The Electric Church (Avery Cates, 1)

found this book at a thrift store. finished this book and had to order the other 4. if you are a fan of John Taylor Nightside series by simon green, these are worth the read.

I loved reading this book. When I did put it away, I itched to return to it! With its interesting politics and haunting imagery, I can say with confidence that this book is a winner. A++ will read again!

This a one of the grittiest, hard-boiled 'detective' stories that I have read in many years. The setting being a believable near future; but, the book is getting tagged as Cyber-Punk. It is not really hard cyber punk like Neuromancer or Altered Carbon and it is not really sci-fi like Shadow of the Scorpion or Hyperion. This is a bare knuckles ride into more of a Mad Max future... note: Cates would chew up and spit out Max in a NY minute.

As soon as I started reading I found a bunch of things I hated about the book: 1. I hated the repeated use of the word "Gunner" every few lines, and words like it. It's a tired 80s cyberpunk convention to have some character supply this kind of childish description of themselves or others. It's like a kid reporting that they're a "skateboarder" as if that says it all. I, for instance, am a psychotherapist, and I don't go around saying it after every insightful and intelligent thing I do. I don't even think it, in fact, I'm over it. Just the same, I'd think that the main character would be over the fact that he's a Gunner, because he's so good at it. 2. Pigs: I hated the use of this term for the cops. It's a term from the 60s and was likely in place because the country was more rural at the time. Now, people are lucky to encounter a pig, and so the animal has little meaning. As an example, people in the US are unlikely to use animals from Australia to describe people. Anyway, in the far future which has become an urban nightmare, where you hardly even eat food, people are not going to be calling people after farm animals. It's a dated term, and was used too much. 3. Psychic Powers: This is like using magic in a sci-fi story. For me it sends the story into the fantasy realm, not a speculative one. The best Sci-fi is speculative, and this story has plenty of good stuff to think about in it which could happen. Psychic powers are very unlikely. If you want psychic powers you could have technology which acts like it installed in the brain. Repeats: The author has the characters fill you in again and again about stuff they just talked about. This is unneeded because the stories are fast paced and we remember what's going on. The Good: Knows criminals: I've done therapy with hardcore criminals in Philly for years, and the author has the attitude down very well. Neurotic: At first I thought the main character was poorly written, because he seemed neurotic. That basically means that you aren't thinking the same as you act. In this case, the main character didn't seem to be as tough as he acted. Then, as I thought about the story, I liked it. The character was forced by his poverty to be a killer. Maybe if he had another life he would have been a much different person. He was acting as he must, and it was killing him, and I liked that. Writing: What got me was the overall effect of the great writing. It was personal and exciting. It made the things I disliked acceptable because the way it was presented was so enjoyable. I read through this much more quickly than I had wanted, then got the sequel. I will be buying whatever comes next too.

If you like 'em dark and existential, revel in kill-or-be killed manhunts amongst brooding, torrential rains, by all means, this is a satisfying read. As far as its place in the canon of speculative fiction, I thinks it falls into a somewhat unique niche. For The Electric Church, to my mind, is less a cyberpunk novel than a dystopian novel with cyberpunk flourishes. The world here is decidedly more shadowy than William Gibson's Neuromancer. The characters all possess a tangible horror for their oppressive techno-autocratic government and its emissaries. However, when faced with pursuit by System cops and looming forced conversions by robot monks, our protagonist Avery Cates does not go gently into that good night; he gets his gun and decides to go out with a bang. Cates proceeds to do everything I wish Winston Smith had done in Orwell's 1984. Sure, both characters have a certain affinity for rough gin. But Avery Cates seems to accept his mortality, and in doing so, finds the courage to fight. This audacity makes it believable that he is the chosen street-gunner to take on the psychotically super-human converts of The Electric Church. Whether and how thoroughly he is able to thwart them is worth reading the book for.

Avery Cates is a professional hit man, but his latest kill in old Harlem angers him as his client's agent failed to provide key needed information. First the victim was probably a Systems Security Force (SSF) cop; second there was a child in the apartment. Avery knows the SSF elite Stormers and throwaway Crushers hunt for him for what he assumes is killing one of them, undercover Colonel Janet Hense. He also knows if they catch him the Stormers will set it up so that they can legally kill him in one of the illegal Old Manhattan dives or on the street fleeing. Instead, the authorities want Avery to kill Dennis Squalor, the founder of the fastest growing religion the Electric Church. The government leaders know Squalor is a threat to their primogenitary power. He espouses the belief that an individual's life is too short to understand the universe as it takes eternity to do so. The faithful convert to invincible cyborgs with their brain inside; these Monks kill objectors. To get to Squalor he must get past protected by concentric circles of Monks, Avery needs a miracle; hell whatever he does he needs a miracle because he is caught between the Stormers and Crushers on one side, and the Monks on the other. THE ELECTRIC CHURCH is an invigorating futuristic urban noir science fiction that grips the audience from the first fight in the East Side dive and never slows down as the antihero with ethics runs a gauntlet with the stake being his life. If he fails the authorities, they will kill him; if he goes after Squalor, they will convert him, which means they will kill him; if by some miracle he succeeds and kills Squalor, the authorities will kill him. Any way he sees it he sees his imminent death. Fans will want to walk on the wild side of Old New York as tour guide Jeff Somers provides a powerful thriller. Harriet Klausner