Customer Reviews

Too, Too Solid Flesh

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

 

 

I bought this book when it first came out in 1989, and have since had to rebuy it through several local bookshops no less than six times, because the people I lend it to always want to keep it afterwards. That alone seems like a recommendation to me, but you probably want to know a little bit more...

In a futuristic, Orwellian society, populated by strictly divided haves and have-nots, a troupe of Shakespearean androids, the last troupe of actors on earth, perform Shakespeare's Hamlet night after night after night. Their personalities programmed to BE the character they portray, they act their lives and live their lines, both inside and outside of the play.

Art mirrors life, and the creator of the troupe, Dr. Capek, is murdered. Hamlet, looking upon his creator as father-figure vows to find out how, and why. Aided by his companion, Horatio, who houses a dark secret of his own, he embarks on a quest to find out what happened. Can a synthetic, a created robot with little understanding of human illogic and frailty, but with the same capacity...the same HUNGER to learn...to know...as Shakespeare's Hamlet did, break the pattern established by the play and see to it that justice is carried out?

Hey, don't ask me...read the book. :-)

The more times I read Too Too Solid Flesh, the more parallels I find between the book and the original play, and these fascinate me, and make the final explanation of what is really going on all the more chilling. O'Donohoe has taken such well-defined characters (as they exist within the confines of a strictly defined play) and moved them beyond themselves to make them seem far more like PEOPLE than has been done in some of the great filmed works of the play itself. You get to watch Hamlet learn, and EVOLVE to far more of a degree than Shakespeare explored.

Much like Hamlet, there is little mystery to the murder itself, but it's the WHY that keeps you interested. That and the stunning extrapolation of the characters themselves. Several of the scenes between Hamlet, Ophelia and Horatio near the middle of the book are quite astounding with the complex philosophies they are exploring.

But enough of the long words...I'm not Shakespeare. But, if you like Shakespearean themes and are not averse to seeing how much they improve with a little sci-fi and social commentary thrown together, you should try hard as you can to get a copy of this book.

Or, better yet, get two...just in case.

This book doesn't resemble Asimov's classic Caves of Steel much, but there is definitely homage paid to that classic throughout, and if you've never read Caves of Steel, you will be the poorer for it. In both books, we have a human and an android trying to solve a murder mystery. In Caves of Steel, it was sometimes necessary for R. Daneel to pass as human in order to do his job (even though that's illegal); in Too Too Solid Flesh, we have a human trying to pass as an android. Horatio can't find work as a human actor - there are no jobs for human actors any more, in this future. So he's masquerading as an android - even during sex.

At the same time, if you don't have a passing familiarity with Shakespeare, and with "Hamlet" in particular, you are going to miss a lot in this book. I try not to be too snobby about my opinion that the world would be a better place if more people read and re-read Shakespeare just for fun, but, well, the world WOULD be a better place. And you'd get more of the sly references/in-jokes in this book. You would notice when the characters accidentally fall into iambic pentameter while conversing, for instance. (from a source I've forgotten: "Oh who is writing poetry sublime? I am, I am, I am, I am, I am.")

The interplay between the characters' roles in the play and their roles in the "real life" of the book is fascinating. All sorts of questions arise over whether humans' actions are any more the product of free will than androids' - or are we as much shaped by the roles other people have envisioned as our destiny before we were old enough to make choices?

And there's the question of whether being human and having the free will to make choices - often bad ones - is necessarily better than being an android. When the real reason the theatre project exists is finally revealed, one would have to doubt that humans have the wisdom to make good choices. This part of the plot hinges on technology (I won't give away what) outstripping our ability to deal with it rationally - just as the entire book up to that point hinges on our ability to build androids outstripping our ideas of what they are for and how they should be used.

I first discovered O'Donohoe through his Crossroads fantasy series, about veterinary students who get to practice on unicorns and griffins. This book is quite different, but still displays O'Donohoe's talents at humor and intricate dialogue. I don't know whether they were meant to appeal to entirely different audiences, but I find myself quite glad that my interests are broad enough that I thought to read both.

I'm only marginally familiar with Shakespeare, so many of the book's charms and references were often lost to me. I did find it an enjoyable read, and considering the book was written in 1989, some 22 years ago, the author touched on some pretty out their topics for the day, like thinkware, stimula, androids, organisms as products, just to name a few which alone make this book a great read. I give it four stars for introducing some cool topics into the virtual world / augmented reality / robotics / cybernetics genres. If you are a Shakespeare fan, it most likely will be a five star book for you. At essentially free except for the price of shipping, the book is well worth the read.