re:mote voices: literature

Title: One Of Us
Author: Michael Marshall Smith
Publisher: Michael Marshall Smith

EVER DONE ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE TO FORGET?

When we were first in the process of setting this site up, the summer was just starting and I found myself with time again, as our course came to an end. So I thought "I know - I'll re-read Only Forward" - so I sat on that Sunday and read it from cover to cover. The next day I was on my way to university to access computers for site-related purposes - on the way I stopped in at a bookshop and saw Michael Marshall Smith's new novel, One Of Us in hardback. At that time I had been trying to set up interviews to help "launch" the site and this was my cue. So approaching Michael's publishers, we were able to do an interview, which meant a lot to us.

But as I say, One Of Us was in hardback, and that made it expensive - besides that, I am more comfortable with paperbacks. So I patiently awaited for Michael's third novel to appear in paperback - which it finally did during the Christmas holidays. Now we are at the review stage - after all that anticipation I have finally read it. One Of Us holds many of the Marshallisms I observed in our interview, but in other ways it is distinctly different - as were Spares and Only Forward before. Seemingly more near future - the technology is still there but not as far out there, or had as high a social impact. Which makes the whole more familiar, a sense which is quickly contradicted as Michael goes further in contesting reality.

THE THRILLER JUST EVOLVED

Hap Tompson has lived on the edge of crime for years, but when a situation gets out of hand he finds himself betrayed and wandering. With time he is approached by REMtemps, an organisation which offers the service of having your dreams for you, allowing you to sleep soundly. Given a chance Hap, finds he is good at it - very good at it! The pay is high and the whole topic is in such a legislative quagmire that it is legal (enough). He thinks he is set, until he is offered the chance to move on to the next level - memories - which pays a LOT more, but is definitely and without doubt illegal. But he does it and it goes fine until a client leaves a memory and disappears. It turns out that the memory is of a murder that will put him in very deep shit if the police find it in his head. Desperately he tries to track the owner of the memory, but in the process uncovers betrayal, blackmail, manipulation and mysterious forces which will change his life forever. Which includes having the police after him and six identical strangers who can find him whenever they want.

OUT OF MEMORY

In some ways this treads similar territory to Only Forward which had Stark going over into the land of dreams. This could be considered a remembrance - paying respect to what has gone before. But as dreams are just the start it could be considered a continuity of concepts; especially when One Of Us goes into the realms of memory, a concept only hinted at in Only Forward. And conceptual it is, as we explore perception and how much dreams and memories affect us and shape our realities. In the same way that J.M. De Matteis showed us the truth of perception in his Seekers Into The Mystery, where one sister saw angels the other saw aliens, MM Smith shows us how much of a threat perception can be when what we believe shapes who we are. With the first part of the story, he sets up the characters and the accepted perceptions - carefully showing us how much the mundane can be upset. So as this part finishes, Michael has somehow got us onto a chair with a noose around our neck and he is ready to kick - forcing us to turn the page to see if he follows through - seeing what he will do to us now that he has suckered us into his reality, a reality which he is prepared to upset.

One Of Us is a compelling book, the thriller that the cover promises, "real" enough to relate to, but with enough "SF" ideas to engage the hunger for the exotic. The pace is tense and sustained. One problem with the hardness of the reality is that the flip-out may be hard for some to take - but hell, that ain't my problem.

One Of Us is somewhere between Only Forward and Spares - not as light and humour orientated as Only Forward and not as brutal as either. Smith's style incorporates much though, so that humour and darkness remain, as do some of his other mannerisms. The talking technology is here again and is perhaps more significant - by its nature there is humour here as we all increasingly suffer problems with machines. As with his previous novels, there is the sea - while its unconscious significance is lessened, its conscious significance is realised and verbalised for the first time, at least in emotional terms.

A major point of difference between this novel and Michael's previous work is the palpable sense of emotion. With Hap we have a definite sense of isolation - weary of a lifestyle that he feels he has outgrown. Further, we have the pursuit of love - how he feels betrayed by his past, but feels as though he has missed his one chance at true love. While this holds echoes to the tragedies and losses of his past characters, he somehow manages to allow us to relate more to the feelings of the characters. Whether this is a tangent or not is not important; it serves to flesh the story out providing an unusual and striking depth.

As for the title, that comes from the gradual dawning of what's going on. The working in of the phrase "he's one of us" is cunning; as Hap thinks he knows what is going on, it is ironically returned to him, making it clear that he never did. So read Michael Marshall Smith - he's cunning........
.......and he's one of us.

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TOMORROW?

RVWR: PTR
January 1999