The story of a good person hunted on false charges, forced to dig up unforseen layers of courage and cunning to survive until the next paragraph, is one that never gets old; and in LEVELS: THE HOST, Peter R. Emshwiller has come up with a fun and fresh variation on this theme.One key to this variation is the use of an innocent, surprisingly naive person who must learn to survive in a cruel environment without becoming cruel himself. That person, Watly Caiper, is a young man with a compelling dream: to be a mother. To that end, he will do anything -- but as he discovers, "anything" means one thing to a good man, but something else entirely to a man who has no concern for people, for ethics, or for life itself.It can be hard to write about naive heros without having them seem stupid or credulous to the point of pain, but Peter Emshwiller walks the tight-rope well.He can also bring other skills to the page. He can dream up a vivid place and time. He can plot in devious ways that play fair with details already provided. He can end chapters on a note that makes you hurry to the next. He can surprise you with appropriate moments of humour or dismay. Best of all, he can make you care about his hero: a man both naive and courageous, both desperate and fundamentally good, who can carry the weight of the story right to the final page.With all of this in mind, I have to admit that I nearly bailed out of the opening chapters, and only because of the prose.At his best, Peter Emshwiller can write with an individual voice that is unpretentious, clear, and engaging. He makes a few grammatical mistakes ("like" and "as" have to play by different rules), and every now and then he might choose the wrong word ("nauseous" does not mean "nauseated"), but on the whole, he can describe an action, a setting, or a state of mind with conviction.Yet in the opening chapters, this individual voice is undermined by needless repetition:"It struck Watly suddenly -- almost physically -- that the most wondrous thing about Second Level compared to First was a very simple thing. A basic thing: People had only one shadow here. Just one. Like Brooklyn. The solitary sun cast only one elegant shadow for each object. On First Level there was never only one shadow. Down below, as one walked from beneath one daylite to another, a fan of shadows danced about, fused and separated, faded and grew -- always in motion and never alone. Here it was different. Here a person could have a sense of solidity. One person: one shadow. Elegant."In the early chapters, this verbal padding is often relentless, and it buries passages of lively description and fun, quirky insight beneath a pile of words. All too often, a statement is repeated. All too often. Almost constantly. Almost every time. Repeated. Statement after statement. After a while -- after just a few moments -- after just a few paragraphs -- I began to notice the repetition more than I noticed the story.Very much to my relief, this repetition soon fades away to the point where the story can stand up and be enjoyed. The flaw has less to do with writing than with a lack of careful revision. From this debut novel, I would say that Peter Emshwiller can write well; if he can learn to revise well, then his obvious abilities will shine out all the more.But for now, I recommend this book: for its roller-coaster plot, for its keen sense of place, for its emotional warmth and humanity, and for the glimpses of the writer's personality that gleam from the pages.THE HOST is an individual book with an individual voice. In our current publishing environment, this matters more than I could say.
As hard as it is to believe that it's been 25 years since Peter Emshwiller's cyberpunk classic first hit shelves, it's even harder to accept that it's been out of print for so long. Fortunately, in celebration of it's silver anniversary, it's now available as an e-book, complete with a new intro and a shiny new cover.Fortunately, the story itself hasn't changed, and neither has the telling. Levels: The Host still has that early 90s, edge-of-apocalypse, pulp sci-fi sort of feel to it, but it's surprisingly fresh and original. Re-reading it now, after so many years, it's just as imaginative and just as much fun as the first time around.Part of what makes the story so attractive is the simple ways in which Emshwiller subverts expectations - beginning with language. Instead of inventing new slang that's dated almost as soon as the final page is turned, he plays with words we already know, extending conversational trends, turning the f-bomb into a part of everyday speech, and making words like rape the coarsest of curses. Even his hero is a subversion, an all-around average guy who wants nothing more than a chance to be a mother (not in a gender sense, but that of gender roles).Yes, Watly Caiper is a First Leveler, a denizen of the subterranean industrial slums, who aspires to an impossible dream of motherhood. In order to save up enough money to cover the costs, he has applied to become a host, renting out his body to angry, horny, or bored Second Levelers who want to to play in the slums without risking their bodies. It's a dangerous job, despite the multiple safeguards, but it pays extraordinarily well. Unfortunately for Watly, his second gig not only sees his body being used to assassinate one of the most prominent Second Level businessmen around, but the stranger taking a ride inside him has worked very hard to disable all those safeguards and frame Watly for murder.What follows is a classic thriller, with Watly desperately trying to evade capture while trying to clear his name. The set pieces are fantastic, dark and claustrophobic on the First Level, and gleaming chrome and blue skies on the Second. There's at least one narrow escape in just about every chapter, a few great chase scenes, and more than one double-cross that proves to be as clever as it is entertaining. The emphasis here is very much on the human element, with technology playing a supporting role, as evidenced by the experience of hosting. While we do learn about the how and why of it works, it's really the sensory experience of what Watly feels and how he experiences his world as a consciousness with no physical control over his own body that drives the story.Levels: The Host is a fun, fast-paced read that doesn't try to 'wow' the reader with technological genius, and which avoids the temptation to drive any sort of 'hard' moralizing or ecological message. The climax is something of a shocker, setting up the events of Short Blade, but the core mystery here is resolved.Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
Do You like book Levels: The Host (2014)?
Here Peter R "Stoney" Emshwiller pens a curious genderbending science fiction novel of the future in which "Rape" is a dirty word but the "F" word is not, one man's greatest dream is to become a mommy, gender is indeterminate among the faithful, while opennness about relations prevails everywhere but on the repressive Second Level where a repressive, supposedly pure bred society rules the roost. Thence comes the cries, "California!" "California!" and "Revy" for revolution's sake as the Ragman comes looking to overturn the order without the threat of violence. And thence too comes certain death... with new life to follow in its wake. Well done, Mr. Emshwiller. A good analogy. If only it were that easy...
—Will Mayo
This was a freebie from amazon so I thought I'd give it a try. The idea behind the book was intriguing. The book built up to a pretty good peak but sort of plateaued a bit.The world has changed, countries and cities aren't what they used to be. There are physical levels to society, unlike today's class perceptions in people's minds. The main character Watley lives in the bottom level. But he has the chance to ascend one day if he can take a job "hosting", which pays a great sum. Hosting is allowing someone from the upper level to technologically take over your body and use it the way they choose. There are rules and safeguards to the hosting, but something goes wrong one night as Watley is hosting, terribly wrong.
—Dale
