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Psychodrome #1
Psychodrome
Psychodrome- An intergalactic scavenger hunt that sends its players across the stars in a game player for keeps... a game where the lines between reality and computer-generated fiction blur, and the only sure thing is that there is no sure thing.
Now Arkardy O'Toole has entered Psychodrome. A gambler down on his luck, O'Toole hopes to pick up quick cash- and avoid some nasty characters that he's accidentally crossed. But his past has followed him into the game, and he and his teammates soon find out that if Psychodrome doesn't kill them, reality will...
Now Arkardy O'Toole has entered Psychodrome. A gambler down on his luck, O'Toole hopes to pick up quick cash- and avoid some nasty characters that he's accidentally crossed. But his past has followed him into the game, and he and his teammates soon find out that if Psychodrome doesn't kill them, reality will...
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
4 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Simon Hawke
89 books238 followersAlso published as J.D. Masters.
He was born Nicholas Valentin Yermakov, but began writing as Simon Hawke in 1984 and later changed his legal name to Hawke. He has also written near future adventure novels under the penname "J. D. Masters" and mystery novels.
He was born Nicholas Valentin Yermakov, but began writing as Simon Hawke in 1984 and later changed his legal name to Hawke. He has also written near future adventure novels under the penname "J. D. Masters" and mystery novels.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 9, 2020
This novel is detail-heavy, overly expository and has trouble maintaining any sort of tension. That being said, the world-building and technology are well-developed, which were the only things which kept me reading.
The main character is almost too perfect – he’s so introspective, so accepting of others’ attacks or misuse of him, and always comes to the “right” conclusion on things, which makes him very boring. His friend, Breck, who should be a fascinating character, given he is a bio-engineered soldier with a complex moral system, goes on so many monologues you begin to skim whenever he speaks. Stone and Kami, two of only three women in the novel (all of whom sleep with the main character at some point), are carbon copies of one another who do nothing to drive the plot.
It’s unfortunate more so because the set up is very cool and, as I said before, the world-building was excellent.
Everything in the story – the characters, the attempt to bring up heavy topics like genocide and racism, society’s social progression, and even the plot are competing with one another for attention, which leaves all of them feeling half-baked.
I appreciated the attempt – I could see what he was trying to do with the story – but it came off so heavy-handed it just didn’t work. Especially in a book with such a ridiculous (albeit awesome) title.
Psychodrome? More like Boredrome. Too heavy-handed? Yeah, well, try reading Psychodrome.
Do you like Book Reviews of old Science Fiction? Do you like Analyses of Novels? Do you like pugs? Check out my Booktube Channel Sound and Fury for a deeper dive into this novel!
The main character is almost too perfect – he’s so introspective, so accepting of others’ attacks or misuse of him, and always comes to the “right” conclusion on things, which makes him very boring. His friend, Breck, who should be a fascinating character, given he is a bio-engineered soldier with a complex moral system, goes on so many monologues you begin to skim whenever he speaks. Stone and Kami, two of only three women in the novel (all of whom sleep with the main character at some point), are carbon copies of one another who do nothing to drive the plot.
It’s unfortunate more so because the set up is very cool and, as I said before, the world-building was excellent.
Everything in the story – the characters, the attempt to bring up heavy topics like genocide and racism, society’s social progression, and even the plot are competing with one another for attention, which leaves all of them feeling half-baked.
I appreciated the attempt – I could see what he was trying to do with the story – but it came off so heavy-handed it just didn’t work. Especially in a book with such a ridiculous (albeit awesome) title.
Psychodrome? More like Boredrome. Too heavy-handed? Yeah, well, try reading Psychodrome.
Do you like Book Reviews of old Science Fiction? Do you like Analyses of Novels? Do you like pugs? Check out my Booktube Channel Sound and Fury for a deeper dive into this novel!
March 4, 2012
Well this started out promising enough, with an introspective narrator and a world rife with fun cyberpunk cliches: cyborg ninjas, VR games, nueral chips, lycra-adorned neo tokyo-babe future-motorbikers, etc...
But it quickly became apparent there wasn't a story, just a novel of recaps: clunky, endless exposition in the form of said narrator's mediocre musings on everything, from great white sharks in space to true love. These redundant episodes would go on for pages and pages, and are the real-life equivalent of me eating a ham sandwich and then thinking about the history of ham sandwiches for fifteen minutes (which would probably be more interesting, if I do say so myself). Then there's the long, expositioninal blocks of dialogue where a character talks out what's happening and what they are going to do about it to whoever would listen: there's no real life equivalent of that, outside of bored [sic] meetings.
I soon became tired of processing the minutia of every situation with the narrator: I'm his reader, not his goddamned therapist, and I wish there was more mindless action to keep the story moving. But it likewise became clear that the author was making the story up as he went along, and aside from being paid by the word, he probably used the long, agonizing refreshers and world building paragraphs to buy time until he figured out what was going to happen next, as if he constantly needed reminding what was happening and going to happen in his own novel.
I like mystery in a novel: you don't have to go into the details about how a floating space base over an alien planet works because for 1) It's not integral to the story and 2) it's not very interesting. Maybe if the author had some "novel" ideas or a good writing style I'd be into reading his opinions on virtual reality or human psychology, but since he's only capable of a string of cliches and a mediocre imagination, this book became very dull, bodgged down, and lifeless. On a great many occassion I actually feared it would make me stupider.
In contrasting this to the last novel I read ("To Escape the Stars"), I have come to the obvious conclusion that concerning pulp, less is more. But the author of Psychodrome's philosophy seems to be, why use one sentence to describe a thing when I can do it in a whole redundant paragraph?
Here's an example, taken almost at random, in which the author describes what the narrator is seeing through someone else's eyes via psyhodrome chip:
"It was an image like a still frame, enlarged and enhanced from the original, seen through the eyes of the compartment manager across the street, who probably had nothing better to do than sit at the window of his box warren cubbyhole and stare outside all day, thinking about the one time he had his shot and blew it. He had walked away from it with nothing but the memory of whatever his Psychodrome experience had been and a biochip implanted in his brain, a semi-organic microcomputer that had grown together with his brain matter, always a part of him, always representing his potential. He could buy computer interface time and have himself programmed with knowledge that would gain him a new and better life, but there was, of course, a catch. There always was. First he had to be able to afford it. If he saved a little every year, perhaps in another five years or ten years he'd have the necessary funds to buy himself an education. But living where he lived was not very conductive to saving money. A life-style such as that required anesthetic...."
Why oh why can't this paragraph simply read, "It was an image like a still frame, enlarged and enhanced from the original, seen through the eyes of the compartment manager across the street, who probably had nothing better to do than sit at the window of his box warren cubbyhole and stare outside all day, thinking about the one time he had his shot and blew it?"
Especially considering the mechanics of the biochip has already been described a thousand times already, especially considering the rest is all conjecture about a madeup man that'll never appear ever again in the novel.
If this book was half as long it would've been bearable, even fun. At least the author of "To Escape the Stars" didn't bother to think I'd care what the protagonist was thinking half the time.
I used to read shit like Psychodrome all the time, and to a man all these comercial scifi books are the same: an interesting premise brought to lifeless life by a rambling cast of characters, awful pacing, meandering plot and needless exposition; an everyman half-oaf who becomes important; a seasoned pro; a hard-ass woman with a heart of gold; the voyeristic comfort of made-up people taking blandly, and explaining bland scifi things as if they are seeing them for the first time; and lastly, enough loose ends to make room for a sequel, the ultimate point of all the needless world-building. In these books, there's no mystery to anything: everything is spelled out like to a second grader, and even still there's glaring plot holes.
But anyway Simon Hawke is a comercial writer, and I bet he barely remembers writing this, and I've probably put as much thought into writing this review as he did into writing this whole magnum opus.
PS:
Perhaps it's because I have the luxury of hindsight, but I always thought "the running man" idea of future entertainment, while cool, is pretty naive. Humans are lazy, but they are also ego-driven. Why passively watch some dude compete in some life-or-death game when you can passively do the same thing, via video game? Halo is the real running man of the future-now.
But it quickly became apparent there wasn't a story, just a novel of recaps: clunky, endless exposition in the form of said narrator's mediocre musings on everything, from great white sharks in space to true love. These redundant episodes would go on for pages and pages, and are the real-life equivalent of me eating a ham sandwich and then thinking about the history of ham sandwiches for fifteen minutes (which would probably be more interesting, if I do say so myself). Then there's the long, expositioninal blocks of dialogue where a character talks out what's happening and what they are going to do about it to whoever would listen: there's no real life equivalent of that, outside of bored [sic] meetings.
I soon became tired of processing the minutia of every situation with the narrator: I'm his reader, not his goddamned therapist, and I wish there was more mindless action to keep the story moving. But it likewise became clear that the author was making the story up as he went along, and aside from being paid by the word, he probably used the long, agonizing refreshers and world building paragraphs to buy time until he figured out what was going to happen next, as if he constantly needed reminding what was happening and going to happen in his own novel.
I like mystery in a novel: you don't have to go into the details about how a floating space base over an alien planet works because for 1) It's not integral to the story and 2) it's not very interesting. Maybe if the author had some "novel" ideas or a good writing style I'd be into reading his opinions on virtual reality or human psychology, but since he's only capable of a string of cliches and a mediocre imagination, this book became very dull, bodgged down, and lifeless. On a great many occassion I actually feared it would make me stupider.
In contrasting this to the last novel I read ("To Escape the Stars"), I have come to the obvious conclusion that concerning pulp, less is more. But the author of Psychodrome's philosophy seems to be, why use one sentence to describe a thing when I can do it in a whole redundant paragraph?
Here's an example, taken almost at random, in which the author describes what the narrator is seeing through someone else's eyes via psyhodrome chip:
"It was an image like a still frame, enlarged and enhanced from the original, seen through the eyes of the compartment manager across the street, who probably had nothing better to do than sit at the window of his box warren cubbyhole and stare outside all day, thinking about the one time he had his shot and blew it. He had walked away from it with nothing but the memory of whatever his Psychodrome experience had been and a biochip implanted in his brain, a semi-organic microcomputer that had grown together with his brain matter, always a part of him, always representing his potential. He could buy computer interface time and have himself programmed with knowledge that would gain him a new and better life, but there was, of course, a catch. There always was. First he had to be able to afford it. If he saved a little every year, perhaps in another five years or ten years he'd have the necessary funds to buy himself an education. But living where he lived was not very conductive to saving money. A life-style such as that required anesthetic...."
Why oh why can't this paragraph simply read, "It was an image like a still frame, enlarged and enhanced from the original, seen through the eyes of the compartment manager across the street, who probably had nothing better to do than sit at the window of his box warren cubbyhole and stare outside all day, thinking about the one time he had his shot and blew it?"
Especially considering the mechanics of the biochip has already been described a thousand times already, especially considering the rest is all conjecture about a madeup man that'll never appear ever again in the novel.
If this book was half as long it would've been bearable, even fun. At least the author of "To Escape the Stars" didn't bother to think I'd care what the protagonist was thinking half the time.
I used to read shit like Psychodrome all the time, and to a man all these comercial scifi books are the same: an interesting premise brought to lifeless life by a rambling cast of characters, awful pacing, meandering plot and needless exposition; an everyman half-oaf who becomes important; a seasoned pro; a hard-ass woman with a heart of gold; the voyeristic comfort of made-up people taking blandly, and explaining bland scifi things as if they are seeing them for the first time; and lastly, enough loose ends to make room for a sequel, the ultimate point of all the needless world-building. In these books, there's no mystery to anything: everything is spelled out like to a second grader, and even still there's glaring plot holes.
But anyway Simon Hawke is a comercial writer, and I bet he barely remembers writing this, and I've probably put as much thought into writing this review as he did into writing this whole magnum opus.
PS:
Perhaps it's because I have the luxury of hindsight, but I always thought "the running man" idea of future entertainment, while cool, is pretty naive. Humans are lazy, but they are also ego-driven. Why passively watch some dude compete in some life-or-death game when you can passively do the same thing, via video game? Halo is the real running man of the future-now.
July 12, 2021
A fantastic cyberpunk novel that depicts the adventures of Arkady O'Toole, the half-Russian half-Irish gambler who manages to find himself running to a Running Man-style gladiator contest in order to escape the Yakuza boss he's managed to mortally offend.
From there it becomes a story about shapeshifting aliens, love, ninjas, outlaw crystal miners on an alien world, and the vagaries of chance. The book has a tendency to do a bit too much via narration and not enough action but Arkady is a very entertaining character and I enjoyed listening to him recite his strange journey from beginning to end.
If I had some complaints, it's the fact that the female characters of the book tend to be somewhat incidental to the plot and used poorly. There's still some very interesting ones that I enjoyed and was saddened didn't have a bigger role. That didn't ruin my enjoyment of the novel, however. The world-building and characterization is top notch.
I strongly recommend this novel.
From there it becomes a story about shapeshifting aliens, love, ninjas, outlaw crystal miners on an alien world, and the vagaries of chance. The book has a tendency to do a bit too much via narration and not enough action but Arkady is a very entertaining character and I enjoyed listening to him recite his strange journey from beginning to end.
If I had some complaints, it's the fact that the female characters of the book tend to be somewhat incidental to the plot and used poorly. There's still some very interesting ones that I enjoyed and was saddened didn't have a bigger role. That didn't ruin my enjoyment of the novel, however. The world-building and characterization is top notch.
I strongly recommend this novel.
October 13, 2021
I was looking for a quick, short, pulpy, vintage 80’s sci-fi novel to read and this one hit all the marks. Was it perfect? No. But it had a lot of fun elements that made it a rather enjoyable read. And the cover of it… very 80’s retro cool.
The story started out well enough and I was rather sucked into the first half of the novel. It felt almost like a cyberpunk version of Hunger Games meets Squid Games.
Towards the end however, it felt like it fell apart and the author seemed like he didn’t know which of its smaller plot lines it wanted to focus on. After awhile the “game” portion seemed to be forgotten about, which was unfortunate since that was the most interesting portion of the story.
I would have given it 4 Stars for the first half of the story. But had to drop it to 3 due to the story starting to meandering off towards the end.
I have the sequel to the novel. Interested to see how it fairs against the first one.
The story started out well enough and I was rather sucked into the first half of the novel. It felt almost like a cyberpunk version of Hunger Games meets Squid Games.
Towards the end however, it felt like it fell apart and the author seemed like he didn’t know which of its smaller plot lines it wanted to focus on. After awhile the “game” portion seemed to be forgotten about, which was unfortunate since that was the most interesting portion of the story.
I would have given it 4 Stars for the first half of the story. But had to drop it to 3 due to the story starting to meandering off towards the end.
I have the sequel to the novel. Interested to see how it fairs against the first one.
May 17, 2018
Although this book was written in 1987 it holds up very well. I am a fan of cyber punk so this book falls squarely in my preferred reading zone. Some of the futuristic elements didn't wait until 2460 to make their appearance (self-driving cars) communication implants (e.g. radio receiving cochlear implants) virtual reality (glasses etc.) but that wasn't a detractor from the book. I found the switch in focus from world dominating aliens to the personal problems of the hero a little abrupt toward the end, but the end clearly promises a sequel (Psychodrome 2: The Shapechanger Scenario)
January 25, 2009
I've only ever read Hawke's humourous fantasy so this was a nice change of pace. Psychodrome is a sort of virtual game; brain implants to broadcast your feelings, with viewers tuning in at home on a 25th century TV set. The future is well fleshed yet not too overpowering, the technology not overused and the plot gripping without being overly obvious. An enjoyable read, with a second to follow.
NB: I couldn't find a number of pages - my copy had 220.
NB: I couldn't find a number of pages - my copy had 220.
August 31, 2019
Arkady O'Toole (Ar-kah-dy) is half Russian, half Irish, and completely in the proverbial.
It's a good fast pace trashy sci-fi book with some good characters and an entertaining plot.
The segues and asides as Hawke delves into motive and ponders life and our actions make the book well worth reading, same for the sequel.
It's a good fast pace trashy sci-fi book with some good characters and an entertaining plot.
The segues and asides as Hawke delves into motive and ponders life and our actions make the book well worth reading, same for the sequel.
January 6, 2012
A sci-fi classic for me! Loved this book. Virtual reality at its finest.
November 12, 2025
A surprisingly enjoyable sci-fi romp. The writing is engaging and the characters feel real. While I wouldn't say there's much depth here, it was a really fun ride that has me tracking down the next books in this series.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews