Jim Brown (2) (1956–)

hmmmm. why would i give a coveted 4.5 starts to a horror/suspense novel that's based on a frequently-used premise, and written with average literary skill? because, the premise that starts out hackneyed, spins out of control into something pretty horrific. the parable is all the more frightening because it is meaningful for the era we're in, one where nothing is sacred, and everything is available for our viewing pleasure. could Brown's make-believe reality show ever actually happen? there's show more a good chance it could. it's nothing but prescient that this book was written before modern-day reality shows really got out of hand.

in this novel, a reality show that promises a million dollars + your biggest wish, brings a motley group of people together on an island. boring? played? think again. we have the typical fast relationships formed -- for better or for worse -- but we also have espionage, double-agents, apocalypse, and artificial intelligence as God.

to say any more would be to introduce spoilers. check this one out, if you're into modern-day Lord of the Flies tales, or dystopic fiction. i read this one twice. show less

Previously I had read Jim Brown's novel Boom (click here for that review) and loved it. It has taken me awhile but I finally picked up a copy of his 2001 novel 24/7.

On a small Caribbean island a woman joins the newest reality TV show: 24/7. For Dana Kirsten, winning the $2 million prize could mean saving her child’s life. But while the country watches her every move, Dana is entering a fight for her own life–and a conflict that will shake the world. . . .

The setting of the book is Vassa show more Island, with a whole Survivor meets Big Brother type of scenario. Contestants are monitored all day, every day, with constant surveillance cameras that broadcast their every actions and conversations around the world. But within minutes of the first show of the new season, things go horribly wrong and the contestants are fighting for their lives to survive.

It is up to one lone camera-man turned reporter to unravel the pieces of the puzzle in time, before each contestant is picked off one by one.

The story is fast-paced, engaging and pulls the reader right in. It makes a strong statement about how we have become a voyeuristic society and how we'll judge people based on what facets they put across.

As a fan of reality TV shows for a long time now, especially the sociological aspects of the contests of Survivor and Big Brother, this novel was right in my wheel-house. I enjoyed it a lot and would recommend it to folks who like the similar. show less

This book is a bit of silly escapism, I knew from reading the blurb that it was going to be far fetched. Its a bit like a desert island verison of Big Brother, things go wrong and instead of the contestants being voted off the show and going home they are killed. The island is infected with a virus and the contestants that get voted off dont get the antidote. Book moves at a fast pace and makes you question of far things on reality TV will eventually go.

This book sounded much better than it was. Sure the plot was interesting and scary at first. But when it was all explained (badly) by science, it kind of came unglued. When the 4 boys speak with Dean after burying Whitey and learn that Dean was with him when he was supposed to have raped John’s sister Judy, they go back to the grave to dig him out. Have they arrived in time? When they finally get to open the coffin, Whitey is gone. But the earth is not disturbed – he didn’t dig his way show more out. What happened?

When later we find out it is the result of Dean’s future experiments in time travel in the NxTech lab that will be built precisely over the spot where Whitey is buried, it’s kind of a let down. I wanted this to be a supernatural book, bordering on horror. Instead I got a half-baked science fiction story. The explanation is ½ physics and ½ biology and it doesn’t quite solve everything. For instance, Whitey’s beloved knife can now be controlled by him up to 30 feet away from his body. He doesn’t have to be holding the knife in order to use it. It doesn’t make sense.

But I plowed on in spite of the horrible phrasing and cliché’s. In the end, a bunch of the original boys from the burying are killed by Whitey (who is almost comically evil) and there is just 2 of them left. Dean gets the idea that the biological agent that allows for this time traveling ability cannot exist if there are two versions of the body it inhabits. So he kills Whitey in one time and when he comes back in another time just a few seconds later, he revives the first Whitey and knocks them together, forcing them to touch. When they do so, the radioactive particles tear him apart at the molecular level and both Whiteys cease to exist.

Actually, Dean doesn’t knock them together, his love interest, Piper, does. This whole inept and adolescent relationship is stupid and I really wished he had a male sidekick so that I wouldn’t have to wade through awkward paragraphs about inner longing and “cute insights” into each other’s character. Blech. And the end is even more clichéd. Apparently Judy got pregnant when Whitey raped her. He had already been affected by these radioactive particles and now his biological son had them too. He came back from the future to rape Judy and came back again to give himself an alibi with Dean. So when the baby was born (at home when Dean was off on some kind o f emergency), it popped out of existence shortly thereafter, sending Judy into a panicked search through the house, leaving a bloody trail behind her. The baby was never found.

With his political pull, he got the baby declared a stillborn and when Judy died a couple of days later, the whole thing was hushed up. Now Dean is traumatized about the disappearing baby even though he had no idea of its full implications. He is convinced that somewhere in the basement of his house there are baby bones. For that reason he can’t let anyone (especially a woman) into his house and keeps it even after it’s practically condemned. But in the end, he and the love interest get married and move into that hellhole where suddenly, a baby appears at the foot of their bed, covered in gore and only a few hours old. It’s the mysterious kid who is lightly killed and the bad radioactive particles transferred to a dog that is sick and is going to die soon (Dean is a humane scientist after all) and when it dies, the radio active whatevers will become inert and dissipate. They revive the baby and live happily ever after. Blech.

It’s a shame that a cool story got swallowed up by melodrama and bad science. show less