Appleseed

This book is the product of formidable intelligence, learning and guile. John Clute spends hundreds of dense, recomplicated pages telling what essentially boils down to a science fictional, Rabelaisian shaggy dog story about how sex will save the universe, and throws everything he has at it. The result is many things: a classic, deeply English fantasy story disguised as a science fiction novel; a recapitulation of Renaissance theories of mind and memory, and their visual expression in both the figurative (the azulejaria, the mappemonde and the masks) and dramatic (the frequent invocations of the commedia dell'arte) arts; a late flowering of British science fiction's New Wave; a tarry concentrate derived from the endless sea of Idea that was Clute's contribution to the Encyclopedias of Fantasy and Science Fiction; and a vastly entertaining, slight example of the modern, high camp space opera, with can-do heroes, alien queens and gnashing, wailing, despicable villians who in the end receive their just desserts. It is also not particularly easy to read. To claim that Clute has not acknowledged his debts is silly; the entire book is a sloppy wet kiss (with tongue) for everyone who has ever written a spirited, exuberant, idea-heavy space adventure. Other reviewers mentioned Iain Banks, Samuel Delany, Vernor Vinge and Bruce Sterling. To that list I would add Michael Moorcock, E.C. Tubbs, John Crowley, Michael Swanwick, Elizabeth Hand, Mervyn Peake, Cordwainer Smith, Jack Vance, Avram Davidson, and about 2,000 years' worth of fantastic literature, including both the Bible and the Arthurian Grail quest. "Appleseed" is not so much an original story as an assemblage or pastiche of the corpus of science fiction, held together by Clute's arcane, unstoppable manipulation of the English language. It can be seen as Clute's conception of science fictional narrative made manifest as Story itself. Much is made of masks in the book, both as signs of presence and as signifiers of intentional artifice as an ontology enabling communication between vastly differing societies and species. More so than anybody else I've read, Clute makes clear the staggering complexity implicit in a pan-galactic society composed of hundreds of different species, and does so with an admirable (if somewhat opaque) conciseness. Masks also figure in their more traditional sense of concealment, both in the sense of being surfaces stretched tight over emptinesses or hidden depths, and in the sense of hiding strategically valuable truths and lies. The whole story is on one level a formal drama (a la the commedia dell'arte), and as such it makes sense for the characters to function as nearly bare archetypes, and not 3-dimensional characters that stand outside of the story. Every actor in the story is a puppet, and it is never immediately obvious what lies behind the mask or who is pulling the puppet's strings (in one very important case, a puppet pulls its own strings). The language is a lit

OUTSTANDING. I am giving this book 555 stars. It's true it requires some (actually a lot of) intellectual effort on the reader's part. No pain, no gain, though. And the gain is HUGE. Maybe the most rewarding book I have read for the last several years. THANX JOHN.I tremble in anticipation of the next two installments in this trilogy. Well, all disappointed readers should be really disappointed with themselves, not with the book. A TRUE MASTERPIECE.

John Clute's debut full-length novel is a mind-bending, fast-moving account of ship captain Nathaniel Freer and his inadvertant mission to keep data plaque from taking over known space.The plot sounds simple, but the beauty of this book is in the stylistic writing that Clute uses to express situations, thoughts, communication, and other aspects of life as it exists in this future. Sci-fi writers are almost never stylistic in their delivery of the story, and it is such a breath of fresh air to read a story that is so unique because of the writing style. Think Frank Herbert meets Tom Robbins meets George Lucas - and that's a start.The story itself is engaging and moves rapidly. Johnny Appleseed comes to the aid of Nathaniel Freer, and - with the help of several truly alien computer intelligences and other lifeforms - they attempt to undo the data plaque that has taken over many parts of known space. Greatest of this books strengths is the fact that it is so truly alien. There is almost nothing the reader can relate to, and yet Clute keeps us intrigued through the use of humor, strange stylistic references, and abstract human and alien emotions.An excellent book.

At the beginning of the fourth millennium galaxy trader Nathaniel Freer owns the space ship Tile Dance piloted by artificial intelligence KathKirtt, an essence with two brains. The crew consists of androids and cybernetic beings. On a routine run, the Tile Dance heads to Trencher to pick up cargo that they will next deliver to another planet Eolhxir. At about the same time, a plague threatens to destroy computer data. The dangerous impact includes those aging humans that reside in outer space rest homes run by companies like Insort Geront, the firm producing the computer chips that causes the plague. Only lenses from Eolhxir can destroy the plague. Freer takes on board ship an Eolhxir native with a lens. Now the Insort Geront targets Freer and company for eradication so that their master plan to control a galaxy can go on unimpeded. Fleeing for his life, Freer meets Johnny Appleseed and others who join with him to stop this nefarious plot from succeeding. John Clute destroys the myth that them that can't write write reference books. The award winning encyclopedist provides science fiction fans with a strong futuristic tale that never slows down as the audience goes for a hyperspeed journey into various elements of the genre. Nathaniel is a wonderful lead character who wants only to earn a living picking up and delivering cargo and women, but now deals with the galaxy wide conspiracy that has him trapped in the middle. APPLESEED stretches credibility at times, but then again that is the essence of science fiction, as Mr. Clute would know from his encyclopedia days.Harriet Klausner