Onward Elsewhere

What's New
Review Features
S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
Complete Listing

Ads links:

Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)

Collections (S/F)

The Classics

Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F)

John Clute

Author Information	Reviewed Books	Other Books
	Appleseed	Earth Bound (12/02) Encyclopedia of Fantasy Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Appleseed

Added 7/5/02

Our Ranking

Appleseed is the first book by Clute that I've read. I actually had never heard of him, and picked it up on a whim while in London. This was one of those "the cover looks interesting" purchases, which as I'm sure you'll agree are always a gamble. Well, unfortunately in this case, the gamble didn't pay off. It turns out that Clute is actually a fairly famous critic of science fiction. (no pressure here, me the far from famous reviewer trying to review his...nope none at all) He's also worked on many collections in the area, so he certainly knows sci-fi. Well, that knowledge is immediately obvious. Appleseed is set in very far future, in a galaxy where a data plague threatens everything, so powerful that it can destroy an entire world's civilization. The setting is actually pretty fascinating, as well, as some of the more technological driven ideas. Clute does a good job coming up with very creative AI's, known as Made Minds. There are also many smaller touches that really add to the setting and give you a feel that this truly is a future far from our own time. All of this is quite amazing, if you can understand it, that is. Appleseed is an amazingly difficult book to read. First of all, Clute to his benefit, has a powerful command of vocabulary and he uses it to its full extent. The problem is, Clute uses it to create a new language that is at points, impossible to understand. Generally, the way I look at it is, if you are going to have totally new, bizarre and revolutionary setting (like Jeff Noon to an extent), you can't also at the same time have a dialogue and writing style that is equally bizarre (like Aylett). One of them, needs to be grounded a bit so that you can understand what's going on without reading each paragraph over and over (which a lot of times still didn't help). Much to my dismay, Clute chose to try and tackle both, and it really hurt the reading experience. Another issue I had is that once you get beyond the tough language and the far future ideas, the plot and characters are actually very straight forward, leaning towards the weak side. The plot is basically just an intergalactic chase scene (a fairly quick one at that) and well, the characters are a bit tough to get used to. The main character Freer, is somewhat aloof so it is hard to actually get to know him. He also changes a few times throughout the book which makes it even worse. Another character, Mamselle Cunning Earth Link, is painfully hard to understand and at points became flat out annoying. The most interesting characters were probably the various Made Minds. The way they interacted with themselves, and the other human/non-human characters was pretty interesting. So despite all this, why do I still give this two and a half stars? (and for some reason, I still want to give it three) Well, first off, when you can understand it, the writing is actually damned good. There are two scenes in particular (one right at the beginning and the other at the end, figures right?) where I was very impressed with both the writing and just the creativeness involved in the scenes. So I feel I can't completely pan this one. The book reminded me a lot of an Aylett novel, but just with a much more technical and complicated plot. I think that might appeal to some and they will find this very enjoyable.