Book Review: Psychodrome by Simon Hawke
Sometimes the line between traditional and indie publishing can become blurred. For example, what happens when a successful traditional publisher decides that he doesn't want anything to do with the corrupt and outrageous system that he's worked with previously? What happens when he republishes his older works on his own? Well, you can get something like PSYCHODROME by Simon Hawke--which is a fantastic sci-fi book that he gets most of the profits from now.
Originally published in 1987, this predates the heyday of reality television or shows like SURVIVOR and THE AMAZING RACE. However, the predecessors for these kinds of shows were already in the works and Stephen King's RUNNING MAN was published in 1982. Its predictions were spot on as we see a hyper-saturated media environment that is all too happy to put contestants in danger as long as it draws in ratings.
Psychodrome is a cyberpunk novel that depicts the adventures of Arkady O'Toole, the half-Russian half-Irish gambler who manages to find himself running to a Running Man-style gladiator contest to escape the Yakuza boss he's managed to mortally offend. As long as he’s a public figure and operating from a orbital satellite, he’s safe but he doesn’t have much in the way of options to deal with his problems long term.
From there it becomes a story about shapeshifting aliens, love, ninjas, outlaw crystal miners on an alien world, and the vagaries of chance. The book has a tendency to do a bit too much via narration and not enough action, but Arkady is a very entertaining character and I enjoyed listening to him recite his strange journey from beginning to end.
The world is wild and exotic with a mixture of science fiction contrasted to gritty drama. This is the kind of future that bleeds “classic” cyberpunk with a mixed world of extremes and whatever social progress has been made is drowned underneath the constant onslaught of greed with sensory overload. The addition of aliens may undermine some points but also serves as a decent metaphor for the casual exploitation of native environments.
If I had some complaints, it's the fact that the female characters of the book tend to be somewhat incidental to the plot and used poorly. There are still some very interesting ones that I enjoyed and was saddened didn't have a bigger role. That didn't ruin my enjoyment of the novel, however. This is very much of the story where Arkady is the central character and everyone else is secondary. The world-building and characterization is top notch.
I strongly recommend this novel.
