Burn

by Jonathan Lyons

Book Overview

In a surreal twenty-first century full of androids, binaries, chip trippers, NewSchool Grrls and Morlocks, black acid rain and StellarNet obsession, we meet Cage, a private detective down on his luck.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1583454438
• ISBN13: 9781583454435
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Domhan Books
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Burn Into Your Mind!

Jonathan Lyons has crafted an intriguing mystery set on our world in a not too distant future. He has taken current events and extrapolated a logical futuristic setting from them while adding multi dimensional characters. At the same time, he asks fundamental technology driven questions such as when does something totally technology based, achieve human status with feelings, emotions, and the like?In this future world, giant corporations run the country. The effects of global warming have come to pass, raising the world's sea levels and destroying major cities. Permanent fogs of smog have rolled in causing a perpetual acidic rain. The well to do have managed to flee to where the sun still shines, artificial islands created in places like the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. Corporations caused it all to happen as they bought off the politicians and set themselves up to run everything. The biggest corporation around is Expedite, which among other things, is the corporate sponsor of Old New York's police force. The suits make the decisions about what gets investigated not the cops.Cage used to be a cop and was a pretty good one. He annoyed the powers that be, by investigating the death of Joseph Fuhlber, an Expedite computer scientist. The doctor's partner was also killed and both were classified as suicide. Both deaths were clearly murder and when Cage wouldn't leave it alone, he was booted from the force, nearly destroying his life. Cage is surviving, financially and emotionally, but just barely.Janice Gild who wants her brother's death investigated contacts him. The cops aren't doing anything to speak of and the dead brother has links back to Expedite. The man was incinerated in his own condo while in bed and amazingly, the rest of the condo did not burn. While vaguely interested and in need of money, Cage does not want to run afoul of Expedite again. He grudgingly agrees while at the same time warning her, that he won't fight Expedite if they don't want it investigated.Soon, he discovers that the crime scene has been tampered with and Janice Gild's brother was only one of several to strangely die by incineration. If it wasn't spontaneous human combustion, a rare event, then what is happening? Bodies begin to pile up and Cage slowly figures out that the only help may come from the missing android domestic Jennifer Four. But, Jennifer Four is not what she once was and has developed her own agenda and Cage may be interference to be removed.This debut novel (available in a variety of formats) is very good with plenty of action and multi dimensional characters. Jonathan Lyons deftly mixes in back ground information and social commentary without sliding into preaching. He adds some downright funny parts, which I won't spoil by revealing. This is a very good book and I eagerly await Mr. Lyon's next project which this reviewer hopes just might be a sequel to this effort. Enjoy!

A fascinating story!

After reading Burn, a book billed as science fiction noir, written by Jonathan Lyons, I had to reread the author bio at the beginning to be sure that this really is his first novel. With a strong narrative voice and fascinating story, Lyons writes like an old pro and as anyone who reads or writes science fiction will tell you, that's no small accomplishment for this genre. Burn is a good old fashioned, hardboiled detective novel set in a dreary future New York. Cage is a private eye on the downside of his luck and life. He's a former police officer who was discharged and humiliated for pushing too far on a case controlled by the most powerful entity in America, Expedite Corp. Expedite and the men who run it bear an eerie resemblance to a current corporate superpower (hint: think Gates) and can make or break not only other companies but the private lives of everyone in the country. The setting of the novel is very Blade Runner-esque, with perpetual darkness and a never-ending drizzle of acid rain. The streets are run by organized gangs of net savvy punks who are smarter than your average hack and more deadly than a pack of trained ninjas. It's a depressing, dangerous place to live, to say the least. Enter Janice Gild, the grieving sister of James Gild, an accomplished techno wizard who was found mysteriously burned to death in his apartment. It appears to be a case of spontaneous combustion, though Cage isn't quite ready to buy into that theory. Cage searches for answers, only to come up with other apparently unlinked cases of spontaneous combustion. Jonny Cache, a former pleasure robot who was rebuilt into a free thinking cyber babe, is on a similar case that will eventually lead to their teaming up with one another. Together, they must find the common thread between all of the victims and come face to face with the most powerful force in the world, Expedite. This novel has it all. A great setting, intrigue, sex, fights, hover cars, bad cops and paranoid net pirates. Lyons paints a wonderful image of this future reality and really knows his stuff when it comes to the technological aspect of a population linked to a cyber world. Jonny Cache is a character deserving of her own series of books. She's beautiful, super smart and can kick some serious tail. Her friends and partners, Yin and Yang-Angelique, lovers who have united themselves in body, mind and spirit with the help of future technology and genetics, are some of the strangest, most memorable characters I've ever come across. Burn is that rare combination of great science fiction and bare bones private dick suspense. This was a surprisingly great read and I look forward to more from Mr. Lyons. I also want to take a moment to praise the aesthetic quality of the hardcover edition of the book itself. Domhan Books, a small publishing company, has created a quality product. In fact, I'm going to their web-site to discover some more new voices in the writing field.

Fabulous

Mr. Lyons has written an intricate and fascinating novel -- one which blends the genre of science fiction and (classic) detective novels in a cascading and intriguing blend of narrative structures, plot twists, and genre (and gender)-bending. As one who is not really prone to enjoy either run-of-the-mill detective or science fiction novels, I was fascinated by how well they work together with Lyons seemlessly intertwining the two in a way that supercedes "static" genre catagories. While on the one hand, genre distinctions should be "rules meant to be broken," few have the skill to attempt this (preferring the safer, more economical route of stand-by, tried-and-true methods of narrative). Lyons, on the other hand, blends these two genres remarkably well and shows that science fiction can be complicated, political, technological, and mature -- all at the same time. This book is both a thought-provoking political critique and a "page-turning thiller." I could not recommend it more highly.

A Must Read!

"Burn" is an entertaining, complex novel for fans of the sci-fi, cyberpunk, mystery, and horror genres - and even the hard-boiled detective noirs from which actors such as Humphrey Bogart have made their careers. It is an homage to the classics within each genre, encompassing essential elements of each and referencing the works of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Clive Barker, and many others. Yet "Burn" is simultaneously a genre defying story which intentionally transcends boundaries. Jonathan Lyons critically examines many hot issues, including: traditional gender roles, AI and the boundaries of humanity, white/western privilege, transnationalism, and environmental commodification. Set in a post-environmental apocalyptic world with a brilliant, dangerous heroine, "Burn" is one of the most beautifully crafted novels I have read, demonstrating the author's strong mastery of language, characterization, and plot development.

An excellent novel!

A futuristic work with sophisticated themes of capitalism in its final stages of thuggism and the globe in its final stages of life. Mr. Lyons keeps the future from unraveling us 21st-century-bound readers with old-fashioned suspense, corruption, murder, and a noir detective that has maintained a decent heart beneath the environment's and the society's murk.