Kaleidoscope Century

John Barnes

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

WELCOME TO 2109, JOSHUA, YOU MADE IT AGAIN.

2109? But that would make me one hundred and forty-one years old... In the late 1980s, Joshua Ali Quare, a 'non-critical' spy, was unknowingly subject to scientific experimentation - injected with a virus tailored for bodily renewal. And every fifteen years, he regains ten. Joshua Ali Quare is going to live for a long, long time...

THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY? THE mutAIDS PLAGUE, AND EUROWAR...

Every time Quare goes through transition, his virus makes him very sick and when he emerges from his fever, there is one major side effect - most of his memories have disappeared. So he keeps a record, a hypertext account of the lives he has lived as he journeys from one century, through another, and into a third.

THE INDUSTRIALISATION OF SPACE. THE NEW RELIGIONS. THE COLLAPSE OF THE NATION STATE...

Soldier, assassin, criminal, spy. Conspiracy and intelligence and terrorism. Wherever world history is being made, Joshua Quare is there. His adventures are legion and wild.

COMPUTER VIRUSES FOR THE HUMAN BRAIN. SENTIENCE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, THE RISE OF NEW FORMS OF LIFE...

Now someone is looking for him. And Quare is not sure he can hide any more. Somewhere in his past lies a mystery... As the new adventure begins, Quare must unravel the record of his life - and a fabulous panorama, the intensity of a century of world history, unfolds before his eyes. Science fiction saga - as potent as a Greek myth, as contemporary as a thriller, embracing the turbulence of history and the ferment of science... John Barnes is a superb storyteller, one of the most luminary SF writers today.

Review by Nigel (170700) Rating (8/10)

Review by Nigel
Rating 8/10
This novel views the development of society in the coming centuries through the eyes of a Russian spy who has been modified with an age reversal virus prior to the end of the Cold War.

The main character, Joshua, tries to come to terms with his memory loss after each transition and it is at these points he recounts his past as he learns it afresh himself.

The story made compelling reading with its dark and depressing future described through the experiences of a paranoid personality whom we are never sure is entirely sane.

At times its imagery is very brutal and some scenes will stay with you for a long time. It makes you realise how base human nature can be when the rules of society are removed.

Deep. Recommended, but only if not easily offended.
Nigel (17th July 2000)