Customer Reviews

Idolon

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been reading science fiction since 1957 and have watched it go through several changes. This novel is part of a change that began happening right after William Gibson published NEUROMANCER where editors (then later readers) started to prefer stories PACKED with all kinds of science fiction tropes. Gibson did this and it's one of the main features of cyberpunk. This is also the kind of short fiction Gardner Dozois advocated when he was editor of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. The stories he selected tended not to be about "story" or focus on narrative, but on ambience. Hence, novels such as Mark Budz's extremely well-written IDOLON arise out of the perceived need to pack in as much ancilliary detail as possible. Forget story. Describe all the gizmos and fantastic technology that abounds in this future world. This, Budz does and I'm sure there are going to be tens of thousands of readers out there who like this kind of writing. But I got half-way through the book and realized that I didn't know what the central conflict of the story was nor did I know much about any of the characters. But the "world" Budz creates fairly sparkles. There are quite a few novels on the market that sparkle in this way. Stephenson's DIAMOND AGE is one of the best of these. Karl Schroeder's LADY OF MAZES or Ken MacLeod's NEWTON'S WAKE are examples of this kind of "ambience-building" (as opposed to world-building) science fiction that's coming out now. To new readers of SF, these are probably going to be classics, but I miss the simple story-oriented science fiction novel, where character is examined through an unfolding narrative that isn't weighted down by the sexiness of the gizmos involved. I thought that DIAMOND AGE was, basically, ALL gizmos and couldn't finish it. EIDOLON begins so slowly that I couldn't get past the middle of the book. I just couldn't keep up with trope after trope or conceit after conceit. These are like movies with incredible special effects, with little detail paid toward story and character development. I know there will be hundreds of fans out there who'll disagree with me. But they are of a new generation of reader who seeks different things in their fiction. So consider the two stars I've given this book to be a very personal reaction to a well-written book by an author who will most definitely go far, just as all of the Asimov writers are now prospering.

If you could look like anyone else, or make yourself look like a completely new person, clothing and all, would you do it? Mark Budz says that not only would you do it, but everyone else would, too, and individual identity would become a thing of the past. That's the premise for this new novel by Mark Budz, whose work seems well-celebrated, but hard to find in book stores. Idolon is a great near future read, set in the San Francisco Bay Area (and Santa Cruz) where pretty much everyone has their skin imprinted with a nanomolecular treatment that allows them to look like anyone they wish. Many people opt to look like celebrities, both past and present (There's a great scene in the book about a shop where everyone dresses as Judy Garland character from a different movie. You can guess the original gender of the employees!) Some people just change their looks and clothes all together. The industry that creates this "skin" is booming and looking for new ways to get people to try new treatments, while avoiding government regulation. And if you get everyone to look the same and act the same, you can predict what they'll do, or buy next! Or even control it!

This is the plot for the book, such as it is. This premise starts very strong, but finishes weak. Nevertheless, it was a fun book to read, wholly original and very interesting. I enjoyed it a great deal and recommend it. The book bogs down towards the end and some of the science is difficult to follow (quantum mechanics is not my strong point, but others may not care), but it's a worthwhile read and is not a cookie cutter off the shelf sci-fi book. Getting everyone in the world to look like someone else is an original and enjoyable concept. I can think of a few people I'd like to see wearing this "skin". Now, if the author could only appear as an exact replica of Robert Heinlein, his world may become an even more interesting place!!

The title says it all. If you have never found yourself interested in nano technology, this story will certainly pique your interest.

Slow start, about a third of the way in, I was finally hooked.

The character names are so obscure that you have a hard time remembering who they are from event to event. You can't really determine gender from the names. Basically the names given to the characters do nothing to describe any attribute of the character and hinder the progression of the story.

"Whenever anyone complains that American science fiction is dying, one of the first names I tend to mention is Mark Budz." That's how Cheryl Morgan opened her review of 'Idolon' in the penultimate edition of Emerald City, and I agree heartily with the sentiment, as well as the substance of her review. I've already made my case for Budz in my review of 'Crache', and after googling through the reviews of 'Idolon' I saw that there wasn't a whole lot I could add, so this will be a very short review by my normal standards. Some other worthy reviews out on the net are the Niall Harrison or Paul Di Fillipo pieces that offer thorough and balanced considerations of the novel's story and its world.

One aspect of the book that I'd like to comment on is an elaboration of the one word reaction one of my friend's had to the book "trippy". Although Budz was trying to work through some implications of hyper-reality in building his near future, he succeeded rather in realizing a filmic, sometimes surreal world, where the boundaries between our inner fantasies and the real world are battered down. The resulting effect ends up somewhere between the edgy pop sensibility in Gibson's 'Count Zero' and the surreal atmosphere of Cocteau's 'The Beauty and the Beast'.

San Francisco Police Detective Van Dijk investigates the murder of a Doe with no match in the DiNA database, but the victim contains electronic skin and philm technology that brings alive in her case Barbara Stanwick and Gene Tierney on her epidermis. Van Dijk concludes that this dead one was used as a toy by a rich patron, as only those with money can afford this type of "reprogramming", especially something the homicide detective has never encountered before.

Pelayo earns a living as a guinea pig testing state of the art electronic skin and philm technology. He is fortunate to live as many in his line of work fail to survive the experiments to bring new products to the market for the wealthy to buy once they are proven safe for opulent human consumption. Pelayo visits his cousin Marta, who works at a cinematique that sells discounted unsafe electronic skin products to the impoverished masses, but she has vanished with indentured servant and philm techno-smuggler Nadice, who hides a special contraband growing inside her womb. Soon Pelayo's amateur sleuth hunt for his cousin and Van Dijk's official homicide investigation merge at a resort planning a new wave of technological use and discard the masses as test subjects for the pleasure of their affluent clients.

Geometrically extrapolating current American trends in technology and economics, Mark Butz provides a dark future in which a few own everything while most are throwaway "volunteers" for electronic experiments. The story line stuns the audience from the opening police procedural and amateur sleuth search and never de-shocks the reader as the two mystery subplots merge. The audience slowly understands the full implications of what is going on in a society in which technology enables the past to be the realism of the present. Fans of frightening futuristic visions will appreciate the stunning IDOLON tattooing society.

Harriet Klausner