The Man With No Name
Tanweer Dar (@Tanweer_Dar)
Reviewed by Matt Adcock (@cleric20)
“The neon lights cast a pink and blue glow
over the glistening wet road…”
The Man With No Name is a fun bite-sized
cyberpunk novella in a world that owes a debt to a myriad near futures we’ve seen on screen. Author Tanweer is obviously a fan of movies and you get that cinematic almost script like feel. I enjoyed the virtually shared lore with
Complete Darkness where everyone has a Headchip – except here one man remains
unchipped – no prizes in guessing that this is our unnamed hero.
In this bleak
and sparsely populated tale, the titular Man With No Name fights a lonely battle
to try and prevent our freedom being overwritten by a bio/tech fusion – this is
a nice touch beginning to blur the lines between biology and technology. It all
cracks along at a good pace and there are some good action set pieces. I felt in
places the author over details passages – conversations are full of ‘he / she
saids’ and the prose doesn’t flow easily. This is in contrast to the characters
who don’t get much flesh on their bones. There are also some stock descriptions
that come up again and again about the black muscle car the hero drives. Not
being too complex does mean that this would be a good taster cyberpunk for young
adult readers.
Street drive...
I asked Tanweer about his inspiration for the book, he said: “The
Man With No Name is a novella set in a dystopian world. It’s a world in which
most people have surrendered control to an almost omnipotent corporation, which
can track them and their actions at will. This is largely due to the fact that
everyone is chipped. They gain access using their chips, are identified via
their chips, and pay for transactions.
Into this cyberpunk setting comes a
shadowy figure, a man with no chip, and no name. Protected from the corporation
by his mother, he now seeks to find justice for what happened to her – and in
turn, him. Coupled with the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence, this
quest leads to enormous, unintended consequences.
In terms of inspiration,
certainly, motifs and environments explored in films such as Drive and Blade
Runner, and to a lesser extent post-apocalyptic action such as Mad Max, are
evident in The Man With No Name. At its core, however, is the very human story
of a mother-son relationship and the search for the essence of freedom.”
If
you’ve a hankering for a cyberpunk hit that you can consume in one sitting -
this is a lightning-fast and enjoyable read. Will be interesting to see what
Tanweer does with a longer novel.
Out of a potential 5 - you have to go with a Darkmatters:
öööö
(4 - Short and sweet cyber tale)
Grab a slice of Cyber action here
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