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herewiss13Read "Idlewild" the debut book by Nick Sagan (yes, relation) last night in one gulp. Part of this was good writing, part of it was insomnia and part of it was the realization that, being a shortish novel, I actually could.
On the back, there's a blurb by Neil Gaiman saying "...starts out like Amber meets The Matrix, and as it goes along, it turns into several something elses..."
It actually doesn't...mostly. It stays "Amber meets The Matrix" pretty much all the way through. There are, however, also definite resonances to:
Steel Beach by John Varley
True Names by Vernor Vinge
12 Monkeys (starring Brad Pitt)
and stylistic notes along the lines of a Heinlein Juvenille meets Stephen King (for his kind of suspense, not gore).
I'm not sure how much that actually tells you about the book, but in retrospect I've just covered a good 95% of the plot and tone.
How many different works does something need to resonate with before it ceases to be an homage? I don't think "Idlewild" is an homage, but I do think it's a pretty clunky pastiche, lifting big obvious chunks of plot idea from various sources and mooshing them together. The gestalt may work, but the underlying sources blaze through and the seams stand out.
By all this I mean to say, it's not a bad book, but the blurbs et. al. would make it seem a much finer work than it is.
On the back, there's a blurb by Neil Gaiman saying "...starts out like Amber meets The Matrix, and as it goes along, it turns into several something elses..."
It actually doesn't...mostly. It stays "Amber meets The Matrix" pretty much all the way through. There are, however, also definite resonances to:
Steel Beach by John Varley
True Names by Vernor Vinge
12 Monkeys (starring Brad Pitt)
and stylistic notes along the lines of a Heinlein Juvenille meets Stephen King (for his kind of suspense, not gore).
I'm not sure how much that actually tells you about the book, but in retrospect I've just covered a good 95% of the plot and tone.
How many different works does something need to resonate with before it ceases to be an homage? I don't think "Idlewild" is an homage, but I do think it's a pretty clunky pastiche, lifting big obvious chunks of plot idea from various sources and mooshing them together. The gestalt may work, but the underlying sources blaze through and the seams stand out.
By all this I mean to say, it's not a bad book, but the blurbs et. al. would make it seem a much finer work than it is.
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Date: 2004-01-09 12:19 am (UTC)Signed,
former book jacket copywriter
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Date: 2004-01-09 06:18 am (UTC)I've been trying to find my copy of "The Persistence of Vision" for months now...*sigh*