Weekly Reader: Malibu Burns by Mark Richardson; Science Fiction Novel is Aflame With Psychic Powers and Internal Conflict

Weekly Reader: Malibu Burns by Mark Richardson; Science Fiction Novel is Aflame With Psychic Powers and Internal Conflict 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Sometimes with a Science Fiction novel, the fact that it's set in the future is merely incidental. That is the case with Malibu Burns by Mark Richardson.

Richardson's previous books were more about world building. The Sun Casts No Shadow takes place in a futuristic world that has fantasy creatures like nymphs, dwarves, and anthropomorphic animals. The Hunt for the Troll is set primarily in the world of cyberspace where characters are hunting an Internet troll who might also be a magic troll from legends. These books are intrinsic in their setting and world building, what goes on outside affects those within.

That is not necessarily the case for Malibu Burns. 

There are some tropes that are evident to reveal the tech heavy world of 2040s San Francisco in this novel. No one owns a personal vehicle and all drivers are AI. Police officers are paired in human-android teams. The Internet is outlawed. Sea levels have risen to astronomical heights and environmental changes are present. Historic landmarks such as Alcatraz have become casinos. 

Most of the external is less important than the internal, of what goes inside the head of its lead protagonist, Malibu Makimura.

Malibu is psychic and empathic, able to read thoughts and emotions. She works as a caricaturist in a nightclub. While working, she meets a mysterious man named Max. He says that Luciana, the very wealthy woman that he works for, would like to meet her. Malibu is then sent to Luciana's Presidio Heights mansion. The wealthy seductive eccentric wants to hire Malibu to burn down old cottages and Malibu gets to pick them. It's illegal but Luciana points out that the cops won't care. Malibu will be well paid and if she suffers any guilt, don't worry about it. Some places want to die.

This book focuses less on plot and larger questions than it does on character and excels at that. Malibu is a great lead with a rich interior life that Richardson explores.

Malibu's past was not an easy one and helped shape her into the troubled woman that she is. Her father was obsessed with expanding his mind through LSD and then testing Malibu's abilities to the point of sharing thoughts with her. Then he abandons his family for another woman, leaving his wife to commit suicide and his daughter to be institutionalized.

Malibu's institutionalization isolates and infantilizes Malibu but it is instrumental in her artistic pursuits. She makes an abstract portrait of a fellow inmate, capturing his soul instead of his face. Upon her release, she continues painting caricatures of people's souls such as a seemingly quiet pleasant woman holding a knife. (She says it looks just fine.) Because of her time in her own mind and the intrusive thoughts that Malibu hears in her own head, she is more interested in what's inside other's minds and souls than their appearances.

 That's why her caricature portraits are abstracts. It's her own way of continuing the experiments on her of exploring someone else's consciousness. It is an outlet to channel her confusion, depression, and frustration with the world around her and the abilities that isolate her.

Another safety net is her love of movies, particularly from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Many of the situations in which Malibu finds herself in parallel her situations in this life. She watches Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and later she is caught in memories and thoughts that she isn't sure whether they are real or created outside of her. She sees Vertigo and has an affair with a woman, whom she is passionately in love with but can't trust. She compares Max to Max Von Mayerling, Erich Von Stroheim in the movie, Sunset Boulevard because of his physical similarity to the butler in the film and also because he works for a wealthy eccentric. No points in guessing who his employer Luciana is similar to in Sunset Boulevard.

In fact, Malibu's fondness for movies could be less of an escape than it is another sign of a troubled mind. Many of the situations that she finds herself in are so close to her favorite movies that it could be coincidences, hallucinations of a troubled mind struggling with their sanity, or evidence that Malibu is somehow controlling the world around her.

The longer Malibu remains working for Luciana, the weaker her grip is on reality. When she finds the cottages, she hears voices telling her that they are in pain and want to die. With each cottage that gets burned, Malibu loses parts of herself becoming someone who craves danger and hurting others. Her darker impulses takes over until she becomes someone lost in her own insanity.

While many Science Fiction novels take their Readers through the outside world to see how it affects their characters. In Malibu Burns' case, we are taken inside a character's mind and perception to show she affects her world.