Lucifer's Dragon

Cyber Noir #2

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Passion di Orchi is no more than the obscenely rich daughter of a West Coast mafia boss - until she decides to rebuild Venice. In the middle of the Pacific. A century later, with New Venice ossified into a puritanical elegance, the daughter of Count Ryuchi slips away from her father's palazzo, out to the levels to play Lucifer's Dragon. A multi-level, self-perpetuating, true 3-D trawl through the Apocalypse, Lucifer's Dragon is coded so the game never repeats its own failures. But an altercation in a bar puts Karo on a collision course with NVPD officer Angeli, drafted in by media giant CySat to investigate a murder she knows way too much about. And then there's Razz, the silver exotic. Too tired and jaded to keep living, she takes on the job of guarding CySat's ultimate boss, the ten-year-old Aurelio. With all the high tech security in place, it should be a walk in the park. But the last thing Razz sees is CySat's child-ruler making too close an acquaintance with an Uzi, and then she wakes up in Zurich. Dead...

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

377 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

'Tough, sexy and brutal, but leavened with sharp humour... Grimwood is a name to watch.' The Times

Jon Courtenay Grimwood was born in Malta and christened in the upturned bell of a ship. He grew up in the Far East, Britain and Scandinavia. Apart from novels he writes for magazines and newspapers. He travels extensively and undertakes a certain amount of consulting. Until recently he wrote a monthly review column for the Guardian.

Felaheen, the third of his novels featuring Asraf Bey, a half-Berber detective, won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. So did his last book, End of the World Blues, about a British sniper on the run from Iraq and running an Irish bar in Tokyo. He has just delivered the Fallen Blade, the first of three novels set in an alternate 15th-century Venice

His work is published in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Finnish and American, among others

He is married to the journalist and novelist Sam Baker, currently editor-in-chief of Red magazine. They divide their time between London and Winchester...

Reviews

[Prettywitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A több szálon futó történetvezetésből Passion és Karo vonala nagyon tetszett. Razz története viszont számomra kidolgozatlanul ér véget.
Nagyon nem tetszett a túl sok technikai részlet: egyrészről a márkanevek halmozása nem biztos, hogy feltétlenül szükséges (pl. Mazda légkondicionáló), másrészről egy csomó szakszó (UVR, cicc) jelentése vagy csak a regény közepén derül ki, vagy csak sejteni lehet, hogy miről is van szó.

[KeenReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I was going to love this because Mr Grimwood's creation of neoVenice really was amazing. I love it when authors give you a sense of a place and the place is almost a character in the book. I thought that was what this was going to be like. NeoVenice was beautiful and elegant and deadly (in the rich part), dangerous with a sleazy glamour in the poor areas (there wasn't anything in between). I thought this was going to be a twisting turning story of politics and manipulation which used the background to it's full advantage. Unfortunately it was not that. In fact, most of the action took place elsewhere. I still liked it, which is good going, because if I had to file it by genre, I'd say it was science fiction and I prefer fantasy.
There were two things that bugged me though. One was a detailed focus on brand names and makes. A character wouldn't watch TV, they'd watch a Sony 55 inch Smart 4K Ultra HD with HDR TV. I found it really distracting because I automatically kept trying to work out what these details were telling me about the character, or their situation. I came to the conclusion they generally were not giving any useful information at all.
The second thing that bugged me was related to the detail on brands and makes. One of the characters was fantastically rich, hated her father and wanted to annoy or upset him every way she could and was clever, determined, and a go getter (once she worked out what she wanted) She was a Calvin Klein perfume which was described as having a citrus scent. It drove me near crazy trying to work out why. I came to the conclusion that this was just Mr Grimwood's love of detail going wrong. A citrus perfume was totally wrong for the character. They are safe, suitable for work perfumes (at least, the citrus perfumes made by Calvin Klein so far have been). There are some perfumes that should be X rated that would have really angered and upset her father. She should have been wearing something like Diorella or Jicky if a citrus perfume was wanted (both have great father-upsetting potential). The other problem was putting her in a designer perfume. This may appear to be an expensive, exclusive choice that would emphasise the "money is no object" aspect of this character but in perfume terms designer is not cheap, but not expensive or exclusive. Anyway, I love perfumes and could go on about how wrong this was, but I shall stop there. My point is that this was a real problem for me with this character, but if Mr Grimwood just mentioned her perfume I could have imagined her wearing whatever I thought fitted the character and this problem would have just disappeared. Maybe when it comes to details about things less is more, unless there is a real need to get specific.
So overall, Mr Grimwood created an amazing world in NeoVenice, which I don't think he really exploited to it's full, he confused me with unnecessary details which didn't suit one of his main characters. It was more science fiction than fantasy nd Iprefer fantasy, but I still liked it. I think I am goimg to try his Arabesk series.

[Sara]

My all be the all
make my all beautiful
exioted
citrus perfum wanted
dangerour with slies of life
not forgivnest
but be forgoten
choose the fire
far from the pardise mafia
to love of hill
throw non sleep years
throw huge fear
run from rose perfum
to beutiful note
to moon dragon
tired and jaded to keep living
to woke died in another hand
in tierd eyes to be there
in dragon eyes
dance in failure
to gd moment

[Robert Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as #3 but better than #1. Some grammatical errors and another disappointing ending (although not as disappointing as #1). Better, but still not quite good enough. I'm going to read #3 again now.

Read this if you like fast-paced semi-futuristic cyber-sci-fi that is semi well-written but lacks a point but is still a good, mostly entertaining read.

[maulfield · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rég szenvedtem ennyit könyvvel.

Első kényelmetlenséget a sok meg nem magyarázott és feleslegesen említett márka- és kütyünév okozta. Másodikat pedig az, hogy bár meglehetősen egyszerű a történet, nagyon nehezen bírtam követni, hogy épp mi történik. Ez a két kényelmetlenség végig fennállt.

Amiért valójában 1 a csillag, az a karakterek. Mindenki elképesztően alkalmas minden feladatra ami elé kerül, miközben legbelül végtelenül romlottnak vannak írva. Nekem egyszerűen rossz történetmesélés, ha egy élete felét drogozással múlató személy egy nap kitalál valamit ami globális rendszereket borít fel majd komplett államapparátusokat megszégyenítő összeköttetésekkel, szervezéssel és erőforrásokkal lezavarja az egészet hiba nélkül. Persze maroknyi segítője, akik épp a körülötte véletlenül tartózkodó emberekből állnak, ugyan olyan alkalmasak a rájuk váró feladatra, háttértől függetlenül.

Végig semmi tétje nincs egyetlen cselekményszálnak sem, számomra végtelenül érdektelen szereplők az emberi belső tulajdonságok és motivációk minden összefüggését meghazudtoló cselekedetei. A legrosszabb az egészben, hogy maga a felvetés nagyon izgalmas és rengeteg lehetőség van a világában, akár több független történetre is.

[Bertrand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Polar SF à classer dans la catégorie cyberpunk, l’éditeur nous en dit être la rencontre de W. Gibson et Tarantino. Ce qui n’est pas faux puisqu’on retrouve un montage du récit audacieux et déroutant, et une certaine truculence des dialogues et des situations. Inscrit clairement dans la tradition futur sombre, trash et violent, le roman tape sur les travers de notre société : gouvernance mondiale parodique, chirurgie esthétique, junk food, injustice sociale et règne du crime et de la violence à tous les niveaux. Cette histoire futuriste a une proximité incontestable, puisqu’issue de l’histoire contemporaine.
Cependant, une poignée de défauts émaillent ce roman : des thèmes et une intrigue trop disparates, un scénario assez léger, et un univers / une atmosphère qui ont du mal à prendre. Grimwood est sans doute meilleur journaliste que conteur.
Le Dragon de Lucifer reste nettement en dessous des ténors du genre (Tous à Zanzibar,…), mais les amateurs l’apprécieront s’ils savent passer outre la froideur du style.

[Isabel (kittiwake) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was quite an interesting cyberpunk story, but was spoilt by something that irritated me intensely once I noticed it. For some reason, the author italicises lots and lots of words, not just for emphasis but names of companies, tv shows, books and newspapers, and foreign words too (including French, Italian and Japanese). But he's inconsistent; not all company names are italicised (for some reason WeGuard is but CySat isn't) and not all foreign words, while some perfectly ordinary English words which happen to be of foreign origin, such as 'via', are italicised too.

There is another book by this author on my TBR shelf, and I have just flicked through it. He still seems to be fond of italics, but he doesn't go quite so over the top with them in '9Tail Fox'.

[Chris Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this guy. quick, fast paced, visual read. Exciting, twists and turns, keeps you on edge.

[Mike Franklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite Grimwood's own rejection of NeoAddix I still think that was the better story. I felt this one had too much majorly implausible stuff in it.