Kaleidoscope Century

by John Barnes

Book Overview

Joshua Ali Quare wakes in 2019 at the age of 140 in a strong youthful body with no memory of his past, to find he is at the center of a vast and deadly conspiracy. The only clues to his identity are... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812533461
• ISBN13: 9780812533460
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 252 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.3" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Josh, the quintessential evil anti-hero

This is a VERY good story about a VERY evil man. How do you become emotionally invested in a main character who is a rapist, murderer, KGB spy, and all around selfish bastard? The answer is here. I have no idea how an American KGB spy is made but chances are the answer is in this book.It is the story about how Josh became a spy for the wrong side and did their dirty work--and let me assure you, the work is about as dirty as you will ever read. You become emotionally invested when you find out his father was an abusive drunk and his mother was a commie activist nut. No wonder he is such a basket case! In fact, this story would be a good text book in a "How to make an anti-hero" writing class.The main story details his search for security (since he had none growing up). He never looks beyond himself. He has no love of communism, certainly no love of capitalism and not much love period. He is out for himself and the rest of the world can go to hell.If the story interests you so far then read the book. It's a dark, fascinating, downward spiral into depravity. Quite frankly, you hate the main character but you keep reading to find out what happens to him at the end of the story. If, so far, this is not your kind of story, then don't read it. It's doubtful you will like it.Not knowing much about John Barnes, I find it interesting that later on he worked with all-American Buzz Aldrin on some other projects making him a truly complex writer. Five stars for showing me something I've never seen before.

One Hell of a book!

This book is, simply put, amazing. Barnes' vision of the future is dark and twisted, with a good bit of humor thrown in for good measure. Barnes also manages to take very technical theoritcal science ideas and put them into laymans terms and make the whole idea believable. As I said before, Amazing. Five Stars. Buy it. Today if you can. As for the Reagan Foster Hinckley joke that one of the other reviewers didn't get, it goes like this: Ronald Reagan, former president of the United States from 1981 until 1989 was shot by John Hinckley, a madman who was in love with Jodie Foster, and was trying to prove it by killing the president. Hence Reagan Foster Hinckley.

Meme Wars

It's the (not-so?) far future and Earth has been transformed into a battleground for viruses of the mind, commonly known as Memes with a capital M. Our hero and his fellow commandos work as mercenaries in the employ of one Meme or another, surfing through life as they struggle to re-create memories periodically lost to them--the price they pay for a secret treatment that gives them eternal youth. Can an all-American boy find love and happiness in a universe where an innocent conversation may leave you infected by a mind virus such as One True, doomed to spend the rest of your existence in its service? Not the tightest or best SF ever written, but a graphic illustration of one possible outcome of meme evolution. --Richard Brodie, author, Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme

People Just Don't Get John Barnes.

It's gonna be tricky doing this one justice in just 1,000 words...Barnes doesn't write "Nice" books where everybody lives happily ever after. And this is clearly his ugliest and most controversial book to date. Like all good science fiction, he takes some scientific principles, and imagines a world where they are in a different balance from the familiar. His genius lies in his ability to extrapolate a frighteningly accurate picture of the people who might inhabit such a place. When the place gets ugly, what do you think his characters are going to be like? This is a DARK book. The main character is an American child of a militant communist mother and a wife-beating father. He's abused, disabused, and then recruited by the KGB as a spy. When a rapid-fire string of apocalytic diseases and wars fought by successively deadlier technology leave the world order upside down, what do you think the life of such a mercenary will be like? And I haven't even mentioned the Memes yet!NOT for the squeamish. The violence is dirty and the sex is worse. You will want to take a bath when you're done. But if you can take the heat, prepare to have your socks blown off.

A masterpiece -- but a bummer

This is a tour de force in every way; a consistent and sensible future-world, interesting action, and characters who hold your interest. But there's the problem (it's not a flaw, because Barnes did it on purpose). The characters are so damned repulsive that by the end of the book you feel unclean. Ugh. And it doesn't help that, in a wholly unadmirable way, it's at core a love story. It's truly a masterpiece in terms of craft, but it's not beach reading. At least, not if you want to enjoy the beach.