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Loading... Idolonby Mark Budz
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I didn't finish this. Way, waaaaay too much info dump and jargon. If you have to spend that much time and that many specialized words on your idea, it's too complicated for a story. (  ) greylistening | Feb 23, 2010 |  I picked this up thinking "wow, seems like yet another stephenson/gibson clone" but was intrigued enough by the idea of a world where everyone wears electronic skins and can redefine what they look like with little more than a thought. As such, I stepped into the novel expecting to be disappointed... but I wasn't. While the pacing wasn't quite as gripping as some of the cyberpunk I've read, the story was compelling, the world interesting, the "science" more believable than most, and I quickly grew to like the characters enough that I was reasonably happy following any of the threads even before it was apparent how they linked together. And surprisingly for cyberpunk, the ending didn't feel disappointing. Overall, better than the last Gibson novel I read! (  ) terriko | Jul 17, 2008 | I really liked this book. Butz managed to do a near-future setting without it feeling a) dated or b) overly disconnected; I am not a big fan of antiheroes, acrimony, and angst. I like to have at least one character I can root for. Budz was remarkably successful in creating a world that was gritty without being depressing, and I liked that. But the really interesting thing about Idolon was the philm. Philm, the book's central conceit, is downloadable imagery which can be displayed on, well, pretty much anything -- your house, your floor, yourself. Budz has a lot of fun talking about the high-tech skin grafts people get, the "casts" of identical philms people join, the various identity issues implied by the need to constantly change your looks, and so on. It's a great conceit. My only complaint is that he doesn't stick with it through the ending and instead goes and visits transcendent-land for a while, which leaves me sitting on the landing drumming my nails and checking my watch. But it was still a damned good tale overall. (  ) kfeete | Nov 9, 2007 | Budz applies the "if this goes on" motif to video screens, leading to a technology called "philm" that can coat walls and even human skin. His depiction of a world where cosmetic changes can occur in moments is interesting; I never developed enough sympathy for the characters caught up in the intrigue surrounding a new development of philm technology to really like the book. ( ) slothman | May 16, 2007 | This had loads of interesting ideas and a jam-packed plot. Sadly, it had so many ideas and so much plot that it didn't hold any tension for me. The end didn't come together. It also had a honey of a continuity error, when a suit turns into a red evening dress. ( ) MaryRobinetteKowal | Apr 25, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
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(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:43:16 -0500)
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