In the blown-open bowels of a derelict spaceship, tumbling aimlessly through the solar system, a man survives. In a patched-up space-suit he makes quick 5-minute trips through the airless, zero-gravity corridors in search of air canisters and sustenance, with a mantra endlessly repeating in his head.
Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place.
And death's my destination.
Having collected what he needs the man hurries back to the lightless, airtight locker that he has come to call home, where, with desperate, heaving breaths he floods his tiny compartment with oxygen, renewing his tenuous lease on life. He has been doing this for the past 6 months.
Waiting for a rescue that might never arrive, this man has survived in the loneliest place in existence with nothing other than blind animal instinct to carry him through. He can do nothing but wait.
And when a space-ship approaches his wreck, having heeded his distress signals, he believes that his desperate struggle for survival will finally be rewarded.
But when the vessel, having come close enough to make out its name, begins to turn, and slowly, irrevocably starts to move away from him, leaving him to his horrible fate, something happens to the man. And Gully Foyle, unremarkable as he might have been, becomes something else entirely. Something that will make Terra burn with the fire of his vengeance, and that will alter the very course of human history forever.
Eh. It's alright.
It's not as good as everyone's made it out to be though. It might have been much more when it came out, but almost 70 years on now, it's become a little dated.
Lying at the root of the Cyberpunk genre most of the conventions are present: cyber-enhancements, evil corporate entities working from the shadows, Foyle himself; the unlikable antihero just south of a noir detective doggedly pursuing a mystery, and never shy about using some brutal, "filthy" violence in his quest for vengeance. But he's very unlikable for about the first 90 percent of the novel, and his treatment of the female characters, and the way that those were written, was a bit off putting.
Lying at the root of the Cyberpunk genre most of the conventions are present: cyber-enhancements, evil corporate entities working from the shadows, Foyle himself; the unlikable antihero just south of a noir detective doggedly pursuing a mystery, and never shy about using some brutal, "filthy" violence in his quest for vengeance. But he's very unlikable for about the first 90 percent of the novel, and his treatment of the female characters, and the way that those were written, was a bit off putting.
Though Foyle's pursuit of the Vorga is engaging, the mystery of why he was abandoned interesting, and his journey and its mind-blowing finale very epic and even a little mythic, the narrative still moves a little too fast and switches between its busy locations with too much reckless abandon to ever linger or grow comfortable in the reader's mind.
The ideas and the locations don't get time to settle, and though it's clearly the sci-fi son of the Count of Monte Cristo, taking after its dear old dad in a very noticeable way, it maybe should've endeavored to emulate more of that magnificent novel's pacing rather than just copying its story beats.
That last is my opinion though, and you'll probably not find anyone else who would prefer to read that mammoth of a novel to this sleek tiger of a book. Certainly not Neil Gaiman, who in he novel's afterword comes dangerously close to slagging off the father of all vengeance stories in order to defend this novel apparently so dear to him. Yet more reasons to dislike the bastard. Ask my friend, the Ink-Stained Beard, whether or not I'll ever let an opportunity pass me by to dis on Gaiman; no, like the proverbial tiger, I'll pounce. That's twice now: Tiger! Tiger!
So. A bit of a shallow novel, but the ideas and concepts were pretty compelling. Special mention must be made for the ingenious description/depiction of Synesthesia, at the novel's ending.
The ideas and the locations don't get time to settle, and though it's clearly the sci-fi son of the Count of Monte Cristo, taking after its dear old dad in a very noticeable way, it maybe should've endeavored to emulate more of that magnificent novel's pacing rather than just copying its story beats.
That last is my opinion though, and you'll probably not find anyone else who would prefer to read that mammoth of a novel to this sleek tiger of a book. Certainly not Neil Gaiman, who in he novel's afterword comes dangerously close to slagging off the father of all vengeance stories in order to defend this novel apparently so dear to him. Yet more reasons to dislike the bastard. Ask my friend, the Ink-Stained Beard, whether or not I'll ever let an opportunity pass me by to dis on Gaiman; no, like the proverbial tiger, I'll pounce. That's twice now: Tiger! Tiger!
So. A bit of a shallow novel, but the ideas and concepts were pretty compelling. Special mention must be made for the ingenious description/depiction of Synesthesia, at the novel's ending.
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