Mockymen
- Book Review,
by Ian Watson
From Publishers Weekly
Watson (Great Escape) fuses occult horror with SF in this uneven mix of magic, philosophy, politics and science. Olaf Frisvold, a former Norwegian SS Officer, hires a jigsaw-puzzle-making couple to create a puzzle that commemorates the Nazi blood-sacrifice of Frisvold's sister during WWII in Vigeland Park, an eerie Norwegian sculpture garden. A subsequent ritual enables the odious Olaf to be reborn as Jamie into a world that by 2016 has been invaded by Mockymen, machine immortals "hoping to become free-ranging energy-beings, while lesser native species"-like earth's humans-"went extinct." Watson makes some astute observations about what it means to be human, but his inability to decide what sort of tale he's telling-a Lovecraftian nightmare, an I, Robot with Tibetan/Teutonic flare or a biting Orwellian satire-produces puzzle pieces that never quite fit. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Mockymen starts out innocently enough, with a pair of jigsaw-puzzle makers commissioned to make some complicated puzzles. The subject, a park in Oslo, and the buyer's requirement that they include nude photos of themselves posing with the park's sculpture are off-putting, but the price is right. Then they start having odd dreams of a ritual that took place during the Nazi occupation of Norway. Olav, their customer, was, it seems, involved in the ritual and wants to finish it, in the process reincarnating himself and, in a sense, giving himself immortality. Fifteen or so years later, the world is visited by aliens who, lacking bodies, use those of persons made comatose by the drug bliss. Jamie was supposed to be just another body for the so-called Mockymen, but now Olav has awakened, attracting the curiosity of subversive elements in the Combined Intelligence Service, who suspect that the Mockymen intend something more sinister than tourism. Full of adventures on other planets, alien takeovers, and conspiracy, this is clever and entertaining reading. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
This wonderfully weird tale uncovers the secrets of the "mockymen," aliens who have inhabited drug-addled humans' bodies. A young British couple who make jigsaw puzzles are hired for an outlandish job in a park by an elderly Norwegian man. Toward the end of the Second World War, a blood sacrifice was carried out in this park by Nazis trying to create an occult cordon around Norway, and the aging Norwegian hopes to access the power residing in the park to achieve reincarnation for himself. The Hardship Years intervene, when climate change, ecological collapse, and global economic crises derail human civilization, but in 2010 salvation arrives in the shape of an alien expedition promising new technologies. As the aliens begin to inhabit the bodies of humans strung out on the drug Bliss, a young Blisshead named Jamie recalls his prior life as a Norwegian, and the aliens' true motives are revealed. This wild, absurd, and far-out tale reveals a keen intelligence at work and at play.
About the Author
Ian Watsonis the author of numerous works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, including The Great Escape, Oracle, The Embedding, and The Jonah Kit.
Buy from Amazon
Compare Prices
|
|
Home
