Ok - Mozart walks into a sex-change clinic in the year 2028, brushes a few flakes of snow from his Mylar trench coat and steps up to the robot receptionist to check in for an appointment to have his "sprouter" snipped off.
This would make for a good lead in to a bad joke, were the joke not Mark Rayner's new science fiction novel, The Amadeus Net. How could you not be drawn to the premise? Mozart, evidently immortal, having feigned his death and lived in secrecy these past two centuries on the proceeds from selling "lost" works of Mozart? It's beautiful. Toss in a bombshell Czech lesbian love interest and a utopian city that has somehow attained sentience, and I'm hooked.
Unfortunately, all Rayner has is the hook. What follows would make a better daytime soap opera than a novel, as sex and the pursuit thereof is book's dominating theme.
Mozart desires the (gorgeous) lesbian Amazon who simultaneously desires the (taut, animalistic) artist-survivalist and the (unattainable) reporter who is simultaneously stalked by the bland Canadian diplomat. Guess what? They all have sex in the end. It would have been better titled The Amadeus Orgy.
This would make for a good lead in to a bad joke, were the joke not Mark Rayner's new science fiction novel, The Amadeus Net. How could you not be drawn to the premise? Mozart, evidently immortal, having feigned his death and lived in secrecy these past two centuries on the proceeds from selling "lost" works of Mozart? It's beautiful. Toss in a bombshell Czech lesbian love interest and a utopian city that has somehow attained sentience, and I'm hooked.
Unfortunately, all Rayner has is the hook. What follows would make a better daytime soap opera than a novel, as sex and the pursuit thereof is book's dominating theme.
Mozart desires the (gorgeous) lesbian Amazon who simultaneously desires the (taut, animalistic) artist-survivalist and the (unattainable) reporter who is simultaneously stalked by the bland Canadian diplomat. Guess what? They all have sex in the end. It would have been better titled The Amadeus Orgy.
The writing is passable if you don't mind being spoken at be each character in turn, because that's what Rayner employs as character development - each character delivering their own background directly to the reader in the first person. Think eighth grade oral reports entitled, "What I did this summer," and you get the general idea.
The sentient city, Ipolis, plays a role in this mundane delivery as well. Actually, Ipolis addresses the reader in the first person throughout the novel:
"While all these humans are playing their little games, One listens here, trying to see what One can possibly do to get things under control in the outside world. Not that there is any direct worry here - we are too far away to be worried about anything but submarine-based nukes, and One is confident the satellites can take care of that."
While The Amadeus Net sprouted from an inspired premise, the novel got lost somewhere along the way. It might have made a great short story but lacked the plot, character development, or thematic content that would have made a good novel.
The sentient city, Ipolis, plays a role in this mundane delivery as well. Actually, Ipolis addresses the reader in the first person throughout the novel:
"While all these humans are playing their little games, One listens here, trying to see what One can possibly do to get things under control in the outside world. Not that there is any direct worry here - we are too far away to be worried about anything but submarine-based nukes, and One is confident the satellites can take care of that."
While The Amadeus Net sprouted from an inspired premise, the novel got lost somewhere along the way. It might have made a great short story but lacked the plot, character development, or thematic content that would have made a good novel.
