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And now for
something completely different!
Club Anyone
is a novel that clocks in at a total of 308 pages of content, with visual
representations of the setting helping to envision the setting, TRIC city, on
Mars.
This review
was requested by one of my readers. I have received a print copy of the book
for the purpose of an unbiased review.
It should
be noted that this book contains well-written descriptions of sex, substance
abuse and the like – these are not gratuitous, and they are written in a concise
and well-presented manner, but I felt the need to state this for your
convenience. While I try to be as SPOILER-free as possible in my discussion
below, I do SPOIL some structural surprises that the book has to offer. I only
do so in an abstract manner, but I do so nonetheless in my discussion below; if
you like the notion of cyberpunk/scifi-noir, then check this out sans reading
further; if you’re skeptical regarding the genre, then you may want to continue
reading.
So, let me
preface this review with a couple of observations: This book takes place in Gun
Metal Games’ Interface Zero setting, which means that it can draw upon a wide
variety of different concepts and established lore – at least in theory.
This is, at
once, a potential boon for the book, and, if one takes a look at the books
released for other roleplaying games settings, a potentially huge issue. Don’t
get me wrong: I have devoured a ton of Dragonlance, Forgotten realms, etc.
novels in my day…but at one point, they all started to bore me to some degree.
A central issue of books based on roleplaying systems is the question of
system-adherence and structure: Roleplaying settings, system-immanently, expect
not a single protagonist, but rather a whole party of them, and in my
experience, there’s a pretty good chance that one or more characters end up as
annoying – and the more such protagonists there are, the more disjointed is the
sense of immersion, the less room you have to develop the characters in
question. We can add to that the huge issue of the adherence to the system,
which represents a gigantic Catch 22-scenario: If you deviate from the system’s
realities, you end up disappointing the expectations of those wishing for a
faithful depiction of the realities of the setting. If you adhere to them,
you’re often left with issues regarding the story that you actually want to
tell – the rules don’t always lend themselves to helping make the experience of
telling a novel’s story exciting.
The second
issue pertains lore-depth: You can’t assume every reader to be intensely
familiar with obscure setting-details, but explaining them all in detail can
result in huge, and potentially boring exposition dumps. This is an issue that
we can observe with many comic books nowadays, where the interconnectedness and
background canon has reached a ridiculous depth that makes them less accessible
than they once were.
Thirdly,
there is the issue of the type of story: Many books falter due to trying to
tell a pen-and-paper-RPG-story in the guise of a linear book; perhaps one with
only 2 – 3 players, but nonetheless. Combined with the above, this makes for
quite a burden for the author, even before taking the need to be canonical into
account.
Let it be
known that “Club Anyone” manages to navigate these pitfalls admirably; to the
point where the book made me intensely curious to read more from the setting.
It does so in a pretty smart manner: Instead of jamming exposition dumps into
the narrative where they wouldn’t fit, the book introduces a precious few
concepts that all characters would be familiar with (and thus not talk about)
in the beginning of a few of the chapters, in the guise of Encyclopedia
Brasilia entries or a delightfully amusing advertisement for a piece of tech.
Note that I experimented with skipping these, and the story and plotline STILL
work without a hitch; they just serve to bring you up to speed with the
setting.
The more
important decision, and what really ultimately made this book work, is the
protagonist Derek Tobbit. He is not a superhero, an outlaw, a chosen one. He is
just a regular megacorp programmer, one who specializes in bioroids – think of
these basically as lobotomized, programmable clone/machine hybrids. In the
first chapter, the prologue if you will, we witness Derek become a hero of
sorts on his first day at work on Mars after migrating there for the job…only
to have him plunged into a personal catastrophe that spirals out of control on
a personal and more global scale.
This
approach manages to achieve something rather impressive, namely that it, by
letting us share in the protagonist’s triumph, immediately generate sympathy
for the man, which is then further developed upon. We have a relatable main
character from the get-go. This is so important, because the novel could be
described as a scifi-noir-thriller: We do have a very human and fragile
individual here, not an iron-clad superman, but the cynicism that is so
prevalent in noir aesthetics, is, at least in the beginning, absent.
Aforementioned
personal tragedy and struggle then proceed to have this average Joe become
pretty much steeped in the vortex of grime and twilight that we associate with
noir aesthetics; in this, the early section of the book, the writing becomes
pretty bleak, cynical and suffused with a rather potent sense of pessimism, one
constantly enhanced by the dystopian corporate control, the omnipresence of
augmented reality. It is here that, at least for me, some of the most
remarkable (and wise) sentences throughout the book exist. The interaction with
the severely limited cab-service AI Aygee, which poignantly remarks “Sorrow
exists, Derek Tobbit,” serves as one example of this notion, and also as a kind
of leitmotif. It should be noted though, that the book remains more personal
and never reaches the sense of cosmic bleakness and nihilism that e.g. suffuses
the “Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” or similar books by Dick et al. We
remain deeply entrenched in the noir-aesthetics, and indeed, the book, without
putting too fine a point on it, manages to retain the human dimension that is
so crucial for noir-aesthetics. In a way, the Augmented Reality angle that is
so important throughout the book represents a subtextual transgression of the
boundaries of how reality is read by the characters, and proves to be the catalyst
for the most potent narrative forces, both benign and malignant.
Indeed, one
could argue that “Club Anyone” is exceedingly successfully and engrossing in
the way it manages to encapsulate the tropes of the noir genre, and then
proceeds to slowly subvert them; yes, there are plenty of examples regarding
the tropes you’d expect within, but they are, on an intrinsic level, subverted
in their tone and outcome. In a way, the book, like the leitmotifs of augmented
reality and corporate control, controls them on a structural level, but
transforms them in a rather benign and surprising manner; at one point, the
narrative ceases to revel in the grime of Blade Runner-esque darkness, and
transforms into a page-turner, a high-octane conspiracy high-scifi page-turner.
It is this
bait and switch that represents one of the strongest points of the novel, and
one of its weaknesses, depending on how you read it: On the one hand, there is
careful deliberation in the motif of rebirth, which is also applied to genre
that you’d associate this book with. On the other hand, I’d lie if I said that
I didn’t get a kind of thematic whiplash during this turning point. Once it has
passed, things happen quickly and ferociously, and the plot speeds up
significantly. At least for me personally, this second part of the book felt
like it could have used a couple of extra pages. There are a lot of unique and
captivating ideas and set-pieces briefly touched upon, but ultimately, this
section rushes to the inevitable conclusion in a more sped up manner than I
would have liked; with 50 – 100 extra pages fully developing the transition in
genres and character growths during it, the book would have ranked as one of my
all-time favorite scifi novels.
As written,
the almost post-modern playfulness with genres and expectations does not
realize its full potential in this second half of the book. However, that is
not to say I did not enjoy myself – quite the contrary! While this second half
loses a bit of the gravitas of the first half, it did, even in its imho weaker
sections, provide more entertainment than the entirety of the sluggish
blandfest of oh-so-critically-acclaimed “2312”; it’s also smarter and, in my
opinion, more successful in its world-building/setting-utilization than that book.
In short:
“Club Anyone” is a surprisingly fun and intelligent novel; it sports
interesting and well-written characters you can relate to; its plot and tweaks
actually managed to entertain and often, even surprise ole’ me. It’s also the
least bleak noir-story that can still be called “noir” I have ever read, and
for that alone, deserves accolades. Whether you consider the very condensed
narrative a plus or minus depends on your perspective; personally, I could have
seen this cover a full trilogy of books – easily! That being said, in spite of
not being 100% enamored with the second half of the book, I have rarely found
myself this profoundly touched by a science-fiction novel, as in the first half
of this book. Considering that this is Lou Agresta’s first published novel, it
represents an impressive achievement in more than one area: The characters are
relatable and interesting, the pacing had me turn page after page; the prose is
oftentimes profound without being artificially obtuse, and the deviations from
genre-conventions make the book stand out. Similes and metaphors, both cleverly
tweaked and original ones, provide an optional cosmos of associations for the
well-read that adds a surprising level of associative depth to the proceedings.
Club Anyone
is a really captivating proof of a very promising talent, one that has me
excited for future offerings. Taking the freshman bonus into account, my final
verdict will clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval. Even if you absolutely
loathe noir storylines, this is worth checking out.
Sorrow
exists, yes…but so does happiness.
You can get this fascinating novel here on OBS!
Want print? You can find that here on amazon!
Endzeitgeist
out.
