Damage Time eBook Colin Harvey Lee Harris
Download As PDF : Damage Time eBook Colin Harvey Lee Harris 
It is 2050. The USA has just been sold to the highest bidders.
Detective Pete Shah is a Memory Association Specialist with the NYPD — he reads the last thoughts of murder victims. When he himself is arrested or murder, though, the secrets he brings to light threaten to bring the city to its knees.
The Wizard’s Tower edition of this book includes a brand new introduction from Colin’s friend and editor, Lee Harris.
“Colin Harvey has outdone himself with creating memorable characters, a page-turning plot, and a world that it far from and somehow like our own.” — Christopher Barzak
“Damage Time is for science fiction readers who love The Wire, a gritty cop drama set in a future New York on the verge of collapse. Pete Shah is a memorable hero and the memory rip technology will make your skin crawl.” — CC Finlay
Damage Time eBook Colin Harvey Lee Harris
I rarely fail to finish a book, but this was an exception. I kept picking it up and pushing through another chapter, but it was just not worth the effort. For all I know, this writer might be very good, but this book definitely is NOT.Product details
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Damage Time eBook Colin Harvey Lee Harris Reviews
In the novel "Damage Time", author Colin Harvey presents a very bleak vision for America in the year 2050. California has seceded from the United States, and has built a huge wall along all its borders to keep the riffraff out. The southwestern states have quietly returned to Mexico. The remainder of the United States is now dominated by other countries, and is no longer much respected in the international community.
Most ordinary people, like the protagonists of "Damage Time", are constantly hungry. While U.S. Dollars, Indian Rupees and Chinese Yuan are still in use, the primary unit of currency is the "kilocalorie". Yes, everything bought and sold is related to how much food people could buy with the money instead. If they cut too much into their caloric budget for frivolities like nice clothing or tickets to a hockey game, they can always hop on an exercise bike to generate some electricity.
Also, antibiotics don't work any more and petroleum is very hard to come by, making travel virtually impossible. As a result, cities have become half-empty, crumbling monuments of glory days long gone and only dimly remembered. A series of plagues called the "Die Back" have eliminated millions. The squalor forms an important backdrop to the story.
Finally, there's the crime scene. While everything is, in theory, being tracked by electronic databases and recorded by cameras on every street corner, in practice many of these have broken down, and law enforcement agencies barely have the funding to carry out their missions. What good is a camera if no one has time to review its footage?
Our chief protagonist is detective Pete Shah of the New York Police Department. He joined the NYPD just before the 9/11 attacks, so he's seen it all for half a century. He was looking forward to retirement, but is fuming because they upped the age on him yet again. At this rate, they'll be carrying his carcass out of the office in a burlap sack.
The fact is, Pete is very good at analyzing "rips". These are a type of video taken directly from people's memories, and there's quite a market for them -- if they're interesting enough. Drug addicts might sell off a prized memory or two for a "hit", or a meal. Or people might have all of their memories forcibly "ripped", leaving them an empty shell.
That's the catch with this marvelous new technology -- people can't just share their memories, they actually end up losing them for good. For a painful memory, that can be a good thing. True, people can view a missing memory and thus recall something intellectually, but the emotional impact is gone. Those with major amnesia really do become different people, based on the premise that we are who we are due to our cumulative experiences.
Bootleg "rips", downloaded from the Internet, can be very useful in solving mysteries, and that is where Pete Shah excels. He has an intuitive knack for linking different videos to the same individual, going just by a certain feel.
Unfortunately for Pete, he is getting too interested in certain very powerful people who are profiting from illegal "rips". Early in the story, he is framed for murder. Then his situation gets much worse. The investigation becomes very personal, and people around him start getting hurt. Can he find and stop these murderers of the intellect before they can strike again? Will he become their next hollowed-out victim?
I found "Damage Time" to be a very compelling, vividly written story, hard to put down, right up to the end. A very effective plot device is to alternate chapters set in the present with scenes for "rips" in the form of flashbacks. Colin switches to the second person, "you", whenever the story switches to the past.
This doesn't mean that the story is perfect.
First, I should note some things that disturbed me. One of the flashback sequences involved a man caught up in massive racial warfare early in the 21st century -- something called the "God Wars", in South Carolina. Along with searing images of burning crosses came the obligatory ethnic slurs. True, they were spoken by the bad guys, but it still made me cringe.
There is another scene, involving the fate of one character's son, daughter-in-law and small grandchildren -- it could give me nightmares if I think about it too much. Thankfully the descriptions aren't excessively graphic, but my mind was only too good at filling in the blanks.
I also think it likely that not everyone will appreciate the frank discussions on sexuality found in this book -- of just about every variety involving two or more human beings. Pete reminisces about something called a "nuclear family", a completely foreign concept to his younger co-workers. Pete himself shares his wife with a "co-husband", and one of his colleagues is in a four-way relationship. In some ways this is driven by economics -- it's the only way they can all manage the rent.
A key character in the story is an "intersexual". This means she is basically female, but has certain very masculine characteristics. She is not, however, a fully functional hermaphrodite. This was the first time I'd heard of such a thing.
So, there you have it. If the preceding four paragraphs don't put you off, and you enjoy engaging mystery novels set in a dystopian future, you might well enjoy this book. Otherwise, you might consider giving it a pass.
As for me, I think I'm going to read something a bit more cheerful now.
I confess I’ve been putting this one off for a long time. Colin was a friend of mine, and when he died suddenly in 2011, he left behind too few books, and, as of now, Damage Time was the only one I hadn’t read. I didn’t want to read it know that once it was over, there would be no more of Colin’s books to read.
But now Wizard’s Tower have produced shiny new hardbacks of both Damage Time and Winter Song, the two books of Colin’s published by Angry Robot, and the time was right to get stuck into Damage Time at last. It’s a slice of near-future SF set in a future New York that has suffered badly since the oil ran out. Pete Shah is a jaded, aging cop in a depleted force, and a Memory Association Specialist – an officer whose job is to read and witness the final thoughts of murder victims as recorded on their ubiquitous eyepieces. It’s a dirty job for a straight cop, and when Pete is framed for murder, he discovers just how dirty organised crime in the city can get.
One of the more unsettling aspects of Shah’s New York is how close it is to our own, even while the memory-ripping technology used by the villain is pure spine-tingling SF. If you’re a fan of gritty cop dramas like The Wire, even if you’re not particularly into SF, Damage Time may pique your interest with its compelling, troubled protagonist, its decaying city, and its aura of barely-suppressed violence.
This new hardback and ebook edition from Wizard’s Tower also includes a brief introduction from Lee Harris, Colin’s friend and his editor at Angry Robot, and features the original cover art by BristolCon GOH Chris Moore. These are lovely editions of both Damage Time and Winter Song that would make perfect companion volumes on your bookshelf.
I rarely fail to finish a book, but this was an exception. I kept picking it up and pushing through another chapter, but it was just not worth the effort. For all I know, this writer might be very good, but this book definitely is NOT.
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