Clade [Mass Market Paperback]

Mark Budz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 2003

IT’S A POST-ECOCAUST WORLD.
WELCOME TO IT.

In the San Jose of tomorrow, all of nature is gengineered—from the warm-blooded plants to the designer people. But even in a rigidly controlled biosystem, with its pheromone-induced social order, the American dream is still the American dream. Caught between these new-old worlds, Rigo is on his way up—he’s going to be part of tomorrow, even if it means he has to leave today behind.

Written off as a sellout on the streets of his old ’hood, Rigo’s got his own ap in an aplex, a 9-to-5er, and a girl. He’s got opportunity. If he works hard, his job with a heavyweight
politicorp could give him a chance to move up in the clades. But when he’s chosen as part of a team to construct a new colony on a nearby comet, Rigo smells a setup. And when disaster strikes, he learns that if there’s a way to bend the rules, there’s also a way to break them…

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In a post-ecocaust future, Earth's natural biodiversity has been decimated. Millions are dead, and the rest have been shuttled into clades. When Rigo, who is working his way up from the poverty of the San Jose clade, is invited to travel to the asteroid being colonized with the aid of the warm-blooded plants that he has been working with, he knows that if he wants to move up in the corporate world, he must go. Concurrently, his social-worker girlfriend decides to hide her newest case, Ibrahim, a child suffering clade-incompatibility, at Rigo's mother's place when the secret police come for him. She and Rigo discover that Rigo's reclading somehow provides the pherions Ibrahim needs to survive and that there is a conspiracy to maintain the status quo through slave pherions. Rigo has fallen into the middle of this plot and also into position to help start the revolution of reclaiming the biodiversity of the past. A fast-paced read animated by an engrossing, nervous energy. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Smart, well-written, and highly imaginitive, Clade does for cutting edge biology what Neuromancer did for cyber future. Budz may welll have created a new genre: biopunk."—Kevin J. Anderson

"A remarkable book.... Scientific, tense, gritty, and thoughtful, Clade pulls you into a bioengineered tomorrow that may come startlingly true."—David Brin

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Spectra (December 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553586580
• ISBN-13: 978-0553586589
• Product Dimensions: 4 x 0.8 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine, gritty Cal-biotech hard-SF future. 4.5 stars, September 9, 2004

By 

Peter D. Tillman (Taos, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Clade (Mass Market Paperback)

CLADE is set 50 years after a catastrophic ecological collapse, the 'ecocaust', a human-caused mass-extinction right up there with the five worst in Earth's history. Civilization was saved by heavy-handed reengineering of the biosphere, but at a cost of billions of lives lost, and a tightly-regimented social setup. Budz does a nice job of worldbuilding in CLADE, and handles the ambiguous costs and benefits of new technology very well indeed.

Decent hard-SF that makes a serious attempt to extrapolate the medium-term future is never in oversupply. This is my favorite kind of SF, so I was very pleased to discover CLADE. There are, unsurprisingly, some first-novel rough spots here, particularly with the thriller-style plot, which suffers from some heavy-handed auctorial hammering-to-fit -- but, hey, you'll happily put up with a few warts for the technically-sweet payoffs in CLADE. Budz is clearly an author to watch. A sequel, CRACHE, is promised for Fall 2004. I'm looking forward to it.

Happy reading!
Pete Tillman
Read complete review: tinyurl.com/57pc3

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't put your nose up at this debut effort!!, January 15, 2007

By 

David "dtstrange" (Pleasant Hill, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clade (Mass Market Paperback)

"Clade" is an excellent first novel from Santa Cruz resident Mark Budz. The novel, set in a near-future world recovering from an ecological disaster, gives a refreshing and original outlook on the future of bioscience. In this future, you are assigned a certain biochemical signature which basically forces you to remain in your specially designated part of the world or suffer from an intense allergic reaction. Neat idea, right? The plot centers on a young man trying to move up in the world, who hopes through hard work and some luck he can get out of the ghetto clade (San Jose of all places!) into which he was born and achieve the middle class American Dream! Now, this wouldn't be a very interesting novel if all the kid did was work hard and remember his boss' birthday, so you have to read the rest of book to find out what happens. I really enjoyed it. The future society was very believable and very frightening in many ways. The main character was also very believable and very likable. You want to see this kid have a happy ending, despite all the problems he encounters. Now, having been to San Jose many times, I can totally understand why the author chose this city for his setting, but many residents may not approve of how the city is portrayed! Other then that, a great debut effort and I enjoyed it more then the author's third novel, "Idolon", which was also very original, but lost me at the end.

3.0 out of 5 stars Great First part and no ending, May 25, 2010

By 

D. Grant (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Clade (Mass Market Paperback)

Clade has a novel setting in a collapsed biosphere, and a hero living in San Jose (talk about collapse) and made artificially allergic to other places, so snaps for that. On the other hand, the rest of it is tried and true, to the point you could write it in your sleep. Its like going to a "creative" burger or pizza place in that yes, some of the details are fresh and intriguing, but in the end its the same old burger and fries or pepperoni and cheese (anxious striving dweeb, caught between rock and hard place and annoying family and girlfriend, yadda yadda). And the ending, I can honestly say I read exactly the same thing in at least one other book this year... It was really more interesting to imagine some of the OTHER characters telling THEIR stories as opposed to this nebbishy guy we are stuck with. Maybe next time will see more energy in the story and less in the faux angst department.