Rating: 
Summary: Powerful Fiction
Review: A friend of mine is a big science fiction fan and she gave me Idlewild for Christmas. We don't usually share the same tastes (I'm a huge mystery/thriller fan), so I acted happier about getting it than I actually was. But she promised I'd love it, and sure enough she was right!Nick Sagan's debut novel is a literary gem and a true genrebuster. Not only did I find the plot smart and compelling and the characters well-drawn, but the writing itself is crisp and moving. The mystery keeps you guessing, but it raises deeper questions too, the kind that rise far above the average whodunit. I sped through this page turner in three days and now can't wait for the sequel. If all science fiction books read like this one, I'd be a major fan of the genre. Idlewild is powerful fiction, read and enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: A promising and assured debut
Review: A smooth blend of virtual reality and suspense, impressively reminiscent (to this reader anyway) of Iain M Banks (particularly The Bridge) crossed with Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash) with just a touch of Ender's Game thrown in. With the Author's heritage you might perhaps have expected a harder SF slant but this is set in the near future and is a more contemporary book touching on themes of genetics, AI/VR, and even, in an subtle way, certain comic book conventions which are used to good effect (groups of related 'special' people, each with defined characteristics and allegiances/rivalries). I suggest that the book is best read knowing as little as you can about the plot (i.e. try and avoid reading the dust jacket description)...allowing you to enjoy unravelling events along with the main protoganist who starts the story with amnesia. This is very much an 'origins' story and whilst it stands alone well (in the way the film Unbreakable does), I would be very surprised if a follow-up was not planned. I'm looking forward to it.
Rating:
Summary: AN INTRIGUING PUZZLER
Review: Both Clayton Barclay Jones and Beth McDonald give riveting voice performances of this gripping, imaginative debut by Nick Sagan, son of the noted Carl Sagan. Attention is caught after only minutes when a young man recovers consciousness. He is fully awake but remembers nothing - save for the fact that someone or something wants him dead. Of that he is certain. He becomes known as Halloween, and is one of nine high school students undergoing training by a strange master called Maestro. They exist in an eerie computer generated virtual reality state. Whom can he trust? Determined to recover his memory which, apparently, has been erased by a power surge, Halloween struggles on. Amazingly, he is able to utilize abilities that he didn't know he possessed. However, the question of who he is and who might be trying to kill him is only a very small part of the puzzle he must piece together. Give "Idlewild" a listen - you won't forget it. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: Fully realized science fiction fantasy
Review: I don't finish most books I pick up but this one I did. My (half) brother sent me a copy. He wrote a Star Trek episode or two and lived in Studio City and his experience with the craft of plotting really shows. I don't mind saying I'm both proud of him and a little envious. I would have liked to have seen more about the etiology of "Black Ep," the global human population-destroying virus, and I was curious what made the Idlewild youths more than human (although the characters' iteration was enough to suspend my disbelief). I also thought there was something maybe a little too easy about a virtual world in which almost anything is possible. Another qualm is the kind of Sam Spady tough talk of the protagonist, although it was quite often often clever and suffused with a low-burn anger-alienation that was easy for me to identify with and kept me turning the pages. Without giving away too much of the plot, I found the "dream-within-a-dream" motif brilliant, and I wish this book and Nick continued success in all his endeavors. A fully realized science fiction fantasy.
Rating: 
Summary: Incongruent, Illogical Sci-Fi, with monotonous and S'Hollow'
Review: I feel so used, my time and money wasted in having spent my thoughts in pondering out this juvenilelistic, unsensible imagination, no, it can't even called an imagination of this so called writing? I have to admit that I had to stop reading and drop this plain jane of a story, almost near the end, when Hollow-een and his companion went 'shopping'? In the midst of an armageddon, the shopping malls remained unlocked? And, who buried the last of the dead bodies? The simplicity of virtual within virtualness is so weak. This story is like a cheap sci-fi movie, no, I take that back. I cannot credit this story to any of those 'classics'! And, what's with the author stuck on ALL of his characters saying the same and exact curse word. I tried hard to finish the book so that I may just put in my criticism with credibility, but, I had to move on to another novel!
Rating:
Summary: Idlewild
Review: I know that it has often been said before, but its really applicable: THIS A MUST READ. The author's weaves a plot that is not 5 stars, no its 10 stars: Very, exciting, very interesting, very wonderful. As the story unfolds you cannot believe how the next page or the next 20 pages can be better than the last, but I assure you they are.
Rating: 
Summary: Focus, please, Mr. Sagan.
Review: I wanted to love this book. I really did. It's right up my alley--I just came off of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver and William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. And I'm a huge fan of the author's dad, which sent me into Idlewild ready to love just about anything. But this book is just too meandering, fuzzy in detail, and lacking in resolution. Too many key plot points are resolved too quickly or in an unsatisfactory manner. I never really believed in the characters or their world. I was unable to suspend disbelief. Yes, as other reviewers have said, I'll probably read the next book. But I'll go into it with considerably less enthusiasm. Mr. Sagan, I hope you surprise me with book 2.
Rating:
Summary: Just an Outline, Not a Book
Review: Idlewild seemed more like an outline of a potentially good book, than a real book. The story lacked depth, character development and description. Perhaps N. Sagan will expand it some time into something more meaty. Or maybe I was spoiled by just finishing the 4 book Otherland series by Tad Williams.
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling & Poignant
Review: Idlewild starts off as a quirky story about a teenage amnesiac but swiftly heads into unfamiliar waters, ratcheting up the tension and the stakes until it builds into a monster of a good story. The plot is too much fun for me to give away, and instead of reading reviews that do, you're much better off just picking it up and giving it a try. You'll either tap into it or you won't, but if you do, look out.
Sagan is a rare find, a skillful writer who has something meaningful to say. I look forward to many more novels from him.
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling & Poignant
Review: Idlewild starts off as a quirky story about a teenage amnesiac but swiftly heads into unfamiliar waters, ratcheting up the tension and the stakes until it builds into a monster of a good story. The plot is too much fun for me to give away, and instead of reading reviews that do, you're much better off just picking it up and giving it a try. You'll either tap into it or you won't, but if you do, look out.
Sagan is a rare find, a skillful writer who has something meaningful to say. I look forward to many more novels from him.
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