The Twilight Zone: Upgrade & Sensuous Cindy | ||||||||
Pat Cadigan | ||||||||
Black Flame, 415 pages | ||||||||
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A review by Steve Lazarowitz
To generalize, I enjoyed Sensuous Cindy far more than Upgrade for a number of reasons.
The best thing about the original Twilight Zone is that it's a quick hit. You knew something was up by watching the
teaser, before Rod Serling came in for his monologue. You didn't have to wait, because the stories depended upon easily identifiable
stereotypes as characters. You knew immediately you were looking at a gangster, or a tired businessman or an absent-minded
professor. Not having seen much of the new series, I couldn't really say how it compares, but I can say in the first story of this
book, that was my major problem.
To read fifty pages of internal monologue to get to the speculative element might work for some books, but not
the Twilight Zone. It didn't work for me.
Upgrade is about Annie Macintosh, a woman obsessed by perfection. She wanted, and subsequently purchased, the perfect
house in the perfect neighborhood. That her family wasn't perfect was only too obvious to her, but at least she did for them what
she could by providing the safety of a better neighborhood, and a better standard of living. This concept of perfection was
mentioned so often, I was beginning to wonder if there was more to the story, which of course there was. It just took fifty pages
to get to it.
The introduction to the story, which would be the Rod Serling monologue, suggests the story addresses why it can be a bad thing
to get what you ask for. When the story doesn't address that point, it's disappointing. Frankly, I thought the ending of this
story was ill-conceived, something I certainly wouldn't blame on the author. She was adapting an episode of a television series,
after all.
The second story, to me, was everything the Twilight Zone was supposed to be about. A well-written, brilliant setup,
followed by a rising tide that continued to build throughout, until the end, which made the whole story.
Sensuous Cindy is about a man named Ben, the senior photographic editor for Brash magazine, a men's magazine replete
with naked women, cool ads and fascinating articles. Samantha is Ben's fiancée, who has talked him into going six months without
sex before the wedding. This is particularly problematical, because they sleep in the same bed. More to the point, Ben's day job
requires him to look at gorgeous naked women all day, every day. Not a huge problem for most men, unless you love your
fiancée, and you're determined to remain faithful.
Enter Sensuous Cindy, a computer simulation of the perfect woman. It's a thing Ben would never have considered and still
doesn't want to. It's too bad the program itself has other ideas.
It's hard to write a review when you're split right down the middle. I loved the second story, but didn't much care for the first.
If you like internal monologue, you might enjoy the first story a good deal more than I did, which would make this a book to look
for. If you like Pat Cadigan, by all means consider adding this to your collection. If you're like me and love
the Twilight Zone, you might want to give it a go, but if you're not familiar with the television series, or not a
fan of it, my guess is this book may not be to your liking.
Steve Lazarowitz is a speculative fiction writer, an editor, a father, a husband, an animal lover and a heck of a nice guy (not necessarily in that order). Steve lives in Moonah, Tasmania with his family and four giant spiny leaf insects. You can check out his work at http://www.dream-sequence.net. |
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