Morgan, Richard K.: Thirteen
Thirteen (2007)
Writer: Richard K. Morgan
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 544
I heard a lot of praise when this book first came out. So much that I seriously considered getting the hard cover, even though I'd never read Richard K. Morgan before. But for whatever reason, I waited, and when it appeared on digitalclone's list for possible January challenge reads, I picked it because hey, I'd been wanting to read it for a while anyway.
The premise: Carl Marsalis is what they call a variant Thirteen, the result of a failed experiment to essentially create super-soldiers. Now, Carl makes his living hunting down illegal thirteens, and takes on a job that might prove too big for him. A fugitive from Mars crash-landed a ship in the ocean and has been murdering his way across what the reader recognizes as the United States. The problem with this fugitive is that like Carl, he's a thirteen, but this one might just get the better of him, and there's more than one person who wants to make sure Carl never finds the guy, let alone kill him.
Spoilers.
I'm actually surprised I was able to summarize the overall story, because let me tell you: this novel is convoluted as hell. It's complex and it's so filled to the brim with ideas, social commentary, and world-building that more often than not I felt this book was just a platform for the author to air out all of these issues rather than tell a story. Because friends, this story gets so easily LOST in the 500+ pages it takes this novel to wrap up. There's also the fact it took me nearly a month to read this, and the reason for that is, well, let's put it this way:
I like to think that all books should have something of an addiction factor to them, and if not that, a siren call. SOMETHING about the book should make the reader want to come back, pick it up, and get lost in the pages. That something can be voice, character, world-building, story, whatever. But this book left me completely ambivalent. I could read it just fine, but then I'd put it down and have absolutely no desire to pick it up again. Worse, I even dreaded picking it up because the story moved so slowly that I didn't feel I was making progress or learning anything, it's that chock full of STUFF.
And this problem comes from the 100+ page opening that comprises part one of the novel. We meet a character, get in his or her head for a few chapters, and then we'll jump to a completely new character in a new set of chapters that may or usually may not be related to what's gone on before. This goes on, I kid you not, for 100+ pages, and to say I was frustrated is an understatement. If this book hadn't been mine and digitalclone's January challenge read, I would've stopped before I even got to page 100. Which is sad, because once you get to part two, a lot of those threads from part one start coming together, and more important, the cast you meet actually starts occupying the same pages, so we get a little more invested.
Reading is much, much easier once you hit part two. That said, the book still takes its damn sweet time getting to the end. Like I said: the book is chock full of ideas, commentary, world-building, and all sorts of stuff. So much so that it's easy to get unfocused and forget the main reason for reading, which in this case is to figure out why Merrin crash-landed on the first place and what the point of his murderous rampage is.
Sometimes getting lost is okay. The ideas are such that if you slow down and think about the commentary and ideas being presented, you've got some intelligent food for thought, and if not that, some sometimes amusing and sometimes annoying satire (Jesusland. Christ on a bike, I was torn on being amused and being annoyed). Then there's the fact that Morgan does a good job really fleshing out our two main characters, Carl and Sevgi. They read like real people, and I liked how Carl is painted almost as a buffer between normal humans and the stereotypical, violent thirteen. It made him more sympathetic, which is good, because once part one is over and done with, he's pretty much our anchor to the story. Granted, his line of thinking is alien, which is what it's meant to be, but that also made it difficult to keep up with the plot, because the reader, like Sevgi and her COLIN colleagues, thought Carl was barking up some random tree. Turns out that Carl's right in the end, but it's a rather painful road getting there.
I liked the relationship and dynamic between Carl and Sevgi. It felt so very human that it hurt when she closed herself off to him and returned to her syn addiction. It also hurt when Carl did the very typical human response by rebounding with another woman, but that's what ended up making Carl and Sevgi's relationship so poignant at the end, as well as giving the reader the sucker punch when Carl has to kill her. I'll admit, it could've been a stronger moment if I was a bit closer, POV-speaking, to the characters, but it was still a damn good moment.
And the plot does come together in a rather satisfying though mystifying way. Mystifying because you get SO MUCH given to you, from the biggest element to the tiniest detail, that even when the book ends and the main story's wrapped up, you're still feeling like you're missing something, that Morgan didn't address every question or issue raised. Then of course, there is the rather open ending. I kind of wanted Carl to die at the end, and the open ending gives me the option of imagining that happening, but then there's the fact he could likely fight his way out, and then what? Did Onbekend's ranting mean anything to Carl? Will Carl even want to do anything about it? I'm not convinced of either Onbekend's ranting or Carl's belief in it, hence the feeling of incompleteness at the end.
There's an awful lot of good stuff in here, but there's a lot bogging it down too. I like tighter novels, more immediate stories, and this easily could've been a much shorter novel, especially if the author sacrificed some of the commentary. Not all of it, but some of it felt entirely unnecessary, another thing that kept me from wanting to pick the book back up after I put it down.
There were times I was reminded of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and other times I was reminded of my reading experience with C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen. I think the first comparison is obvious, the second not so much: I was reminded of Cyteen because of the epic scope of this book, the science and the commentary thereof, but the different, aside from the obvious ones, is that with Cherryh's book, I really was invested and fascinated by the characters, which helped pull me along for the rest of the book that had its strengths and weaknesses. In Thirteen, while the characters were realistic, I was never drawn to them, never fascinated, so when they did normal, daily things, I just wasn't interested. It didn't pull me along. And that was my biggest problem with the book: it didn't pull me along. I had to force myself to read it, and that's too bad.
My Rating
Give It Away: in the end, I'm glad I finished it, but if I'd bought this as a hard cover, I would've been very disappointed. I didn't want to finish the book at all because it takes so long to really find its footing and bring the story together, and even then, it takes its sweet, meandering time doing so. There's certainly pay offs: the main plot comes together nicely in the end, though I still feel like something's missing, and the characterization felt solid too. The problem is that the book could've been much shorter, and while it would've required sacrificing some of the insane amount of world-building, commentary, and ideas presented, I think it might've made for a tighter, more focused book. The biggest problem is that I felt ambivalent reading the whole thing: this book lacked the siren's call, and it never made me want to pick it back up again after stopping. However, in the end, it's not all that bad. If you give this book a shot, give it until you complete a chapter in PART TWO (that's 100+ pages in) just so you can see how it comes together before making any decisions on finishing the book or not.
Cover Commentary: pretty standard, especially in comparison to the UK cover, which is behind the cut. Not only is the UK cover vastly different and more representative of the novel and its ideas, but the title is also different. I'm still wondering why the US couldn't release Thirteen under its original title of Black Man (I guess the difference in titles alone marks the difference between race relations and paranoia between the UK and the US? Certainly, histories are VERY different), but while both titles fit the book, the UK cover art is far more satisfying once you've got the book under your belt. The only cool thing about the US cover are is the use of the number 13 in the title as TH1RTE3N.
Next up:
Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan