Meanwhile, two enterprising—but not very bright—criminals have offed a dealer to make off with his stash of heroin—the only drug left illegal in Simmons' bleak postwar landscape—and thus put themselves on the radar of Paul McBride, the island's biggest importer of same. It doesn't help that the dealer they took out was McBride's daughter Kitty's personal supplier. And McBride knows just the man to get to the bottom of this...
It should be obvious from that last bit that Wayne Simmons is into noir, that grungy, low-rent derivative of the mystery where every choice the protagonist makes is a bad one and the light at the end of the tunnel is always an oncoming train. I don't think there's a genre that can't be enriched by an injection of noir (well, maybe not inspirational romance). It works here like a charm. Simmons' trademark well-drawn characters and breakneck pace fit just as well in the sci-fi and noir worlds as they do in horror. I can't make sci-fi comparisons, as I don't have nearly enough experience in the genre, but when it comes to noir, the obvious comparison here is with George Axelrod—but Simmons is better at characterization. And while I wouldn't say Plastic Jesus' mystery angle is more complex—these thieves almost seem to do their damnedest to get caught—it's more involved. Which is interesting given that it's basically a subplot. I've ended up spending most of a paragraph talking about a sidelight; it must have impressed me more than I initially thought.
Plastic Jesus is science fiction for people who don't like science fiction. Mystery for nerds. Religious dystopia for action junkies. And unless I miss my guess, it's going to be on my list of the best books I read in 2014 (a little early to say for certain, but I'd put money on it). You want to read this one, even if you don't know it yet. ****
Back in the days of the early eighties, when William Gibson coined the term “cyberpunk” and a bunch of other sci-fi writers of the same mindset jumped on board, cyberpunk was a very high-concept thing. Neuromancer left me feeling as if I were floating in space—even though Case is obviously supposed to be a degenerate, he's still got that pristine feeling, you know? Crystalline-cold. And, man, Sterling was even harder to grok. As much as I loved the idea of cyberpunk, I ended up passing on most of it over the years because I simply didn't get it. (The one exception since the mid-eighties has been Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and even that took me almost a hundred pages to get to where it was compulsive reading.) Enter Wayne Simmons, a guy who up till now has been a specialist in zombie horror that comes from exactly the opposite direction; Simmons' characters are working-class, low-rent, eminently empathetic. And all the sudden cyberpunk, or at least Simmons' take on it, makes sense.
Plot: a number of parallel stories run through the first three-quarters of this novel. The one that gives Plastic Jesus its title centers on Johnny Lyon, a VR coder who has walked away from his job, his life, and everything else following the death of his wife. No one seems to care much except Sarah Lee, one of his co-workers. His boss, Garçon, barely notices—but when Garçon hatches a plan for a new VR and asks Sarah Lee who needs to be put to work on it, she sees an opportunity to break Johnny out of his self-imposed shell. Johnny reluctantly agrees...but the VR he creates ends up working better than he ever thought it would. Meanwhile, two enterprising—but not very bright—criminals have offed a dealer to make off with his stash of heroin—the only drug left illegal in Simmons' bleak postwar landscape—and thus put themselves on the radar of Paul McBride, the island's biggest importer of same. It doesn't help that the dealer they took out was McBride's daughter Kitty's personal supplier. And McBride knows just the man to get to the bottom of this...
It should be obvious from that last bit that Wayne Simmons is into noir, that grungy, low-rent derivative of the mystery where every choice the protagonist makes is a bad one and the light at the end of the tunnel is always an oncoming train. I don't think there's a genre that can't be enriched by an injection of noir (well, maybe not inspirational romance). It works here like a charm. Simmons' trademark well-drawn characters and breakneck pace fit just as well in the sci-fi and noir worlds as they do in horror. I can't make sci-fi comparisons, as I don't have nearly enough experience in the genre, but when it comes to noir, the obvious comparison here is with George Axelrod—but Simmons is better at characterization. And while I wouldn't say Plastic Jesus' mystery angle is more complex—these thieves almost seem to do their damnedest to get caught—it's more involved. Which is interesting given that it's basically a subplot. I've ended up spending most of a paragraph talking about a sidelight; it must have impressed me more than I initially thought.
Plastic Jesus is science fiction for people who don't like science fiction. Mystery for nerds. Religious dystopia for action junkies. And unless I miss my guess, it's going to be on my list of the best books I read in 2014 (a little early to say for certain, but I'd put money on it). You want to read this one, even if you don't know it yet. ****
December 18, 2013
PLASTIC JESUS by Wayne Simmons
Forgive me, Father, for I have sim-ed.
The dark opening to Wayne Simmons’ eagerly anticipated PLASTIC JESUS only deepens as it drives you through the futuristic dystopia of Lark. Cerebral jacking, VR phone apps, coils wet-wired into brains, it wasn’t hard to see which direction the gore would take. I winced at the turning page, anticipating exploding heads, electroshock, and otherwise ridiculous Scanners/Mindwarp/Brain Slasher-type garbage in latex. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Make no mistake, there is more than enough blood, flesh, and puke in the first ten pages to leave no doubt this is a Wayne Simmons book. But the violence is very real, man-inflicted damage. And while I hesitate to call it delicious as I don’t want to explain that one to a counsellor, I will say that it will leave the gore-junkie nodding along in time to the fast pace, the uninitiated squirming with crossed legs. And as always, tastefully delivered.
PLASTIC JESUS is imminent science fiction. The setting, a fictitious town of Lark, reflects the reality of a near future dystopia: morality skewed by social acceptance of vice, criminal rule and food chain hierarchy, a police force treading water in a slow bog, religious abuse and neglect. And while there is obviously advanced technology at play in Lark, it is within easy reach of what we already face as a global society. Cell phones, drones, tasers, smart phone apps. Lark’s just hurt a hell of a lot worse.
The tension and conflict remain taught throughout, both with internal issues that any of us could—and probably have—had to face, and external threats that go with the territory, all fueling the theme of: the living struggle of addiction in its various forms. Something to note here, I have great respect for this book because it never addresses those pollyannaish ideals of overcoming addiction. Did I mention that this story is very real? To quote Iron Maiden (who say it best) “The Evil That Men Do… lives on and on.”
Mr Simmons offers a wide spectrum of voices. Every character has their own unique voice, and yet when you meet the VR Jesus doll, he has the perfectly sculpted vocabulary of his servant-messiah programming, yet still maintains the aspects of the VR-user interacting with the doll. My favorite, however, is Billy the nightwatchman. No spoilers, though. Suffice to say that Wayne nailed his futuristic noir cast of characters.
The story is told through multiple subplots introduced in the beginning, all tying together nicely with more than a few twists along the way. Pacing is break neck. Most chapters span only a few pages and are written with great show-over-tell narration and plenty of escalating dialogue. Overall, PLASTIC JESUS was both an enjoyable, solid read with a very believable ending, but came with its own special brand of horror. The real kind we see when we turn off our smart phones and log out of the internet. Incredible ride, highly recommended for the horror fan that doesn’t mind getting juiced on reality!
Forgive me, Father, for I have sim-ed.
The dark opening to Wayne Simmons’ eagerly anticipated PLASTIC JESUS only deepens as it drives you through the futuristic dystopia of Lark. Cerebral jacking, VR phone apps, coils wet-wired into brains, it wasn’t hard to see which direction the gore would take. I winced at the turning page, anticipating exploding heads, electroshock, and otherwise ridiculous Scanners/Mindwarp/Brain Slasher-type garbage in latex. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Make no mistake, there is more than enough blood, flesh, and puke in the first ten pages to leave no doubt this is a Wayne Simmons book. But the violence is very real, man-inflicted damage. And while I hesitate to call it delicious as I don’t want to explain that one to a counsellor, I will say that it will leave the gore-junkie nodding along in time to the fast pace, the uninitiated squirming with crossed legs. And as always, tastefully delivered.
PLASTIC JESUS is imminent science fiction. The setting, a fictitious town of Lark, reflects the reality of a near future dystopia: morality skewed by social acceptance of vice, criminal rule and food chain hierarchy, a police force treading water in a slow bog, religious abuse and neglect. And while there is obviously advanced technology at play in Lark, it is within easy reach of what we already face as a global society. Cell phones, drones, tasers, smart phone apps. Lark’s just hurt a hell of a lot worse.
The tension and conflict remain taught throughout, both with internal issues that any of us could—and probably have—had to face, and external threats that go with the territory, all fueling the theme of: the living struggle of addiction in its various forms. Something to note here, I have great respect for this book because it never addresses those pollyannaish ideals of overcoming addiction. Did I mention that this story is very real? To quote Iron Maiden (who say it best) “The Evil That Men Do… lives on and on.”
Mr Simmons offers a wide spectrum of voices. Every character has their own unique voice, and yet when you meet the VR Jesus doll, he has the perfectly sculpted vocabulary of his servant-messiah programming, yet still maintains the aspects of the VR-user interacting with the doll. My favorite, however, is Billy the nightwatchman. No spoilers, though. Suffice to say that Wayne nailed his futuristic noir cast of characters.
The story is told through multiple subplots introduced in the beginning, all tying together nicely with more than a few twists along the way. Pacing is break neck. Most chapters span only a few pages and are written with great show-over-tell narration and plenty of escalating dialogue. Overall, PLASTIC JESUS was both an enjoyable, solid read with a very believable ending, but came with its own special brand of horror. The real kind we see when we turn off our smart phones and log out of the internet. Incredible ride, highly recommended for the horror fan that doesn’t mind getting juiced on reality!
March 24, 2014
Plastic Jesus is a fantastic book and I can honestly say that it is one of the best I've read in years. As an avid Sci-Fi fan, I felt completely sucked in by the awesome futuristic tech that had been invented by author Wayne Simmons in this futuristic landscape.
If you're not a Sci-Fi fan, hold up a minute! It isn't always spaceships, aliens and laser guns! No, this book is (what I think) a very realistic portrayal of a future civilisation. It's not flying cars and silver jumpsuits, it's still very much an industrial age that we can all relate to and takes a huge new angle on the hole digital age where social networking and gaming takes hold of the populous and how many of our lives depend on such things, like an addiction (and if you ask me, that is the main point of the story, but I'll get to that later).
Though this is a Sci-Fi novel (which is borderline pulp fiction), it also covers other genres. There is a slight "black humour" element to it, which is very subtle - which I liked because too much humour can ruin a novel of this calibre - but is also a crime/suspense thriller as well. Hell, it even has a romantic edge to it.
However, for me, I really think addiction is the main theme of the story. Whether it be alcohol, drugs, gaming, social networking, power, greed or hope. Alongside this too, is the religious element that I found absolutely mind blowing. It was like a modern day version of what could take place if we were going through the beginning stages of the crusades.
So all in all, I loved this book. I don't want to get pretentious and say "Yeah, man! So much symbolism" because there might not be, but I felt myself that there was. Whether it was done deliberately, I don't know, so I won't bore you. Either way, It was very cleverly written. Plus, it has so many layers, I think you could read it a second time and notice new things about it that you may not have picked up on the first time; plus the twists in it are just brilliant.
So get this book, curl up on the sofa, wrap yourself in a duvet, unplug the phone, light some candles, fetch yourself a treat of some description (like biscuits or cake) and for God's sake, don't forget the wine.
I really couldn't put it down.
If you're not a Sci-Fi fan, hold up a minute! It isn't always spaceships, aliens and laser guns! No, this book is (what I think) a very realistic portrayal of a future civilisation. It's not flying cars and silver jumpsuits, it's still very much an industrial age that we can all relate to and takes a huge new angle on the hole digital age where social networking and gaming takes hold of the populous and how many of our lives depend on such things, like an addiction (and if you ask me, that is the main point of the story, but I'll get to that later).
Though this is a Sci-Fi novel (which is borderline pulp fiction), it also covers other genres. There is a slight "black humour" element to it, which is very subtle - which I liked because too much humour can ruin a novel of this calibre - but is also a crime/suspense thriller as well. Hell, it even has a romantic edge to it.
However, for me, I really think addiction is the main theme of the story. Whether it be alcohol, drugs, gaming, social networking, power, greed or hope. Alongside this too, is the religious element that I found absolutely mind blowing. It was like a modern day version of what could take place if we were going through the beginning stages of the crusades.
So all in all, I loved this book. I don't want to get pretentious and say "Yeah, man! So much symbolism" because there might not be, but I felt myself that there was. Whether it was done deliberately, I don't know, so I won't bore you. Either way, It was very cleverly written. Plus, it has so many layers, I think you could read it a second time and notice new things about it that you may not have picked up on the first time; plus the twists in it are just brilliant.
So get this book, curl up on the sofa, wrap yourself in a duvet, unplug the phone, light some candles, fetch yourself a treat of some description (like biscuits or cake) and for God's sake, don't forget the wine.
I really couldn't put it down.
November 13, 2016
Infuriating book, to say the least.
Great title; very interesting premise (although Ken McLeod or Chris Beckett did it all much better); some good derivative ideas...BUT WHERE WAS THE EDITOR???
Excuse me for sounding like an old fart but really: bring back real editorial work. Fair enough, this seems to be a small publishing house, but still: keep a few pounds for a real editor.
The paragraphing is atrocious: mostly a paragraph consist of 2 or 3 sentences, so the text is all cut up in very small bits, breaking continuity and affecting the cohesion of the text. If it's supposed to give rhythm, it's a big failure.
The style: dialogues are wooden and stereotyped to a degree that is sometimes laughable (the author really has no ear for dialogues). The narrative has some (very few) good moments, but mostly it's flat. The tone tries to be hip, fast and funny but it's a long way off from being efficient.
The typos and lexical errors (' the door was akimbo' ????) undermine the book further.
Characterisation is limited; emotions are brought in heavily and tartly.
Voices are impossible to distinguish, and changes of focus don't add anything.
At times the author has a flash of inspiration but he lets the plot take over much too early, so that none of the good ideas (Holy War; VR-absorption; type of government) are fully developed. In fact, none of the ideas are developed full stop.
All those things that could have made this an interesting exploration of strong themes (belief; escapism; collective goals) are just alluded to but never worked out in details.
So the novel turns into a fast-paced thriller (which, however, is so badly paced it doesn't) with scant regard for ideas and development.
This guy should read Chris Beckett, should read McDonald, should read McLeod, should definitely read Peter Watts ad Lavie Tidhar.
Failing that, he should stick to writing cheap zombie novels: real science-fiction this book isn't!
Great title; very interesting premise (although Ken McLeod or Chris Beckett did it all much better); some good derivative ideas...BUT WHERE WAS THE EDITOR???
Excuse me for sounding like an old fart but really: bring back real editorial work. Fair enough, this seems to be a small publishing house, but still: keep a few pounds for a real editor.
The paragraphing is atrocious: mostly a paragraph consist of 2 or 3 sentences, so the text is all cut up in very small bits, breaking continuity and affecting the cohesion of the text. If it's supposed to give rhythm, it's a big failure.
The style: dialogues are wooden and stereotyped to a degree that is sometimes laughable (the author really has no ear for dialogues). The narrative has some (very few) good moments, but mostly it's flat. The tone tries to be hip, fast and funny but it's a long way off from being efficient.
The typos and lexical errors (' the door was akimbo' ????) undermine the book further.
Characterisation is limited; emotions are brought in heavily and tartly.
Voices are impossible to distinguish, and changes of focus don't add anything.
At times the author has a flash of inspiration but he lets the plot take over much too early, so that none of the good ideas (Holy War; VR-absorption; type of government) are fully developed. In fact, none of the ideas are developed full stop.
All those things that could have made this an interesting exploration of strong themes (belief; escapism; collective goals) are just alluded to but never worked out in details.
So the novel turns into a fast-paced thriller (which, however, is so badly paced it doesn't) with scant regard for ideas and development.
This guy should read Chris Beckett, should read McDonald, should read McLeod, should definitely read Peter Watts ad Lavie Tidhar.
Failing that, he should stick to writing cheap zombie novels: real science-fiction this book isn't!
August 24, 2014
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2328927.html[return][return]A novel set in a near future, in a city supposedly on the Pacific coast of America but in fact closely based on Belfast (neighbourhoods called the Queen's Quarter, Titanic, the Village, Tomb Street), where mobsters and programmers recreate Jesus, who has been largely forgotten, as an AI. It didn't really work for me; I think if you bring a recreated Jesus into a story you need more robust underpinning, including a better explanation of why he has been forgotten so quickly, particularly in a story whose setting is based on a city so heavily impacted by people claiming to follow him.
May 13, 2014
Simmons smashes it out of the park with this brilliant sci-fi! Showing that his skills do not lie only in the much maligned zombie gene, Simmons has tries his pen at something new and produced a rich dystopian world that is utterly believable, and a story that is as entertaining as it is a note of caution. Loved it! My only criticisms would be that (unusual for me) I felt it could have been a little longer to flesh out the last third of the book, and there was the occasional typo. But that doesn't stop this from being the best book I've read in a long time.
February 8, 2014
Wayne Simmons takes a big step out of the post apoc. zombie genre to serve up a real sci-fi treat. The build up of characters that Wayne does so well, and the fast paced chapters make this book a great, hard to put down read. Showing that he isn't a one trick pony, this book leaves you anticipating his next book and story subject all the more.
February 1, 2014
Bit wary about this change in direction for Wayne Simmons, having enjoyed the zombie novels so much, but this futuristic gem just blew me away...great writing....great vision....roll on the next one...!!!
September 22, 2014
The idea for this book sounded great, fascinating. The actual novel, however, is incredibly boring, the writing is stale and unoriginal, the characters frustratingly predictable. The book does not 'grab you by the throat' in any sense but just drags on mechanicallly until it thankfully finishes.
December 31, 2014
unputdownable.
I had cast members in mind for whenever the movie comes out. It should be a movie.
I had cast members in mind for whenever the movie comes out. It should be a movie.
January 19, 2014
A bleak and frightening future written so realistically you believe it's possible. Excellent book, everyone should read it.
January 31, 2014
My review, at my blog...
http://paul-feeney.blogspot.co.uk/201...
http://paul-feeney.blogspot.co.uk/201...
March 12, 2014
Formulaic ideas of VR and the plot was a bit thin
Want to read
May 20, 201470% off w00t :)
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/pr...
Code MYSALTBARGAIN
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/pr...
Code MYSALTBARGAIN
March 8, 2015
A book which seems to promise much but has nothing to say.
June 19, 2015
He never fails with his books, top read
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews