Rating: 
Summary: Cost/Benefit Analysis Yields Negative Returns
Review: WHO SHOULD READ THIS:
We hated this book. But it's possible that we've totally missed the boat on this one. There are plenty of critics who didn't get The Silmarillion, The Book of the New Sun, and Ulysses when they came out. Pretty much unthinkable to us, but possible. If you really enjoy a challenge in words and are comfortable with reading settings that seem like a drug-induced hallucination trip, then you might really, really like this book. Those with puerile interests in reading about sex will probably like this book quite a lot. If you thought there was little cooler in life than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-book or movie-you might give this thing a try.
WHO sHOULD PASS:
The Law of Diminishing Returns should apply here. There are deeper books that will yield better returns with much less investment. You would do well to concentrate your energies on those books. Perhaps Library Journal was right and this book really is appropriate for "large sci-fi collections." If you've reached a point where you've comfortably read anything very good that might be out there and you can't seem to find anything new and different, why then this thing might be next on your list. But that has got to be a very, very select group of people John Clute is probably one of them, actually.
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Rating: 
Summary: A unique and remarkable book -- but not for everyone.
Review: _____________________________________________
Appleseed is a compact far-future meta-space opera, stuffed chucky jam-full of literary allusions (from SF and beyond), and written in, well, challenging language. I liked it, but don't have a great deal to add to the reviews I've seen, which are, well, mixed. -- reminding me of why I put off reading this one for awhile. This sort of writing is easy to mock, but it worked for me [note 1]. Mostly.
I was pleasantly surprised at how *readable* the book was. Despite Clute's formidable language and background, he didn't lose sight of the fundamentals of SF storytelling -- a crackerjack yarn, larger-than-life heroes, horrible villains, the fate of the universe in the balance... Several times while reading Appleseed, I thought "wow, this would make a *great* dirty comic book" -- think of an unholy melange of Trashman, Marvel, and Love & Rockets. (This is a compliment, by the way.) The naked, smelly, foul-mouthed, priapic male humans got old fast.
I suppose this provides an (unwanted) insight into Clute's fantasy life. Hmm. I recall Delaney's bardic heroes as deliberately scruffy, but not smelly (and generally clothed). [Mumble] had far-future post-hygeine people too -- cleanliness no longer being required for health -- but not so unpleasantly graphic. In Clute's future, no one calls a turd a BM. Well -- this should be enough for you to judge whether or not to read the thing. I basically enjoyed it, and might even have another go a few years on to see how much more of the literary backstory I can pick up. But -- "Appleseed is, in a word, daunting" (Jonas). Caveat lector.
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Note 1) For a calibration-point, I gave up on both Banks' Feersum Enjinn and Hoban's Riddley Walker because of opaque future-dialect language. Trust me -- Clute's futurespeak is much easier (and more fun) to follow. Yes, Johnny A. does make an appearance... Review copyright 2002 by Peter D. Tillman
review quotes censored by Amazon, 1/13/04
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