Release Date: May 7th, 2013Publisher: SolarisAge Group: AdultPages: 336
Format: e-bookSource: Received from the publisher in exchange for an hones review
Hollywood: Niles Golan is writing a remake of a camp-classic spy movie. The studio has plans for a franchise, so rather than hiring an actor, the protagonist will be 'translated' into a cloned human body.
It's common practice - Niles' therapist is a Fictional. So is his best friend. So, maybe, is the woman in the bar he can't stop staring at. Fictionals are a part of daily life now, especially in LA.
In fact, it's getting hard to tell who's a Fictional and who's not...
Funny, clever, profound and moving, The Fictional Man is set to be Al Ewing's break-through novel.
Review:
I knew
when I started this book it would be well outside my comfort zone. I mostly
read (and enjoy) High/Epic Fantasy and the occasional SciFi or Horror book. I
sensed “The Fictional Man” would be something I couldn’t stash in one
particular genre and that it would be different than what I’d normally read.
However, I was intrigued by the idea of ‘Fictionals’ walking among ordinary
people and how it would affect normal life.
Al Ewing
takes us to an alternative LA where most movies don’t have a star actor
anymore, but a Fictional, a person specifically written out and made to fit a
certain role. Imagine Sherlock Holmes dashing around or Katniss from the Hunger
Games buying groceries in the store around the corner. And I’m not talking
about someone portraying these characters, no, I’m talking about the actual
characters, taken from the pages and brought to life in a cloned human body.
The main
character is Niles Golan, an author with a huge ego and whose life is a
complete train wreck. He’s tasked with rewriting a spy movie and although he’d
love to see his own books adapted for the big screen (and have his character
made as a fictional), he takes this opportunity with both hands. His best
friend is a Fictional, so is his ‘therapist’ and he wants to create a
fictional. You’d think he’s a big Fictional-loving man. But he’s not.
It was
really interesting to see this story develop. The story itself (and especially
the rewrite of the movie) isn’t that important. This book makes you think about
the ethics of cloning people, about how the reaction to these persons may be.
It confronts you with the prejudices of the common people towards the
Fictionals. It introduces you to how certain Fictionals might feel and how
diverse even that is. Throughout the story we can see a change in Niles. At the
end of the book he’s not the same Niles we got to know in the first part of the
book.
It’s the
little things that hint at these changes. For instance, Niles has some sort of
inner voice that makes up scenarios as he goes through life. Obviously, Niles
is always the hero, the stronger man, the bad-ass in these made up stories and
obviously it never works out that way. But the more the book continuous, the
more the tone of this narrative, inner voice begins to change.
As I
said in the beginning, this book was not really in my comfort zone and it’s not
a book I’ll probably reread some years from now, but it was very interesting to
read nonetheless. It has a very ethical-debate, psychological tone going on and
I like to read these sort of books occasionally.
All in
all, not entirely my cup of tea, but interesting enough to keep me hooked.
