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Sphere Books 1989 (UK) ISBN 0 7474 0140 3 |
Ballantine/Del Rey 1988 (US) ISBN 0-345-35318-8 |
| Funtopia review: |
It's near-future America, carved up into
exclusive corporate enclaves wherein those with jobs are permitted to
dwell provided they keep toeing the corporate line. Beyond the cities are
the badlands, home to the poor and huddled masses, the dispossessed and
desperate. And in the twilight zone between the two lies Funtopia, a place
for those too bright to be human scrap but too unemployable to fit the
corporate straitjacket. In the Zone, you're given an allowance and permitted to 'leisure out', to follow whatever fantasy lifestyle suits you. Marlowe, as befits his name, is a fantasy 'Forties detective, playing at being a hardbitten shamus in the Hammett/Chandler mould, when suddenly a real, genuine case drops into his lap. Quickly the case turns lethal, and Marlowe is forced to abandon his fantasy life (and his cat) and set out on an odyssey across the sick, decaying corpse of America, running the gauntlet of corporate assassins, homicidal truckers and the Vampire cult. Finally, just when he thinks he can take no more, the case whisks him up into the wild new frontier of space exploration, where he comes face to face with a frightening new power reality, the offworld techno-elite. 'Exit Funtopia' overflows with cool themes – the nods to the Cyberpunk genre, Farren's relentless 60's-radical cynicism over the intentions and practices of multinational capitalism, and above all the Vampires, inheritors of the Punk/Goth mantle but a thousand times more depraved. Marlowe is a worthy addition to the long line of Farren heroes – a hedonist jerked out of his fantasy world, all too often a hapless stooge of events but with enough gumption, swashbuckling bravado and, where required, mindless violence, to do something about it. More generally this novel, late as it comes in the Farren ouvre, documents the very first phase in Farren's Foundation-esque future history of Mankind: the techno-elites slip the surly bonds of Earth and depart for the stars. Check Mars-The Red Planet, Phaid The Gambler, Protectorate and Their Master's War for further episodes. Funtopia: a great place, but sooner or later you have to leave. |
| Other reviews: | |
| Author's comment | See Mick Farren's Collected Works. Why the title change? "Exit Funtopia" says it all. |
| Availability | Both
versions out of print but fairly easily available online. As
usual, US edition more plentiful than UK version.
Find
Exit Funtopia at Bookfinder.Com |
| Excerpt (by permission) |
Gradually,
Marlowe's eyes adjusted. There were six vampires in the place, but none
of them seemed inclined to make a move toward him. A couple, male and
female, lay together in a beat-up, high-backed couch, entwined and
engrossed. A male with bleached white hair that rose from his head
straight up for almost a foot sat alone at a table. There was a small,
black GD stim box in front of him with leads running to implanted spike
receptors in his forearm. He was clearly in a world of his own. Two other
males lounged at another table, drinking beer and regarding Marlowe with
bored insolence. One of them had a shaved head and ears that had been
surgically tailored to long, upswept points. In the corner of the room
there was a steel cage designed for one occupant; a young vampire girl
sat inside on a bench, smoking a cigar, seemingly unconcerned by her
incarceration. There were more murals that looked as though they had been
painted by the same artist or artists who had done the one on the outside
of the building. There were more gothic movie monsters, sado porn of
graphic severity, and portraits of some of their cultural icons - Jim
Morrison, Morthland, Lord Byron, Bela Lugosi, Bradford Hess, Ed Gein,
John Lydon, and Freddie the Psycho. The vampires had a choice assortment
of heroes. Somewhere there was music playing at low volume. It sounded
like Mahler. Das Kindertotenlieder? Mahler was hardly Marlowe's
forte, but it fitted with the vampire fantasy as well as anything else:
The children are dead.
Marlowe had no comprehensive plan of action. When he'd set out, the only thing he'd had in mind was to make it to The Bat Cave and see what happened when he got there. Now he was there and nothing was happening. He was hardly inclined to walk up to any of the denizens of the place and start asking private-eye questions. That was simply the wrong approach. It was time to be a psychologist, not a cop. Except who could predict vampire psychology? Marlowe walked tentatively toward an empty table against the wall. Still nobody made a move. Marlowe sat down. He let his coat fall open so that the Reaper was in easy reach and in even more plain sight. He took the holo disc from his pocket and placed it on the table in front of him. The image of Christine Stavers came alive. Marlowe was getting sick of looking at it. The girl in the cage giggled. The couple looked up briefly and then went back to what they were doing. The vampire wired into the stim box took no notice whatsoever. The only real reaction came from the two boys swilling beer. The one with the shaved head and pointed ears slowly stood up. He grinned at Marlowe. As well as altered ears, he had long, implanted canine teeth. The other one pulled out a pack of Kenyan Marlboroughs and lit one with the air of a man who was settling down to watch the show. The bald vampire walked slowly toward Marlowe, still grinning. Very slowly, Marlowe's hand crept toward the butt of the Reaper. The vampire reached the table. Close up, the grin was dangerously insane; Marlowe, with his nervous system jangling, was sorely tempted to remove it with a blast of self-propelled 1Omms. |
