Five Star Science Fiction/Fantasy - Imprint [Hardcover]

Paul L. Bates (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1594143129 | ISBN-13: 978-1594143120 | Publication Date: July 11, 2005 | Edition: 1

Wyatt Weston lives in an era of no mass media, no private transportation, where police hover over the streets keeping order, where knowledge is limited to one's immediate surroundings, and the collective amnesia of the population. Wyatt works as a sweeper; on a biweekly basis he removes rats, cockroaches, and the homeless from the city. With time on his hands, Wyatt pursues ways to bolster his memory. He encounters Victor Crist, who offers him a job and takes him to the Heartland, a dwelling place of those who rule the city. Wyatt's life becomes a complicated balancing act between a search for his missing girlfriend Jennie and his bizarre involvement with Victor and his family. Victor's grand plan to alter the current society comes to light, and an utterly transformed Wyatt stands upon the threshold of a new world order, far more bizarre than the old, with the past dissolving around him and only the limitless potential of the future beckoning.

Paul L. Bates lives on a wooded acre in eastern Massachusetts. (20021201)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In a dystopian world in which the authorities routinely eradicate the unwelcome elements of civilization, and rats and homeless people are swept from the streets every night, Wyatt Weston is a sweeper, a lowly public servant living in lowly circumstances. When the opportunity for advancement arrives in the form of servicing his supervisor's comely cousin, Rachel, Wyatt seizes it and intermittently enjoys Rachel's more lavish lifestyle. Yet Wyatt still pines for his mysteriously lost love, Jennie, who, in a culture of chronic amnesiacs, no one else seems to remember. Wyatt's memories, however, are not only intact but also powerful enough to regenerate his own diseased flesh. The latter capability unwittingly attracts the attention of Victor Crist, a member of the ruling elite, who offers Wyatt a position as his personal guardian and the unexpected means to find Jennie and subtly transform society. Bates vividly realizes a surrealistic, haunting world; unforgettable characters; and a mature narrative style that, in a first novel, spotlights him as a promising new voice in sf. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"From a darkly humorous tale of the power of words (Death and the Librarian) to a never-before-published response to events of September 11 (Ilion), Friesner's 12 stories illustrate the author's acutely sensitive vision of wonder in the everyday world... Known primarily for his 'Star Wars' novels... Zahn's short stories also deliver strong plots and memorable characters... Zebrowski's many novels (e.g. Macrolife) mark him as a visionary as well as a master of hard sf. The ten short stories collected in In the Distance provide a benchmark of his creativity... the author expands his concept of the human condition to embrace the stars. Part of Five Star's continuing commitment to showcasing the short fiction of the genre's most prominent author's, these three volumes belong in most libraries where short sf is popular."
-- Library Journal (December 2002) (Library Journal 20020615)

"...Part of Five Star's continuing commitment to showcasing the short fiction of the genre's most prominent authors, these three volumes (Death and the Librarian and Other Stories/ Star Song and Other Stories/ In the Distance, and Ahead in Time) belong in most libraries where short sf is popular."
-- Library Journal (December 2002) (Library Journal 20050701)

"Four more titles in Five Star's new series (God Is an Iron and Other Stories/ Generation Gap and Other Stories/ The Lady Vanishes and Other Oddities of Nature/ Suppose They Gave a Peace and Other Stories) of short fiction by noteworthy sf authors offer a variety of tales that illustrate the depth and staying power of the genre...Most of the stories in these volumes have only appeared in periodicals. Libraries wishing to augment their sf or short fiction collections should consider any of them."
-- Library Journal (June 2002) (Library Journal 20050720)

"IMPRINT is an inspiring sci-fi love story. In a futuristic earth, with limited resources, Wyatt holds on to life through his memories of lost lovers and friends. It is Wyatt?s "more than necessary" determination to remember himself and those who are no longer a part of his world, but still constitute his life; who he was, who he is, yet most importantly, who he can be that make him a target of various power possessing beings. Wanted by those with power over life, death, status, information, and even the duration of a shower, Wyatt must traverse a world of violent sex, intrigue, casual murder, and mass destruction on his way to finding true love and fulfilling his personal destiny. Along this desperate journey, Wyatt meets Anna, who shows him the fulfillment of his destiny. Will he accept it and in doing so, her, or will he hold on to a past love?"

"Mr. Bates drew this reviewer to his main character Wyatt by his constant display of the universal struggle to improve oneself amidst the turmoil of life and the necessity of everyday survival. Even in doing what Wyatt must to live, Mr. Bates portrays him as contemplative of the world in which he lives and the reasons why it is as it is. Mr. Bates also injects sufficient details concerning the other players so as to promote various levels of like and as appropriate for the particular character, dislike, so that the reader is propelled to cheer and applaud in the right places. The imagery Bates fashions is vivid and precise. He correctly created in this reviewer?s mind every necessary detail so that, at times, this reviewer felt as if she was Wyatt being Wyatt. This reviewer would enjoy reading additional books involving Wyatt and his future."
--loveromances.com, July 2005 (LoveRomances.Com 20050701)

"IMPRINT is a dark and feral world where it's kill or be killed. When someone disappears, it's as if they never were, wiped from everyone's memories and the computer databanks. But what are people without their memories? Wyatt Weston is a man who strives to be different. He has taught himself to remember details, and memory saves his life over and over again. The world is a very dangerous place, somewhat akin to the cities in the Matrix movies, and Wyatt soon learns that, although his education is woefully inadequate, if he wants to survive, his wit and reflexes will take him a long way. Secondary characters add to the suspense of the tale as readers try to determine whose side they are on. Everyone has an agenda, and Wyatt stands at the center of their plans. Paul L. Bates pens an interesting and likeable character in Wyatt. . .An interesting premise and an even more intriguing hero make IMPRINT a book to remember. Pick this one up before it vanishes from the bookshelves."
--Romance Reviews Today, July 2005 (Romance Reviews Today 20050701)

"Wyatt Weston suffers from chronic nightmares, is poverty-stricken, and has a missing girlfriends whom no one remembers and a disappearing left arm. When Victor Crist and Rachel Void enter his life offering him employment and a steady relationship, respectively, he attempts to assimilate a new way of life that is disturbingly cold-hearted. Slowly, he learns that the world he thought he knew is not the world his employer has planned. Bates imagines a dystopic future of restricted knowledge and omnipresent police observation, a world in which a few people struggle to remain human against the odds. Dark though with a hint of hopefulness, this sf debut is suitable for large libraries."
--Library Journal, July 2005 (Library Journal 20050701)

"Massachusetts resident Paul L. Bates sees his first published novel hit the shelves this month. "Imprint" is a rich, atmospheric tale of a future world overseen by frightening corporate cartels run by a pitiless aristocracy. The cities are warrens of confusion and fear, where the homeless are swept away on a weekly basis like so much vermin; the "Heartland," a privileged community located safely away from the crime and congestion of the city, houses society's upper crust, but the population of the Heartland is strictly monitored and excess citizens are shed by dumping them in the city as children and then seeing how well they survive."

"In this nightmare of beyond-Darwinian competition there are few sources of hope or joy; for young Wyatt, the memory of his true love, Jen, is a precious comfort, but an endangered one: the memory of Jennie, and all of Wyatt's other missing friends, threatens daily to disappear, along with the city-dwellers? memories of most events, especially alarming ones like suicide jumpers and gunfights in the streets. Paralleling the general tendency for memory to dissolve is Wyatt's own unique problem, and talent: each morning, he wakens to find some portion of his anatomy reduced to cellular protoplasm, and only through intense mental discipline can he reassemble missing limbs and organs."

"But while Wyatt tries to keep anyone from finding out about his unusual difficulty, the overlords of his frightening world are keeping tabs on him for sinister reasons of their own."

"It's the sort of story that sparks your natural paranoia into pure, jittery angst -- a perfect literary mirror to hold up to our crazy contemporary society."
--EDGEBoston, July 2005 (Doody Enterprises )

"In a dystopian world in which the authorities routinely eradicate the unwelcome elements of civilization, and rats and homeless people are swept from the streets every night, Wyatt Weston is a sweeper, a lowly public servant living in lowly circumstances. When the opportunity for advancement arrives in the form of servicing his supervisor?s comely cousin, Rachel, Wyatt seizes it and intermittently enjoys Rachel?s more lavish lifestyle. Yet Wyatt still pines for his mysteriously lost love, Jennie, who, in a culture of chronic amnesiacs, no one else seems to remember. Wyatt's memories, however, are not only intact but also powerful enough to regenerate his own diseased flesh. The latter capability unwittingly attracts the attention of Victor Crist, a member of the ruling elite, who offers Wyatt a position as his personal guardian and the unexpected means to find Jennie and subtly transform society. Bates vividly realizes a surrealistic, haunting world; unforgettable characters; and a mature narrative style that, in a first novel, spotlights him as a promising new voice in sf."
--Booklist, July 2005 (Booklist )

Product Details

• Hardcover: 323 pages
• Publisher: Five Star; 1 edition (July 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594143129
• ISBN-13: 978-1594143120
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,670,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul L. Bates is a fresh water distance swimmer, who wiles away the boisterous New England winters writing. Happily retired from a seemingly endless career in construction management, he has written over a dozen novels blending genres with a general disregard for convention. The first two installments of his post apocalyptic end-of-days trilogy, Imprint, and Dreamer, were published by Gale Five Star. His short fiction appears in such discerning venues as Withersin, Zahir, Lynx Eye, Star*Line, Ruins Extraterrestrial, Surprise, Jack-O-Spec, Darker Than Noir, and In the Garden of the Crow. You can find him at [e-mail], see him reading at the December 2007 Sporty Spec book launch in Cambridge, Mass., at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VaWg4Nlz40.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A work that takes the reader one step beyond the edge, August 2, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Five Star Science Fiction/Fantasy - Imprint (Hardcover)

The world is a bleak and dark place for people like Wyatt Weston who lives below the poverty line. Not having an income is one way of disappearing or being killed which has the benefit of keeping the population stable since natural resources are disappearing at an alarming rate. Wyatt has a unique talent of waking up missing a body part and being able through the power of his mind to regenerate it.

Rachel Void wants Wyatt but she has left behind Heartland where all the decision makers and power brokers live under a dome because the air that everyone else breathes in the world is polluted. A chance meeting with one of the leaders of Heartland Victor Crist earns Wyatt the job of bodyguard, a dangerous job since his new employer wants to change the world order. Wyatt doesn't know that if he makes it through the coup alive, he probably will play a strong role in what will be a new world.

Not one word in this entire novel indicates this is planet earth. It could be any world where the plague and religious wars destroyed much of the orb and there is very little chance of nature regenerating itself without a major paradigm shift. Readers will find this dark grim work reminiscent of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE where those in control know what lies beyond the next symphony. Paul J. Bates has written a work that takes the reader one step beyond the edge.

Harriet Klausner

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than average, April 3, 2006

By 

Iris Brown (Portland Or) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Five Star Science Fiction/Fantasy - Imprint (Hardcover)

IMPRINT, By Paul Bates.

The present-tense, stiff-masculine action in this novel is reminiscent of the hardboiled detective novels from the forties and fifties. The protagonist, Wyatt, spends an inordinate amount of time thinking, an apparent attempt to present him as a sympathetic character. In general, this fails. Wyatt doesn't seem terribly motivated or bright. Nevertheless, there are some redeeming and curious qualities to this novel. For one, Wyatt's tendency to lose his extremities while sleeping. Why he wakes with an arm or a leg missing is never really explained - but he has the eerie ability to rebuild the missing parts by the power of his mind. That unique ability makes his DNA valuable. This alone is enough to keep most science fiction fans reading. It certainly grabbed my attention.

Wyatt misses his true love, Jenny. Jenny disappeared and none of Wyatt's friends remember her. It happens a lot in this book. Some people `disappear' themselves, and others are erased by the powers that be. We learn this is how the government controls the population, and the surviving masses prefer to forget their missing loved ones rather than search for them or even remember them. Wyatt is the exception.

Wyatt is a sweeper - a frightening profession with a certain prestige. He is authorized to carry a wand. The wand, carried in a holster beneath his arm, can instantly destroy anything organic, reducing it to smoke and ash. He goes out with other sweepers to eliminate drossies (people) animals or things in places where they don't belong. The job pays a very modest wage, enough for Wyatt to eat and pay the rent on his drab apartment in the worst area of the city. Wyatt often wonders if his sweet Jennie has been `swept.'

This world is a coldhearted place. No one seems to be kind or pleasant. There is no real tenderness or interaction between characters. Love is sex, sex is love. Conversations are brief. Dialogue provides information, but does not succeed in any real character-building.

Wyatt is offered a job he cannot logically or economically refuse. He becomes the bodyguard for a very powerful man and is dragged into a power struggle between feuding warlords. On his days off, Wyatt visits his latest girlfriend for sex or he stays in and studies, not appearing to have a definite preference. He gets a bit of education, but he is no wiser or more interesting.

Wyatt is very good with the wand, and can fry two or three drossies at a time. He impresses his boss again and again. He's earning good wages now, in the form of credits.

Eventually we meet Jenny. She is meek, tearful and she prefers her life in the Archives, locked away, studying and filing, or whatever devout Archivists do. It's a letdown as far as long lost reunions go. Luckily, it's not the climax.

Wyatt has some exciting adventures in the last third of the book, and they are worth the wait. He gains some initiative and travels to an area where a terrible plague is blamed for massive loss of life. While there he learns a number of things about his powerful boss and none of the things are good. He discovers that he is partly to blame for the loss of life in this sector. Does this change Wyatt for the better? No, he goes right back to frying people, in the employment of his evil boss.

The employer's daughter, Anastasia, is Wyatt's personal trainer. She kicks and punches him up, down and sideways on a regular basis. She is the only truly interesting character in this tale. What she sees in Wyatt is a mystery. Maybe it's because he bathes regularly and dresses sharp? Don't know. Over the length of this book he changes from out an ignorant dud to an educated dud.

Action scenes are this writer's strongest talent. The futuristic city, the limbs dissolving and rebuilding, the space station, the secret weapon, the bloody battle between the warlords, those are the genuinely entertaining parts. 'Imprint' is an better than average read if you're not insistent on sympathetic, believable characters. The ending was somewhat predictable, and it came, ultimately, as a relief to this reader.