It hooked me immediately with the image of a young man, garbed in full glorious 1970’s fashion, stumbling into a trash-strewn alley with a bleeding bullet wound in his side. The story kept my attention for a while but soon (within the first third) bogged down in dialogue that seemed extraneous and over-long. There was just too much for this kind of pulpy story. Descriptions were there but seemed dry and did not create or add to an atmosphere that I crave when I read. The characters were a little bland and a bit flat but at least I could for the most part discern between some of them. Of course, it turns out that most of the characters of note that were encountered were just guises of another.
The twists revealed at the end of the book were just not great; I did not really care about them at all when they happened. There were a couple of good ideas I wish the book would have explored a little like the simulacrum of the woman in Damocles’ mental projection realizing that she was just a figment of his imagination but was still conscious and “felt alive”. Similarly, I would have liked more exploration of the main character, Damocles, as he transformed into the Ultimax Man and the repercussions of that.
The book was a bit of a disappointment though it was reminiscent of a pulp space-adventure story that I normally like. But it also had a disturbingly racist take on the true origins of Native Americans also reminiscent of the old pulps, however. It did not deliver on what I was looking for, atmosphere generated from the moody descriptions of places and things. I do not recommend this book to anyone looking for something similar to what I was hoping. It also does not have any really unique or different elements or takes on standard sci-fi, adventure, or pulp tropes. If you’re out for a bit of light reading for a few nights, then maybe if you can get it for a buck or two.
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An average book at best, about an alien that abducts a common criminal to perform an experiment: to create a superhuman, or "The Ultimax Man". The first part of this book is excellent, but the second half is a confusing jumble of activity that leaves you with a lost-in-new-york feeling. The main characters become unsatisfying. The ending was unsatisfying. There was great potential in this book, but it failed to deliver. ( )