Candle

by John Barnes

Book Overview

Currie Culver is about fifty-five years old, in good health, living in a comfortable retirement in the Rockies with his wife. In the wake of the Meme Wars that swept the planet two generations before,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031289077X
• ISBN13: 9780312890773
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Entertaining, but not much more

Out of the mainstream SF writers to emerge in the last ten or so years, John Barnes has stood out for a number of reasons, notably his consistent quality (especially given how prolific he seems), his excellent storytelling abilities and his interesting extrapolations of new ideas without getting so far "out there" that he loses the reader completely. In a previous book "Kalidoscope Century", Barnes gave us an overview of his near future history, including a look at the "Meme Wars" where basically intelligent computer programs used people as pawns to take over the planet (that's oversimpifying by a bit, actually). In this novel Barnes takes us back to just after that time, where hunter Currie Curran lives with his wife in a world where the meme "One True" controls everyone through its program Resuna, adjusting thoughts and memories and emotions in order to make everyone more effective and happy. Currie used to hunt "cowboys", people who hadn't been "turned" by One True and lived independent lives on the edge of society. There's one still left called Lobo and Currie goes out to hunt him one last time. It doesn't go well and Currie ends up Lobo's prisoner with his link to One True missing and his copy of Resuna disconnected. Here the story actually begins as Barnes tries to use this as a backdrop to explore the meaning of individuality and what it means in a wrecked society that needs repairing, as well as showcasing his imagination. The problem mostly lies with the execution. After the initial rather thrilling sequence of Currie remembering the first hunt against Lobo and then going out and getting the guy again, the book sort of loses all momentum and stops dead while the two fellows swap stories about what they were doing during the Meme Wars. While Barnes can craft a good tale, these tales on the whole come off as rather static and it's hard to get any kind of suspense when you have two grown men drinking wine and sharing a bath in the name of male bonding. Some action starts to get generated towards the end but the ending itself pretty much comes out of nowhere and seems way too warm and cuddly as well as far too forgiving of a lot of things that Barnes himself brought up. All in all, somewhat disappointing given the premise, Barnes really doesn't make it as interesting as he could (as he's proved in the past) and that makes the book frustratingly uneven. Fans will probably enjoy it to some extent, since it's not bad, just average, but newcomers would be wiser to start with some of his earlier novels and work down from there.

I really liked this book

Good Points-As mentioned above I liked this book particularly the argument between Lobo and Curly and their sharing of experences of the Meme Wars. Bad points-It does seeem to go flat towards the middle and don't even get me started on the ending Overall it was a good book and what I didn't like about it didn't tarnish the overall book quality. If you liked the the Timewar serise you will like these books.

A truly involving novel, hard to put down.

It's the future, where everyone is at peace thanks to the One True universal mind control program - everyone except Lobo, the last outlaw. It's up to Currie to use his tracking abilities to bring Lobo out of the wilderness and back into the fold - instead, Lobo captures him and he finds himself disconnected from One True for the first time in decades - and forced to realize a terrible truth about the changed world. Involving and hard to put down.

Awesome Concept!

What if the only conceivable solution to humanity's inadvertent attempts at Planetary Genocide is a global computer system that keeps everyone in check via a virus program running in their head and a cellular data link hard-wired to their brain? Not quite total control and domination, but enough influence that nobody is truly self-determinant. And the entire surface of the Planet is monitored almost 24 hours a day, so it is virtually impossible to remain outside the "system." John Barnes asks these questions, and the answers are not black and white at all. Through the entire book I kept trying to make a clear determination of weather the actions of One True (the global computer system) were justified or not, and I couldn't. The book deals with some dark subject matter, but I thought it ended on a very bright, positive note. If you ever shake your head at the insanity of human activity, wonder about the darker aspects of electronic surveillance and/or digital mind control, I highly recommend this book.

A winner set in Barne's "Meme War" univers

Anyone who loved the setting of Kaleidescope Century, and couldn't get the alternate-future out of their minds will enjoy this book. The characters are more sympathetic than in _Century_, but the same issues of free will, memes, etc. are explored in even more depth.Recommended.