Useful Idiots [Paperback]

Jan Mark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2005

This is a fascinating thriller based in a future where the seas have risen to claim back the land, the past has been buried and archaeology is considered the most dangerous science. Set in a highly realistic dystopic future, where the lowlands of Britain are flooded, this beautifully realised novel explores a world where archaeology is controlled for fear of social unrest. One bleak morning, a storm across the North Sea unveils a human skull, which leads to a series of events that changes the lives of those involved. Merrick, a young graduate archaeology student becomes embroiled in the task of discovering the origins of the skull. His interest in this bizarre case brings him into contact with the Inglish, a remnant tribe eking out an existence on the edge of Europe. In this wildly progressive new world, it is they who will be affected the most. This is a compelling vision of England as it could be in the not-so-distant future.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Imagine the United Kingdom in the year 2255, flooded due to global warming and renamed the Rhine Delta Islands (RDI), an outpost of the United States of Europe. In this new federalist society, recorded history has largely been erased and humans are genetically modified to be homogeneous--ageless, disease-free, and generally flawless. Except of course for the twenty thousand Aboriginals living in outlying marshes who cling to old human ways and the "Inglish" culture. In Jan Mark's Useful Idiots, these two societies collide when archaeologists, including a young graduate student named Merrick Korda, discover an undated skeleton on Aboriginal land, the remains of a man who was shot while robbing graves for mysterious pearls. Korda's work on the case becomes politically and personally dangerous--archaeology has been deemed a lost science that can only stir up trouble in a post-Anarchy world without race or nation. Readers will be captivated as Merrick dodges invisible enemies, scours the marshes for clues, explores his own humanity, and engages in a gruesome experiment on his own body that he hopes will illuminate secrets of the past. Mark raises questions about identity, ethnicity, education, technology, the notion of "useful idiots," and much more in this haunting, dark, suspenseful novel. --Karin Snelson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up–A homogenized, smoothly running world has replaced racial strife and nationalism that have caused countless wars and bouts of civil unrest in the past. The Rhine Delta Islands are all that is left of the former United Kingdom–the rest being underwater as a result of global warming. Here readers meet Merrick Korda, a graduate student in the field of archaeology, now known to the world as "the lost science." When a human skull is unearthed on a beach reserve after a hurricane, Merrick and his supervising professor want nothing more than to excavate. They do not expect the riots that follow the exhumation of the skeleton, or the hostile feelings of the Oysters, a small band of "Inglish" who live on the reserve and still practice the ways of hundreds of years ago. Merrick finds himself caught in a tug of war between the Oysters, who want the body returned for a proper burial, and the powers that control his department at the university, who want to shut down his department altogether. This lengthy novel limps slowly through a plot that's unlikely to be of interest to most teens. The language is sophisticated, and in some places an archaeology or anatomy course might be needed to decipher the text. The character development is weak as only Merrick Korda shows signs of becoming three-dimensional. The adventure promised on the jacket cover never materializes, and the conclusion is confusing at best.–Anna M. Nelson, Seabrook Library, NH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Red Fox (April 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099473003
• ISBN-13: 978-0099473008
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,687,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 23rd Century Archaeology?, February 28, 2005

By 

Rory Coker (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Useful Idiots (Hardcover)

This science-fictional outing by Jan Mark was obviously inspired partially by politically-correct insanity within the US in the late 1990s, triggered by the discovery of "Kennewick Man," and including deranged legal attempts to prevent archaeologists from examining the fossil! It is "juvenile fiction" only in the sense that the main character, Merrick Korda, is a graduate student at a university. The themes and settings are otherwise entirely adult. In Mark's mid-23rd Century world, archaeology is largely forbidden, barely tolerated, because it concentrates on "origins" in a culture that is attempting to become completely homogeneous. The subtle key to the novel's incidents is that in this culture, also, people almost invariably live alone. Thus the main character, Merrick, and his major professor Turcat, fail to understand until far, far too late that no one can be trusted, no matter how sympathetic they appear, or how cooperative they are, given that the researches of Merrick and Turcat have uncovered the long-buried secret of an impossibly valuable item.

Mark must be congratulated for one of the kinkiest sex scenes ever included in a "young adult" novel, although it is tastefully confined to a few sentences. The ending will leave most readers dissatisfied, to say the least, since Merrick never really figures out what is going on and the story is told from his viewpoint. We never find out precisely who has been working behind the scenes to cause all the trouble, much less what their precise motives and goals might be.

As usual in Mark's short stories and novels, all the characters are complex and have "deep revolving" matters going on beneath their placid, civilized surfaces, but because of the narrow focus on Merrick most of them do not make much impression. Unlike in most science fiction, where there is a continual emphasis on razzle-dazzle advances in technology, Mark's story fills in the background of this distant future world slowly and indirectly. As another reviewer remarks, the result is "sophisticated," and demands quite a bit from the reader. Marketed as a "young adult" novel in the US, it will never reach the audience that could appreciate it.