Well, I thought EC was a noir thriller. Orbit thinks it's SF. Now, here it turns up in a review dedicated to horror fiction.
Bottom line for me? Call it what you want, as long as you call it good writing!
Herewith the review from
THE HORROR FICTION REVIEW, Issue No. 18, to be released in mid January, 2008. This review by Nick Cato. www.novellopublishers.com
THE ELECTRIC CHURCH by Jeff Somers (2007 Orbit / 373 pp. / hc)
Somers introduces us to Avery Cates, a ruthless killer living in a bleak future-New York City (reminding me of a less advanced version of the cities in Bladerunner). The world has become completely unified, and the yen is now the global currency.
And there’s also The Electric Church; the most popular religion in the world, bent on converting every human. To join the EC, you must be dead . . . and the “Monks” basically put your soul into a cyborg casing, making you one of them. Monks continually prowl the streets, seeking converts by preaching from a demented text called The Mulqer Codex, while the global law enforcement (known as the SSF) abuse their power to no end.
When the head of the SSF learns of Avery’s killing of an SSF officer, he offers him a deal: face execution, or--somehow--go to the EC’s headquarters in London, infiltrate their main headquarters, and kill their founder/leader, Dennis Squalor. With no other choice, Cates manages to assemble one of the coolest teams of tech-geeks and killers in the underworld, and starts off on a scifi/action-packed adventure that simply blew me away: The Electric Church is easily the most exciting novel I read in 2007. Although mainly scifi, the Monks themselves are among the creepiest creatures seen in quite a while. As tortured souls, duped into a false religion, listen how the author explains them through Cates:
“Inside every Monk there was a human being silently screaming in digital, with no mouth.”
The more we get to know the Monks, the more we feel the true horror of their existence.(pp. 188)
Avery Cates is also a fantastic anti-hero: for half the book you think he’s the lowest form of life on the planet, and then you find yourself cheering for him as he takes on the world’s political and religious system with his gang of psycho- misfits. The Electric Church had me on the edge of my seat for most of it’s thrilling second half, and with the forthcoming second Avery Cates novel, The Digital Plague, I believe Jeff Somers has created what may become a classic series. This novel is that good.
The edition reviewed here (available through sfbc.com) features a few extras, including some of the aforementioned ‘Mulqer Codex’ and an insightful interview with the author. DO NOT miss this.
Smell Rating: 4
5 comments:
I hate science fiction, but loved the Electric Church. I wouldn't call it sci-fi.
I think the writer of this review knew it wasn't really horror, but it's such a good book he had to figure out a way to review it anyway, so he pulled in the "horror" of the monks.
The reviewer, the commenter above, as well as Janet Reid, have stumbled into one of the classic blunders. "I don't like SF, but I liked this, therefore this is not SF."
Just goes to show you, good writing trumps all. If you write well enough, even people outside your genre will be waving their fan girl pom pons, and agents will do intellectual somersaults in order to represent you.
(Don't feel bad, I have my own very-experienced agent doing the same thing.)
I've gotta read this book! I haven't read SF in a while, and even though this isn't SF (heh), it sounds like a futuristic techno thriller, which I also like. It's kind of like SF the way Holy Fire is SF. Now that was one truly amazing book.
I bought EC for my husband for Christmas. He's loving it, and I'm dying to steal it from him when he's finished.
I suppose folks who don't normally read sf should be forgiven for not recognizing it. [g]
Sf is fiction that takes science or technology into the future, speculating on its logical (or extreme) evolution. Or it focuses on new discoveries that transform (usually not in a good way) society, the earth, and/or mankind. It does not require space ships or aliens.
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