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.

 

New Book Alert: The Hunt For The Troll by Mark Richardson; Witty Engaging Cyber Search For A Mysterious Tech Savvy Creature

 

New Book Alert: The Hunt For The Troll by Mark Richardson; Witty Engaging Cyber Search For A Mysterious Tech Savvy Creature

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Mark Richardson's novel, The Hunt For The Troll is a witty engaging search for a troll in both terms: someone who deliberately provokes and disrupts others online and also takes the form of the monstrous figure from folklore (and has some very strange abilities beyond cyberspace implying that there could be something paranormal in the presentation).

The Narrator's first encounter with the Troll isn't through the Internet. It's in his sleep. He sees the Troll surrounded by a vast stream of binary code. The Troll informs his new friend that this conversation is taking place inside his mental processor on a cloud in the Internet. The Troll then tells the Narrator that "It's time to change the world."

The Troll is also seen in cyberspace and many people would like to see him apprehended so they solicit The Narrator to find and identity him.

The Narrator could be a second cousin to Corvus Okada from The Hysteria of Bodalis and Graham Weathered from Orange City. He is a tech genius with a big mouth and a sardonic sense of humor that gets him through his difficulties. He was a software programming prodigy when he got the attention of the Captain, a hacker with an idea for a start up company. The company did not exactly go the way of Facebook or Google, more like MySpace. It folded, leaving The Narrator and The Captain to go their separate ways. The Narrator ended up in Italy where he "became an expert in loafing."

When even loafing got boring, The Narrator returned to the United States, where he eventually accepted a job as a sweeper for an online gaming company called Centre Terrain. (Any similarities to any fantasy world created by J.R.R. Tolkien is completely intentional, he assures us. "The company's founders had hired a marketing team to come up with a deliberately catchy name, but after weeks of deliberation and dozens of focus groups, Centre Terrain was the best name that they came up with." )

The Narrator's job is to assume the form of Roma, a human warrior with "a physique that brought to mind Thor though Roma was darker and more brooding." Roma goes through the game and searches for problems or glitches in the system.

 It's an exciting fantasy world that The Narrator plugs himself into which is probably why while we learn much about him, we don't know his name. He feels like he's a nothing guy, one of several programmers. He doesn't have an identity beyond the one that he creates in Centre Terrain, the avatar in a world that isn't his. He isn't too far off from The Troll, a person hiding behind an online persona to give him a god-like presence.

Speaking of The Troll, since he and The Narrator have developed a connection there are many people that would like to use him to find The Troll. Many like The Narrator's boss Whitfield and Larry Gosling, a tech giant nicknamed The Architect, recruit The Narrator to hunt down the Troll. A big problem is that no one knows who the Troll is.

He doesn't leave a trace and many of his background information is purposely contradictory. 

The Narrator is able to put some clues together and profiles the Troll as someone who may have been an outcast, socially awkward, and a genius but not much of an opportunity to show it except through this mysterious avatar version of himself. Not unlike The Narrator himself.

 

That is probably why The Troll contacts The Narrator through the Internet and in his sleep. He sees a kindred spirit, someone who understands him. Together, they can create a new world that would allow them to come our from their alternate selves and be counted and accepted.

Mark Richardson presents an engaging hunt for a mythological creature but ends up becoming a hunt for one's purpose and identity. This is definitely a book that would please even the most disruptive of trolls.

New Book Alert: The Sun Casts No Shadow by Mark Richardson; Dystopian Fantasy Takes Some Unique and Bizarre Turns

 

New Book Alert: The Sun Casts No Shadow by Mark Richardson; Dystopian Fantasy Takes Some Unique and Bizarre Turns

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Mark Richardson's The Sun Casts No Shadow is sort of like what would happen if 1984's Oceania was populated not only by humans enslaved by Big Brother but if Faeries also existed and were treated as outsiders and second class citizens. It's a strange but clever mix of Dark Fantasy and Dystopian Science Fiction that has twists that fit both genres and strangely mix well together.

In this efficiently organized world, Wellington Thorneycroft, the protagonist, lives in a city that is completely surrounded by a large wall that keeps the citizens from the outside world. The City is colorless, smog ridden, structured, and dull. No one can even see the world beyond the Wall. 

The citizens take pills to be sedated, docile, and never questioning. Not because the government allows it but Felix does. Felix is a feared creature who seems to have control over the entire city. He has a reputation like a supernatural creature who will swoop down and catch anyone who breaks the City's laws. (The type of character that children are warned "Be good and obedient or Felix will come and get you!") He is a despotic tyrant with a whole city to act as his playthings.

 On his way to his job at the Factory, Thorneycroft encounters Lilith, a beautiful woman who gives him passionate heat whenever he sees her and hears a voice, maybe hers, saying "we will escape together." Well Lilith is the type of woman that most straight men would risk escape for as well as certain torture and possible death for and he is no different. He also is convinced that she may know a way outside the city. For someone whose only escape is to read forbidden books, Thorneycroft hopes for a life outside the Wall and is willing to risk his life to see if she knows of a way out.

 Thorneycrofts's friend, Dempsey suggests that she might be a nymph, one of various creatures who lived in the City and performed magic before the "Transformation" and the wall was built. (It's never said what specifically the Transformation was that kept the City from the rest of the world, possibly an environmental disaster or a nuclear war.) 

Nymphs and other magical creatures exist in this universe but were kept on the other side of the Wall, except Lilith. So Lilith is stuck in this dull colorless prison away from her people. No wonder she is looking for someone like Thorneycroft to help her.

There are some confusing parts to the book that are clearly meant to throw Thorneycroft and the Reader off kilter. Thorneycroft becomes involved with Riba, an exotic dancer who may or may not be Lilith taking another form. For a long time, it's never fully stated but considering what we know about Fairy Lore it's not out of the realm of possibility that Lilith is taking a separate glamour form to lure, entice, and maybe betray Thorneycroft.

Felix and his entourage are nothing like what you would expect either. Felix himself is only large in reputation and control. In reality, he is a Little Person. But despite his size, Thorneycroft sees someone who assumes total control. Now is he a Little Person like we know, a very short human being or since we know that Nymphs are real, could Felix himself be a magical creature himself, a dwarf or a gnome? He exhibits a lot of power and knowledge about the people underneath him almost supernaturally so it is possible that he isn't completely human.

His assistant, Woden, seems to have gotten lost on his way to Nicole Givens Kurtz's Kill Three Birds. Thorneycroft insists that no Woden isn't bird like, he's an actual bird "wings, talons, feathers...a crane to be precise." Of course since it's established that since fairies and nymphs exist in this universe are talking sentient animals really that far fetched? With an exotic dancer who may be a nymph, a Little Person/dictator who may be a magical creature, and a talking bird assistant The City seems to come from the dark creepy depths of the imagination that only David Lynch could dream about.

Thorneycroft is a sardonic narrator but is the type of rebel who isn't born. He is made. An orphan, he is raised and educated by the City's laws. Until he met Lilith, his only form of resistance was to read books provided by Dempsey. Until he meets Lilith and goes on this journey, his rebellion is all internal. Lilith inspires him to take action.

Throughout the book, Thorneycroft is taken down the resistance path found in such novels.

There are the usual night time meetings citizens who may or may not be members of a Resistance organization. Of course there is a mole in the works. We also see the moments where Thorneycroft's new found resistance breaks down.

 However, through his interactions with characters like Lilith, Thorneycroft is free to imagine and dream of a world beyond the Wall. That world allows him to resist even when he is forced to outwardly conform. Thorneycroft's dreams become more vivid and real.

The Sun Casts No Shadow is a brilliant mix of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It throws into a world devoid of color and imagination and gives us glimpses to imagine the better world that could be waiting beyond that Wall.