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Fools
When Marva, a Method actress, awakens in a hologram pool, carrying in her head the memory of a murder, she must think fast to find out whose life she is living and to elude the Escort Service assassins who are pursuing her.
299 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1992
34 people are currently reading
931 people want to read
About the author
Pat Cadigan
260books409followersPat Cadigan is an American-born science fiction author, who broke through as a major writer as part of the cyberpunk movement. Her early novels and stories all shared a common theme, exploring the relationship between the human mind and technology.
Her first novel, Mindplayers, introduced what became a common theme to all her works. Her stories blurred the line between reality and perception by making the human mind a real and explorable place. Her second novel, Synners, expanded upon the same theme, and featured a future where direct access to the mind via technology was in fact possible.
She has won a number of awards, including the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award twice,in 1992, and 1995 for her novels Synners and Fools.
She currently lives in London, England with her family.
Her first novel, Mindplayers, introduced what became a common theme to all her works. Her stories blurred the line between reality and perception by making the human mind a real and explorable place. Her second novel, Synners, expanded upon the same theme, and featured a future where direct access to the mind via technology was in fact possible.
She has won a number of awards, including the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award twice,in 1992, and 1995 for her novels Synners and Fools.
She currently lives in London, England with her family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
October 5, 2020
“And what are you but what you remember being?�
Cyberpunk at its best! If you’re looking for a plot that’s going to suck out your brain, scramble it in a blender, plop if back into your skull and lightly tap your keister out the door and back into the world, Pat Cadigan has you covered. If you come out of Fools with a crystal clarity as to what you’ve just read, you’re lying.
In a world where you can consume other people’s memories, fantasies or entire lives and live them as you’re own, Fools follows a cast of unreliable narrators, who may or may not be living in the same body. Part paranoid nightmare, part crime thriller, part 90s teen comedy, Fools has something for everyone.
You just have to let yourself go with this one or else risk losing your mind. I loved this!
Cyberpunk at its best! If you’re looking for a plot that’s going to suck out your brain, scramble it in a blender, plop if back into your skull and lightly tap your keister out the door and back into the world, Pat Cadigan has you covered. If you come out of Fools with a crystal clarity as to what you’ve just read, you’re lying.
In a world where you can consume other people’s memories, fantasies or entire lives and live them as you’re own, Fools follows a cast of unreliable narrators, who may or may not be living in the same body. Part paranoid nightmare, part crime thriller, part 90s teen comedy, Fools has something for everyone.
You just have to let yourself go with this one or else risk losing your mind. I loved this!
March 24, 2023
Won the Arthur C Clarke Award.
Deserved it.
HARD TO READ
This book is real fucking complicated, there are only a few *bodies* but many, many, many *characters*, characters inhabiting each others bodies at various levels of awareness and independence, characters taking over from each other and keeping secret from others and themselves.
A diagram or infographic or the various characters timelines would actually come in handy, though it couldn't be used as the whole point of the book is that its a mystery and we are supposed to read closely, slowly working out what the current character knows but also slowly assembling both an image of the world and a deeper inference of what is going on.
HYPERBYZANTINE PLOT STRUCTURE - BEYIND THE GREENWOOD
The deep layering and hall of mirrors approach creates an effect larger than any of its individual parts. If you want to know what is going on you absolutely must read deeply and closely, so this guarantees a certain level of attention.
Think of this as a book you can only read through a microscope, so anyone who has gotten past the middle is guaranteed to be paying close attention to *everything* and that means little crystals of information can be scattered here and there, tiny comments and references that both illuminate the world and also leave pinpoints of understanding of different peoples histories, personalities and backgrounds. Every word is there for a reason.
The shared-and-swapped-mind tech creates a story-engine or a super-noir engine, in literary terms it literalises the metaphor and projects complex questions of selfhood and identity into a kind of crazed orrery of possibilities, in pure story-construction terms it opens up the field for hidden identities within hidden identities within etc etc etc, so the masks and cryptic letters of the gothic novel, or the subtle and deceptive outlaws and priests of an old Robin Hood tale, but now the masks are everywhere and the greenwood is everywhere, the layers are mobile and there is no escape from them, everywhere is wilderness.
The book is actually nearly too much to take. I am not sure a series, or a long-running series at least could be done with *this level* of identity swapping, mind recursions etc. Its too much to keep track of and I feel like, if it were carried on too long, the inevitable loss of meaning from the splintered-glass effect would produce the same hyper-modernist decay on the reader that the society in question is suffering from.
Pretty good to get your brains scrambled for one book though.
WORLDBUILDING
'Government Surplus Eyes'
Can you take your own eyes out?
Sally Lazer and her genuinely discomforting chewing obsession - everybody has a 'thing'.
Marceline can read but she can't write with a pen or pencil. Born poor she has never had to.
Coffee cubes heat the water themselves, its SCI-FI PEOPLE!
There is a free bus service but heli-taxies cost and have their own little upper-class area with better snacks from the vending machine.
No-one takes cash any more, though its still legal tender, cabbies get pissed off if you bring it up.
Virtual Worlds and Computer Games don't seem big or at least are not mentioned; the Memory and Personality trade seems to have eaten most other forms of entertainment, most of those mentioned are very embodied and social; theatre and later on a craze for in-situ social drama becomes more popular, except of course it isn't *actually* embodied because the memories and bodies and fragments of people swimming about in different heads and bodies might be entirely different from one day to the next. To *us* this might seem, in the bourgeoise areas at least, quite a 1970-s cassette-futurism type of society without much glaring digital technology, but it isn't, its totally and utterly info-fucked, its just that the tech is subtle.
No-one in the book is wearing their own eyes - all have been replaced with the synthetic versions you can pop out to gain access to the optic cord, which is the main method of connecting to brain-engines which are the main form of entertainment and mindsharing.
CORE MEMORIES, KEY EVENTS, WILL TO LIVE, DIFFERENT SELVES
Mind-Crime; all created personalities believe they are the actual personality, fed with memories and impulses by the 'main' persona in order to get them to do what is required
a thing that can happen is the created persona 'taking over' and becoming dominant over the original or deeper one. This is horrific, like a horror story for a created persona if they realise they are not real and are just a tool made by someone else they don't know, their past and memories an illusion. Also every incident of this is Mind Crime.
Persona takeover is one of the inciting incidents of the book; a creation simply exhibits more will to live than its creator, it wants it more.
Other selves - some people suffer from pumping or wiping, in which the entirety of a personality is stolen or destroyed, wiped and copied into a 'box'. A personality can't survive forever in a 'box', (also we get into the copy/paste or copy/delete situation, isn't either of these a form of murder?), it has to be implanted into or over a living mind, though in reality it will probably be broken up and the 'parts' talents, memories, etc, sold off to others illegally, the remaining body will be taken by the government to a special facility and over time it will re-grow a new personality and this personality will not be held legally responsible or related to the previous one. Its said the new persona is sometimes like a shadow or alternate of the first, though they may seem wildly different, it is as if they were another person representing a path not taken or choices not made, held down in some way by the first persona, now released.
SPOILERS - THE END
Is humanity in this state collapsing or ascending into some kind of hive mind? It feels that that is what is happening. What happens when there is a rogue viral policeman inside literally everyone's head?
Deserved it.
HARD TO READ
This book is real fucking complicated, there are only a few *bodies* but many, many, many *characters*, characters inhabiting each others bodies at various levels of awareness and independence, characters taking over from each other and keeping secret from others and themselves.
A diagram or infographic or the various characters timelines would actually come in handy, though it couldn't be used as the whole point of the book is that its a mystery and we are supposed to read closely, slowly working out what the current character knows but also slowly assembling both an image of the world and a deeper inference of what is going on.
HYPERBYZANTINE PLOT STRUCTURE - BEYIND THE GREENWOOD
The deep layering and hall of mirrors approach creates an effect larger than any of its individual parts. If you want to know what is going on you absolutely must read deeply and closely, so this guarantees a certain level of attention.
Think of this as a book you can only read through a microscope, so anyone who has gotten past the middle is guaranteed to be paying close attention to *everything* and that means little crystals of information can be scattered here and there, tiny comments and references that both illuminate the world and also leave pinpoints of understanding of different peoples histories, personalities and backgrounds. Every word is there for a reason.
The shared-and-swapped-mind tech creates a story-engine or a super-noir engine, in literary terms it literalises the metaphor and projects complex questions of selfhood and identity into a kind of crazed orrery of possibilities, in pure story-construction terms it opens up the field for hidden identities within hidden identities within etc etc etc, so the masks and cryptic letters of the gothic novel, or the subtle and deceptive outlaws and priests of an old Robin Hood tale, but now the masks are everywhere and the greenwood is everywhere, the layers are mobile and there is no escape from them, everywhere is wilderness.
The book is actually nearly too much to take. I am not sure a series, or a long-running series at least could be done with *this level* of identity swapping, mind recursions etc. Its too much to keep track of and I feel like, if it were carried on too long, the inevitable loss of meaning from the splintered-glass effect would produce the same hyper-modernist decay on the reader that the society in question is suffering from.
Pretty good to get your brains scrambled for one book though.
WORLDBUILDING
'Government Surplus Eyes'
Can you take your own eyes out?
Sally Lazer and her genuinely discomforting chewing obsession - everybody has a 'thing'.
Marceline can read but she can't write with a pen or pencil. Born poor she has never had to.
Coffee cubes heat the water themselves, its SCI-FI PEOPLE!
There is a free bus service but heli-taxies cost and have their own little upper-class area with better snacks from the vending machine.
No-one takes cash any more, though its still legal tender, cabbies get pissed off if you bring it up.
Virtual Worlds and Computer Games don't seem big or at least are not mentioned; the Memory and Personality trade seems to have eaten most other forms of entertainment, most of those mentioned are very embodied and social; theatre and later on a craze for in-situ social drama becomes more popular, except of course it isn't *actually* embodied because the memories and bodies and fragments of people swimming about in different heads and bodies might be entirely different from one day to the next. To *us* this might seem, in the bourgeoise areas at least, quite a 1970-s cassette-futurism type of society without much glaring digital technology, but it isn't, its totally and utterly info-fucked, its just that the tech is subtle.
No-one in the book is wearing their own eyes - all have been replaced with the synthetic versions you can pop out to gain access to the optic cord, which is the main method of connecting to brain-engines which are the main form of entertainment and mindsharing.
CORE MEMORIES, KEY EVENTS, WILL TO LIVE, DIFFERENT SELVES
Mind-Crime; all created personalities believe they are the actual personality, fed with memories and impulses by the 'main' persona in order to get them to do what is required
a thing that can happen is the created persona 'taking over' and becoming dominant over the original or deeper one. This is horrific, like a horror story for a created persona if they realise they are not real and are just a tool made by someone else they don't know, their past and memories an illusion. Also every incident of this is Mind Crime.
Persona takeover is one of the inciting incidents of the book; a creation simply exhibits more will to live than its creator, it wants it more.
Other selves - some people suffer from pumping or wiping, in which the entirety of a personality is stolen or destroyed, wiped and copied into a 'box'. A personality can't survive forever in a 'box', (also we get into the copy/paste or copy/delete situation, isn't either of these a form of murder?), it has to be implanted into or over a living mind, though in reality it will probably be broken up and the 'parts' talents, memories, etc, sold off to others illegally, the remaining body will be taken by the government to a special facility and over time it will re-grow a new personality and this personality will not be held legally responsible or related to the previous one. Its said the new persona is sometimes like a shadow or alternate of the first, though they may seem wildly different, it is as if they were another person representing a path not taken or choices not made, held down in some way by the first persona, now released.
SPOILERS - THE END
Is humanity in this state collapsing or ascending into some kind of hive mind? It feels that that is what is happening. What happens when there is a rogue viral policeman inside literally everyone's head?
November 1, 2011
In her first novel, Mindplayers, Pat Cadigan introduced a very cool setting and technology. Unfortunately, in my opinion, she didn't do much with it, storywise. Cadigan returns to the setting of Mindplayers in her third novel, Fools, and this time she delivers an engrossing story that takes full advantage of the cool world she has created. Fools (which won the 1995 Arthur C Clarke Award) is a science fiction mystery wrapped in a mind-fuck. Our main character is an actress who plays her roles by having the character's personality downloaded into her mind. She has been suffering from memory lapses lately, and can't account for several days of time. Or maybe our main character is a memory junkie who is addicted to downloading other people's experiences. She'll do whatever she needs to to get her next fix. She is the one suffering from memory lapses - the actress is just a memory she downloaded that glitched and took over for a while. Although the actress did play a memory junkie in a recent play, so maybe the memory junkie personality is the glitch. Or maybe both the actress and the memory junkie are undercover aliases being used by our real main character - a mind cop. Or is the mind cop personality another role the actress once played? Or a highly illegal bootleg memory stolen by the memory junkie?
The story is pretty complex - definitely not a light read - but once you've wrapped your head around what is going on, it is a fun ride.
The story is pretty complex - definitely not a light read - but once you've wrapped your head around what is going on, it is a fun ride.
April 25, 2025
Creative, complex mindfuck book that plays with identity and memory.
September 21, 2015
A first person story, told by a character with multiple personalities, with a fetish/addiction for adding and subtracting memories at will, and at least one of those personalities (possibly the "real" one) is an undercover police.
It's exactly as confusing as it sounds, and falls over under the weight of it's own pretentions. For much of the book, I was unable to tell which personality was narrating (apparently in the print edition, different fonts are used, which would undoubtedly help - not so on the kindle), nor was I able to form any attachment or interest in any of them. I'm still, having finished the book, unable to describe what actually happened, or (for that matter) why you should care.
A shame, as the concept is pretty good, and I've read similar books that work much better - this just fell over in the execution.
August 25, 2015
Fools was an incredibly fun book. I loved the humor, the flashy, grungy, world, and the characters with strong, vibrant personalities. The conversational, hilarious narration from each of the protagonists was a real pleasure to read. The style of the book—that it was told switching constantly through different personalities� points-of-view—made the plot itself a entertaining puzzle to figure out. This also made the story seem a little muddled at times, but it was always entertaining.
March 29, 2022
This was an unusual reading experience, it's a cyberpunk novel where it is possible for people to buy the memories of others and even artificial personalities. The protagonist starts off the story with a major identity crisis with multiple personalities fighting for dominance and as a result it's a disconcerting book to read with frequent (and often abrupt) changes in perspective between different points of view all of which are confused to some extent about what is going on. It's a bit hard to follow the story at first due to this, as the book goes along it does start to make more sense although it's definitely a story where each answer just leads to more questions. It's an impressive and unique story, although I'm not sure how much I really enjoyed reading it and since none of the characters are particularly likeable it was hard to care too much about what was happening to them. There's always a bit of a risk for a cyberpunk novel from the early 90s that it might end up feeling dated, but I think it mostly doesn't aside from characters still using public landlines since it may have technologies to manipulate minds and memories and flying taxis but apparently no mobile computing devices.
March 29, 2022
Glad I read 'Mindplayers' first. Same kind of universe, same kind of surrealistic personality shifts. Only... cranked up to impossible paranoia levels. Sometimes hard to follow because of the many names that start with the same couple letters. But that's on me. I think it's a good thing to not overthink this one. Go with the flow. Do we really know who we are? Maybe, I don't know. It's definitely something I was glad I finally got to read. Super sci-fi from the '90. Masterly done, one of the godmothers of cyberpunk. Give this a try, I promise you'll come out a different person. Ha, and ha.
Read
June 17, 2024Either I’ve gotten better at reading cyberpunk that takes place in layers of virtual realities, or Fools is a little easier to follow than Synners, the other Cadigan I’ve read. Basically, three women walk into a brain. Or maybe it’s one woman, a split-off personality, and two faked-up ones. Or maybe it’s a different woman, two split-off personalities, and one faked-up one. Or maybe it’s one real woman, another real personality from a different body and two fakes. One’s an actress, one’s the same actress but she wants to sell out, one’s a junkie who works as a suicide-enabler to pay her debts, and one��s a cop. Fools is essentially three novellas—although given its theatrical themes, that might also be a nod to the concept of three-act dramatic structure—set in a world of brainsuckers and memory addicts, where Method acting taken to its logical extreme is practiced by actors who create their characters and literally cosplay as them, physically and mentally; where undercover cops are given new personae in the realest sense, and where a personality can be split into, and live in, half a dozen or more different heads. (“He didn’t know who was supposed to meet her—him as the whore, him as Dionysius, him as Sovay as Dionysius, Sovay as him, Sovay as him as Dionysius—he’d even lost all track of whether he or Sovay had been Dionysius.”—p. 215.) Cadigan differentiates each persona by changing font, which more or less works, although four characters is about as far as you can stretch that technique. I liked the noir atmosphere, the seediness and knowingness of the voice(s). One way to read Fools is slowly and microscopically, but actually, the mystery plot was compelling enough to pull me rapidly on. Overthinking might have been detrimental; letting it wash over me was enough to figure most of it out. Cadigan eventually explains enough that the uncertainty at the start doesn’t feel pointless. It would certainly bear re-reading, to see all the connections in the light of the ending.
April 27, 2023
Pat Cadigan's neuro-dystopia novel "Fools" is a tough story to follow. The main character has at least three distinct personas and we are never quite sure which is the original and which ones are implants or simply assorted memory downloads. One is a method actor; another is a member of the "brain police" and the third is a memory junkie. Whichever one is real, all three are being pursued and she/they don't quite remember why. Oh, and the people looking for her also have multiple personas. It is all set in an unnamed city with a Bowery-like section called The Downs where all the cheap psycho-thrills can be found, caveat emptor.
It's a challenging read and several fans admit to reading it multiple times to truly understand what is going on. I think once is enough for me, though I do think it is a fascinating glimpse of what may be.
It's a challenging read and several fans admit to reading it multiple times to truly understand what is going on. I think once is enough for me, though I do think it is a fascinating glimpse of what may be.
July 16, 2019
This is such an odd story, and the first half is very confusing. The seconf half, however, is much more of a solid entry. Still, I liked the random mystery of the thing, even when I didn't quite know what was going on. I was waiting for the shock ending implied in the introduction, but didn't find it all that shocking or surprising to be honest. If you like your scifi random and borderline nonsensical, then this might be the book for you.
June 20, 2019
Well that was a rush. Really top notch writing and I love the way Cadigan uses language - she's a brilliant technician on top of just being wildly inventive.
I read this after reading "Synners," and it's even more fast paced and magnetic. Personally, Synners opens slow and then gradually resolves into frenetic panic - whereas "Fools" just takes off and laughs at you while you try and catch up. Personally, I'd still rate Synners slightly ahead of this, and the ending is a tiny bit rushed for my taste - but it's still an all-time great work.
So glad that SF Masterworks has this back out and I will definitely be recommending this to friends.
I read this after reading "Synners," and it's even more fast paced and magnetic. Personally, Synners opens slow and then gradually resolves into frenetic panic - whereas "Fools" just takes off and laughs at you while you try and catch up. Personally, I'd still rate Synners slightly ahead of this, and the ending is a tiny bit rushed for my taste - but it's still an all-time great work.
So glad that SF Masterworks has this back out and I will definitely be recommending this to friends.
March 10, 2008
I really wanted to like this book - cyberpunk, after all - but it was about 100 pages before I actually understood what was going on and it was entirely written from the POV of interior monologues of characters I felt no warmth toward at all. Not enough payoff for the work.
Mind you, I finished it...
Mind you, I finished it...
April 18, 2012
Fun cyberpunk - you're utterly confused because the narrator is. In a future in which memories can be shifted from person to person, identity or any kind of consistent viewpoint is impossible, especially if you're brain police, or a method actor, or a memory junkie. Or all three. Really well-built world.
October 18, 2020
Friends? Mainly I was confused here... But I liked the coffee cubes.
February 13, 2024
My copy of this book immediately got me off to a bad start with an atrocious forward written by Tricia Sullivan (apparently a sci-fi writer but I'd never heard of her until now) which blabbed on about how Philip K Dick was over rated and how Pat Cadigan was an unsung genius largely ignored because of course sexism. Or maybe the book just isn't that good? And that's the fundamental problem with Fools; it's really not that good. It comes off like some Neuromancer/We Can Remember It for You Wholesale mashup dialled up to eleven on the confusing spectrum with plenty of 90's era hoopy future jive talk. It's fun for a bit but it's one note so expect plenty of:
...then I looked down
Groovy pants was shouting something at me.
Huh?
I musta screwed the pooch real nasty this time.
Whatever I did (or didn't do).... it must have made a real mess.
Is that cat in the mirror me?
Suddenly I blacked out again.
For three hundred tedious pages. I suppose one plus is that the insuferable stanza like writing makes the pages go faster so maybe it's really closer to 250. Of course, the real problem with this book is pacing; specifically in that the reader never gets time to recover from anything that's happened. It just throws more and more identical amnesia nonsense at you. Okay, I get it, memories can be bought and sold and the protagonist doesn't know who she is. Can we go somewhere with this? No, okay, let's rehash the above ad infinitum. Kind of reminds me of that god awful Mad Max remake from a few years back so I guess if you liked that tosh you'll like this. Then again I probably didn't like it cus sexism or something.
...then I looked down
Groovy pants was shouting something at me.
Huh?
I musta screwed the pooch real nasty this time.
Whatever I did (or didn't do).... it must have made a real mess.
Is that cat in the mirror me?
Suddenly I blacked out again.
For three hundred tedious pages. I suppose one plus is that the insuferable stanza like writing makes the pages go faster so maybe it's really closer to 250. Of course, the real problem with this book is pacing; specifically in that the reader never gets time to recover from anything that's happened. It just throws more and more identical amnesia nonsense at you. Okay, I get it, memories can be bought and sold and the protagonist doesn't know who she is. Can we go somewhere with this? No, okay, let's rehash the above ad infinitum. Kind of reminds me of that god awful Mad Max remake from a few years back so I guess if you liked that tosh you'll like this. Then again I probably didn't like it cus sexism or something.
July 2, 2020
“In all the complexity born of sheer duration…that’s what ultimately belongs to me, to anyone: beauty, and loss.�
Coming off some earlier cyberpunk works such as Mindplayers and Synners, Pat Cadigan’s Fools, while not placed in the Mindplayers series of books (labeled Deadpan Allie), feels like it takes place within the same world. The most exciting elements of Mindplayers can be found in it. Most predominate are memories as a commodity, the consumption of which comes with a high akin to drugs, so long as the memory is relatively new to the mind. Cadigan extrapolates societal paranoia and deliberately conflates it with individual, subjective memory. Years later Strange Days poses the same question: are you paranoid enough? Only in Fools, when you can buy memories along with the pop culture you’re consuming, it’s perhaps an even more terrifying thing to consider.
“How about you, madam? You may think you’re paranoid. But are you paranoid enough?�
The main character is at the crux of an intriguing exploration regarding a personal identity and how much of it is entangled in their memories. Especially if those memories do not belong to that person. Fools keeps the reader guessing. You’ll never be 100% sure who the main character actually is.
She may be an actress who downloads characters, embodying them for a time and then expels them from her mind. She could also be a memory junkie, addicted to the high. And, possibly, the actress is just one such collection of memories, a persona. While the junkie is the “real� person.
“What’s that old saying? Art is long. But life is short. And memory is my past that changed.�
Just when you think you’ve got a hold on what is going on the rug is pulled out from your feet. Again and again, with each part of the story as it unfolds, a new twist is introduced that brings into question what you thought you knew.
As the main character, as I’ll refer to her as, since who knows her real name or persona at any given time, is coming to grips with what may be happening within her own mind, she is also being pursued by people who have their own relationships to the people occupying her mind. It’s a very satisfying, twisting story that reveals more of what happened gradually. Introducing more complexity to the story at just the right times, so it is never overwhelming when it easily could be.
Fools navigates different areas of the city in riveting fashion. Surfacing each persona in the main character in a fish-out-of-water type situation that the reader can easily identify with. As she flounders, so do you. Personhood and embodiment are explored at a different angle than previous works. The reader taken along for the ride.
“You looking for truth?…Or just keeping a secret?�
Cadigan also continues to show distinction from other authors at the time by not putting poverty and marginalization tourism, as well as hyper-sexualization—things typically associated with cyberpunk during this time—at the forefront of her work. There is also no love interest central to the character. There is no giant megacorp with the boot of the neck of the impoverished for shock, either.
“People who mouthkiss are capable of anything.�
Instead, low life aspects feel more authentic and engaging. Each new notion regarding marginalization parallels a direct experience from the character. Even when one of the personas is an escort, and beauty is definitely depicted as a commodity being leveraged by those with power, it isn’t shown in a male gaze way. It’s merely a fact of life for people and something tied to the identity of the main character(s).
Cadigan occupies a beguiling, at times, intersection of cyberpunk because while she is often called “The Queen of Cyberpunk� and is sometimes in academia thumbed for not being directly feminist—she is also undoubtedly, never really invoking tropes typically associated with masculine authors in the genre. Her characters are competent. They are not defined by gender and are not sexually liberated and non-monogamous. Sex takes a back seat and never used solely to depict marginalization. The exploration of the idea is what matters principally in her cyberpunk works.
“Truth is cheap. Information costs. Can you afford information? Or only the truth�
Another device used to significant effect is the changes to how the text is presented. It is changed up to help the reader with the transitions from the different identities surfacing in the main character. Fonts change. Sometimes they are in bold; sometimes italicized. Even still, however, this is a much more complex narrative than the typical cyberpunk books. It will challenge you, as it uses these changes in the story to drive forward the plot at a much more frenetic pace. The changes also work to further ground the reader in the headspace. It’s clever and fun. The cadence of each character’s “voice� adapts to the textual switch ups, really driving home the differences in each one.
Unfortunately, some of my favorite elements of the plot need to be kept mysterious because they reveal some of the plot. Make no mistake, Fools is one of the most compelling cyberpunk novels. Even more so when you consider how unique it is for the year it was released: the same year, in fact, as the release of Snow Crash, 1992.
Ironically, Fools was another fantastic addition to a plethora of books that prove the sub-genre was just hitting its stride. Some of its very best contributions began just when the founders of the sub-genre declared the cyberpunk movement—not the sub-genre—was dead upon the release of the satirical, post-cyberpunk Snow Crash. At the time, it seemed to mark the commodification and absorption of cyberpunk into “mainstream� science fiction and pop culture. Read the two side by side, however, and you’ll find none of the elements in Snow Crash that were satirized.
In hindsight, various, typically more marginalized, authors met with limited commercial success at the time were already busy iterating on cyberpunk. Fools is illustrative of that fact, and appropriately titled.
“Funny how that works, how you can lose someone by finding her.�
more reviews @ consumingcyberpunk.com
Coming off some earlier cyberpunk works such as Mindplayers and Synners, Pat Cadigan’s Fools, while not placed in the Mindplayers series of books (labeled Deadpan Allie), feels like it takes place within the same world. The most exciting elements of Mindplayers can be found in it. Most predominate are memories as a commodity, the consumption of which comes with a high akin to drugs, so long as the memory is relatively new to the mind. Cadigan extrapolates societal paranoia and deliberately conflates it with individual, subjective memory. Years later Strange Days poses the same question: are you paranoid enough? Only in Fools, when you can buy memories along with the pop culture you’re consuming, it’s perhaps an even more terrifying thing to consider.
“How about you, madam? You may think you’re paranoid. But are you paranoid enough?�
The main character is at the crux of an intriguing exploration regarding a personal identity and how much of it is entangled in their memories. Especially if those memories do not belong to that person. Fools keeps the reader guessing. You’ll never be 100% sure who the main character actually is.
She may be an actress who downloads characters, embodying them for a time and then expels them from her mind. She could also be a memory junkie, addicted to the high. And, possibly, the actress is just one such collection of memories, a persona. While the junkie is the “real� person.
“What’s that old saying? Art is long. But life is short. And memory is my past that changed.�
Just when you think you’ve got a hold on what is going on the rug is pulled out from your feet. Again and again, with each part of the story as it unfolds, a new twist is introduced that brings into question what you thought you knew.
As the main character, as I’ll refer to her as, since who knows her real name or persona at any given time, is coming to grips with what may be happening within her own mind, she is also being pursued by people who have their own relationships to the people occupying her mind. It’s a very satisfying, twisting story that reveals more of what happened gradually. Introducing more complexity to the story at just the right times, so it is never overwhelming when it easily could be.
Fools navigates different areas of the city in riveting fashion. Surfacing each persona in the main character in a fish-out-of-water type situation that the reader can easily identify with. As she flounders, so do you. Personhood and embodiment are explored at a different angle than previous works. The reader taken along for the ride.
“You looking for truth?…Or just keeping a secret?�
Cadigan also continues to show distinction from other authors at the time by not putting poverty and marginalization tourism, as well as hyper-sexualization—things typically associated with cyberpunk during this time—at the forefront of her work. There is also no love interest central to the character. There is no giant megacorp with the boot of the neck of the impoverished for shock, either.
“People who mouthkiss are capable of anything.�
Instead, low life aspects feel more authentic and engaging. Each new notion regarding marginalization parallels a direct experience from the character. Even when one of the personas is an escort, and beauty is definitely depicted as a commodity being leveraged by those with power, it isn’t shown in a male gaze way. It’s merely a fact of life for people and something tied to the identity of the main character(s).
Cadigan occupies a beguiling, at times, intersection of cyberpunk because while she is often called “The Queen of Cyberpunk� and is sometimes in academia thumbed for not being directly feminist—she is also undoubtedly, never really invoking tropes typically associated with masculine authors in the genre. Her characters are competent. They are not defined by gender and are not sexually liberated and non-monogamous. Sex takes a back seat and never used solely to depict marginalization. The exploration of the idea is what matters principally in her cyberpunk works.
“Truth is cheap. Information costs. Can you afford information? Or only the truth�
Another device used to significant effect is the changes to how the text is presented. It is changed up to help the reader with the transitions from the different identities surfacing in the main character. Fonts change. Sometimes they are in bold; sometimes italicized. Even still, however, this is a much more complex narrative than the typical cyberpunk books. It will challenge you, as it uses these changes in the story to drive forward the plot at a much more frenetic pace. The changes also work to further ground the reader in the headspace. It’s clever and fun. The cadence of each character’s “voice� adapts to the textual switch ups, really driving home the differences in each one.
Unfortunately, some of my favorite elements of the plot need to be kept mysterious because they reveal some of the plot. Make no mistake, Fools is one of the most compelling cyberpunk novels. Even more so when you consider how unique it is for the year it was released: the same year, in fact, as the release of Snow Crash, 1992.
Ironically, Fools was another fantastic addition to a plethora of books that prove the sub-genre was just hitting its stride. Some of its very best contributions began just when the founders of the sub-genre declared the cyberpunk movement—not the sub-genre—was dead upon the release of the satirical, post-cyberpunk Snow Crash. At the time, it seemed to mark the commodification and absorption of cyberpunk into “mainstream� science fiction and pop culture. Read the two side by side, however, and you’ll find none of the elements in Snow Crash that were satirized.
In hindsight, various, typically more marginalized, authors met with limited commercial success at the time were already busy iterating on cyberpunk. Fools is illustrative of that fact, and appropriately titled.
“Funny how that works, how you can lose someone by finding her.�
more reviews @ consumingcyberpunk.com
November 11, 2022
I liked this book but must admit I didn't understand it well enough to describe it or give a proper synopsis. Mostly what I liked about it is the fact that for an older cyberpunk novel, while the plot details often confused me, the narrative itself was relatable enough to read without much difficulty, compared to the likes of Bruce Sterling or William Gibson, both of whom I've struggled with to get through their books. Fools is all about a future where memories can be shared or used (to some degree; I think). The story is told mainly by two characters, Marva, a "Method" actress who uses memories to completely immerse herself in a role, and Marceline, a memory junkie Escort who is forced into getting involved in Marva's life, and to a smaller degree, a third character who is a deep undercover Brain Police cop. The characters may all be the same person, or possibly two or three people, or both, or somewhere in between. (Thus, my confusion regarding the plot.) Despite still not fully understanding the details after completing the book, I did mostly enjoy the story, although it really could have been much shorter as parts got repetitive. 3.5/5*
April 3, 2020
In this world, you can integrate bits of personality, incorporate someone's memories, or do a full overlay, changing your speech patterns, memories, and personality. You can even stretch certain muscles and go to Wardrobe to get a new face and body. There are memory junkies, dealers, and Brain Police to watch over it all.
Once you're in the world of the book, the constantly shifting viewpoint (all within the same person) with matching shifting fonts is such a wild and fun trip to follow. For me, the book was Philip K. Dick meets Jack Kerouac. In fact, her other books have felt the same.
The book is broken into three distinct parts and the twists in each of them will grab you. I got a little frustrated at times with my understanding of which personality was speaking, but I couldn't put down the second and third part of the book. I'd like more in the world, though it left me feeling like I couldn't trust my own thoughts and perceptions!
Once you're in the world of the book, the constantly shifting viewpoint (all within the same person) with matching shifting fonts is such a wild and fun trip to follow. For me, the book was Philip K. Dick meets Jack Kerouac. In fact, her other books have felt the same.
The book is broken into three distinct parts and the twists in each of them will grab you. I got a little frustrated at times with my understanding of which personality was speaking, but I couldn't put down the second and third part of the book. I'd like more in the world, though it left me feeling like I couldn't trust my own thoughts and perceptions!
December 30, 2018
I approached this with some trepidation, having bounced off Synners a few months ago - but actually I really enjoyed this tale of a woman with three identities, or possibly three women sharing bodies, or possibly a woman struggling for mindspace with two artificial personalities, each with different parts of the picture trying to work out what is going on. I found it very engaging and even funny in places, as well as a serious exploration of what might happen if personalities can be uploaded and downloaded freely (or, well, for a fee or some other consideration). Cyberpunk doesn't usually do it for me, but this hit the mark.
January 26, 2024
A legitimately creative take on cyberpunk where personalities themselves can be digitised, swapped, sold, even franchised: Fools is the story of an actress who really can't be quite sure exactly who she really is, because her method-acting is so extreme that it looks like one of her roles has begun living a life of its own.
This is a mind-melting cyberpunk mystery story made even more mind-bending by my reading an eBook version that didn't differentiate in any way between the different personalities our heroine switches between throughout the story. I understand the paperback edition used different fonts; all I had to rely on was paying close attention to vocal tics. It didn't diminish my enjoyment in any way, but it was maybe a bit more confusing than it had to be.
This is a mind-melting cyberpunk mystery story made even more mind-bending by my reading an eBook version that didn't differentiate in any way between the different personalities our heroine switches between throughout the story. I understand the paperback edition used different fonts; all I had to rely on was paying close attention to vocal tics. It didn't diminish my enjoyment in any way, but it was maybe a bit more confusing than it had to be.
June 13, 2017
I didn't really get this book for the first quarter, a situation not helped by the lack of differentiation of fonts on my Nook. Upon switching to the publisher default fonts, the different styles for different passages made a lot of things click into place rather more easily, and so it went much more smoothly from then onwards. It was an interesting read, but I'm not sure I understand the accolades showered upon it; having said that, it wouldn't be the first time a widely-acclaimed book left me cold!
December 5, 2020
There’s a really solid idea in the centre of this, but it’s told in such a convoluted manner. Somehow manages to be too repetitive and not give enough info at the same time!
When it works, it’s doing what cyberpunk does best: telling a highly convoluted thriller story in an imaginative future. But it also disappears up its own ass, refusing to return for frustratingly long periods. I hung on for dear life trying to make sense of part 1, but then I couldn’t tell who was what when part 2 started so I kinda skimmed...
Cool ideas, glad it’s over 🤣
When it works, it’s doing what cyberpunk does best: telling a highly convoluted thriller story in an imaginative future. But it also disappears up its own ass, refusing to return for frustratingly long periods. I hung on for dear life trying to make sense of part 1, but then I couldn’t tell who was what when part 2 started so I kinda skimmed...
Cool ideas, glad it’s over 🤣
February 8, 2025
Wtf! I don't even know who I am anymore!
About a quarter in, I had to ask Google what in the seamy Downs is going on here? I was assured that by 100 pages it would start to make some kind of sense... and it did, kind of but don't ask me to explain because I'll get all in a muddle!
The characters were fascinating and I enjoyed the twisted humour. I've not read anything else like it and I probably won't again.
Now pop my eyes out and make me forget so I can read it again for the first time ha and ha
About a quarter in, I had to ask Google what in the seamy Downs is going on here? I was assured that by 100 pages it would start to make some kind of sense... and it did, kind of but don't ask me to explain because I'll get all in a muddle!
The characters were fascinating and I enjoyed the twisted humour. I've not read anything else like it and I probably won't again.
Now pop my eyes out and make me forget so I can read it again for the first time ha and ha
November 2, 2020
So, it's one of those 'ok' books - nothing groundbreaking, but still, a nice thing to read, especially as it is set in a cyberpunk world. Definitely read it in paperback, not ebook, as it's written in first-person point of view and has three unique characters, each of them has its own font style. Without it - it must be confusing reading it on your Kindle.
Overall, I've enjoyed it, first 2/3 of the book more than the last pages. If you like weird worlds and cyberpunk - give it a try.
Overall, I've enjoyed it, first 2/3 of the book more than the last pages. If you like weird worlds and cyberpunk - give it a try.
June 1, 2019
When the core of the story is about merging minds, identities and personas, you need to be very careful that there is some coherent story allowed to survive. In the case of Fools, I found it too hard to track who was what, and when I did occasionally get a sense what was going on, I did not care enough. Some small bursts of interesting world building, but little else. Disappointing.
January 12, 2020
3.5
Still love this universe. Wanna be there. Minus the brainsuck pls.
Cool idea- identities on identities inside identities envious of identities hiding identities. V complex. Dragged in the middle approaching identity crisis tedium and then a favorite was mindsucked. But the last act brought a punch.
As always, the world Cadigan conjures is vivid and sexy and disturbingly sublime.
Still love this universe. Wanna be there. Minus the brainsuck pls.
Cool idea- identities on identities inside identities envious of identities hiding identities. V complex. Dragged in the middle approaching identity crisis tedium and then a favorite was mindsucked. But the last act brought a punch.
As always, the world Cadigan conjures is vivid and sexy and disturbingly sublime.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 6, 2020
There is a lot going on here. It’s mystery-crime novel that explores identity in a future where memories & identity are profitable commodities and addictions. Top notch writing. Ms. Cadigan chucks you in and let’s you sort out what’s happening which can be a smidge confusing and takes some mental effort but it all gets sorted out by the end.
April 25, 2024
Kind of a confusing mess, to be honest: this is a high-concept idea that suffers badly from not being rendered in some kind of visual medium, like a film or TV miniseries. It's implied in the intro to this that people are cowards because they haven't adapted it, but good luck putting together a pitch deck for this that anybody's going to understand.
May 27, 2019
"...If it was worth forgetting, it's not worth remembering."
Read it for bookclub and glad it was chosen. While it had a rather slow start to get to the hook, once there I was having a lot of fun reading it.
Read it for bookclub and glad it was chosen. While it had a rather slow start to get to the hook, once there I was having a lot of fun reading it.
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