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Zero Calvin by Brian Cramer
01/05/2004 . Source: Donna Jones 
pub: iUniverse. 169 page enlarged paperback. Price: £11.99 (UK), $13.95 (US), $18.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-595-29813-3). Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.iuniverse.com and www.zerocalvin.com
It's a beautiful day outside, the sun is shining and you're late for work - again. Hell, you should take the whole day off and do some much needed sunbathing with your girl-friend!
Well, that's exactly what you'd do if you're Calvin Jones. Except you'd be heading for your own early demise, behind the wheel of your speeding car and you would probably be driving said car with your knees!
What you can also expect is being unfrozen from a cryogenically icy state three hundred years after your death and having the horrible realisation that you were at one stage in your memory, dead. Not only that but your world, the Earth as you once knew it, has changed drastically. Now being run and governed by an AI named Ariel who was created by a cloned movie star.
Ariel has a dim view of anything that 'detracts' from human happiness. This is a good thing, is it not? Only problem is she deems termination necessary to resolve this view. This is a bad thing and now Calvin has to find out if the bad things will keep coming or the good happy times are ahead.
Let's start by getting out a pair of scales as, for me, the book boils down to pros and cons. On the one hand you have a witty, wry observational-humour running through the story. Intermingled with that and, on the other hand, you have monotonous speeches in which the main character is prepped for life in this new age. There are no inclinations of what is happening whilst this goes on and it is page after page of one character's speech. While the background of the future is well thought out, it could have done with a far better delivery method.
Brian Cramer has created quirky characters that come at you off the page, but I have to admit that they are incredibly similar to the characters from 'Futurama'. I felt that the characters were blatantly ripped off from other sources. One character to look out for, though, is a German Shepherd eventually named Astro who has gruesome beginnings.
While the plot has scattered gems of complete inanity and Cramer could be accused of having a fanatical obsession for a certain movie star, the overall prose left me a little cold. The innumerable grammatical errors, for example using 'past' when he should have used 'passed' and others too many to mention were the sign of Cramer's inadequate writing skills. This is the problem with some PoD titles, the writer is unpublished elsewhere probably because his/her manuscript is unpolished. For Cramer, I would say this is definitely the case.
The premise behind the book is very good. The PCs (Personal Communicators) were cool to say the least and I almost wished I could use some nanobots to clean my teeth in the morning, too. Economic wealth in the future, as it was described, made a lot of sense and I thought this line of thought was inspired. Unfortunately, Cramer's first book is far too short, lacking enough description in parts and not quite reaching that sense of enveloping storytelling that even the shortest of tales need.
Overall, for me the book had an equal list of negatives as it did positives. For spoof SF, it does deliver a good story, but the novella length and the lack of skills when it came to the actual writing detracted from its appeal. The only problem is that I actually got to the end of this book wanting more. Maybe it is Cramer's secret weapon to convince readers they want more through subconscious brainwashing throughout his writing. Roll on the next instalment!
Donna Jones
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