brompton_sawdon's review against another edition
4.0
he Return of the Incredible Exploding Man. I thought was a sequel but it appears to be the first one, although the author has a short story about the Incredible Exploding Man. I only mention this as it may be off putting to a reader. I was excited to read this book however, it’s blurb and cover being very appealing.
The story starts with a failing scientific journalist being poached by a multi-billionaire to write a book about a supercollider he is funding. It’s a slow burner of a book that suited me. I enjoyed reading of the struggles he goes through deciding whether to take the assignment and his gradual integration into the local area. It allowed you to see what sort of character Alex really was. The residents of Sioux Crossing are a weird bunch of individuals. From the editor of the local paper to the police chief, there is a feeling of mystique around the place. Strange events add to the feeling that all is not what it seems.
This is the first book by Dave Hutchinson I’ve read and I was impressed by his writing style. His use of vocabulary keeps you reading and he lays traps in the plot that you want to solve. About two thirds of the way through the plot takes off with a bang, literally. Then you’re plunged into a must faster pace, explosive even.
The end niggles me slightly that it appears to be over so soon. I guess it allows a sequel, but in a way it leaves you cheated. In spite of these flaws I really enjoyed the book. The story is interesting, even in the getting to know you stage.
All in all, I can recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good classic science fiction read. Very suitable as well to anyone over the age of eleven, indeed the cover is very Young Adult in style.
The story starts with a failing scientific journalist being poached by a multi-billionaire to write a book about a supercollider he is funding. It’s a slow burner of a book that suited me. I enjoyed reading of the struggles he goes through deciding whether to take the assignment and his gradual integration into the local area. It allowed you to see what sort of character Alex really was. The residents of Sioux Crossing are a weird bunch of individuals. From the editor of the local paper to the police chief, there is a feeling of mystique around the place. Strange events add to the feeling that all is not what it seems.
This is the first book by Dave Hutchinson I’ve read and I was impressed by his writing style. His use of vocabulary keeps you reading and he lays traps in the plot that you want to solve. About two thirds of the way through the plot takes off with a bang, literally. Then you’re plunged into a must faster pace, explosive even.
The end niggles me slightly that it appears to be over so soon. I guess it allows a sequel, but in a way it leaves you cheated. In spite of these flaws I really enjoyed the book. The story is interesting, even in the getting to know you stage.
All in all, I can recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good classic science fiction read. Very suitable as well to anyone over the age of eleven, indeed the cover is very Young Adult in style.
pctek's review against another edition
5.0
This was originally a short story and was very funny.
The novel starts off further back in The Exploding Mans life,how he came to be where he was, how he got his "superpowers". Still funny and one of my favorite books.
The novel starts off further back in The Exploding Mans life,how he came to be where he was, how he got his "superpowers". Still funny and one of my favorite books.
bhsafran's review
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
littlelynn's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
riverwise's review against another edition
3.0
Dave Hutchinson's Fractured Europe books are one of the highlights of SF in the last decade, and so I had high hopes for this. It's told with his usual sardonic wit, and easy to read, but never facile, prose. Line by line, and chapter by chapter it's a great read, but somehow I found it a little unsatisfying. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with the structure - difficult to elucidate without spoilers, but we spend 75% of the book getting to a thing which it's clear is going to happen from very early on, and then the last section feels rushed, with no real resolution. It's quite possible this is the start of a series, in which case I'd be inclined a bit more generous to this issue, but even so, it's not a long book and a bit more fleshing out of the ending wouldn't have hurt. It's also possible, perhaps likely, that Hutchinson isn't interested in the mechanics of his plot so much as he is in examining what happens to a middle aged bloke who's stuck in a rut when he suddenly receives [SPOILER], and how that changes his life and relationship with humanity. That's fertile ground, but again there's not really time to get stuck into it.
All in all, a solid enjoyable read, but also a frustrating one.
All in all, a solid enjoyable read, but also a frustrating one.
ashlislibrary's review against another edition
4.0
It’s really weird, because this book has nothing that I usually like in it- yet I still really loved it?
It was a super slow burner of a book, I mean not much really happened in the first half but I couldn’t put it down for some strange reason. I was just really intrigued about the whole thing, the main character: alex, was super relatable and likeable in the way he just kept everything real. there was just such a super creepy vibe about the entire thing, i had no idea what was going on but I literally went to sleep thinking about this book and what was happening.
A HUGE CRITICISM THOUGH: you didn’t hear anything about the superpowers in this book until we’ll past page 200, so the main part of the plot just wasn’t even mentioned really, and even then it was just ind of all over the place??? luckily enough for me, the characters and the sub-plot were interesting enough to keep me going, but for other people I can imagine it would just bore them really.
It was a super slow burner of a book, I mean not much really happened in the first half but I couldn’t put it down for some strange reason. I was just really intrigued about the whole thing, the main character: alex, was super relatable and likeable in the way he just kept everything real. there was just such a super creepy vibe about the entire thing, i had no idea what was going on but I literally went to sleep thinking about this book and what was happening.
A HUGE CRITICISM THOUGH: you didn’t hear anything about the superpowers in this book until we’ll past page 200, so the main part of the plot just wasn’t even mentioned really, and even then it was just ind of all over the place??? luckily enough for me, the characters and the sub-plot were interesting enough to keep me going, but for other people I can imagine it would just bore them really.
casella's review against another edition
3.0
Extremely well written, but odd: paced very strangely, and ultimately a too-close riff on Dr. Manhattan from [b:Watchmen|472331|Watchmen|Alan Moore|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442239711l/472331._SY75_.jpg|4358649]. Plus, the first 3/4 read as a (very good) pastiche of [a:William Gibson|9226|William Gibson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1373826214p2/9226.jpg].
Full review on Positron:
https://www.positronchicago.com/2019/09/the-return-of-incredible-exploding-man.html
Full review on Positron:
https://www.positronchicago.com/2019/09/the-return-of-incredible-exploding-man.html
sadie_slater's review against another edition
4.0
Dave Hutchinson's The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man is a rather strangely structured novel. Despite the pulp SF title, for the first three-quarters of the book it's a slow-build technothriller with shades of Twin Peaks. The hero, Alex Dolan, is a seriously underemployed freelance journalist whose life is turned upside down when he receives a letter from multibillionaire Stan Clayton, the fifth richest man in the world, offering him a job. Clayton has bought an entire county in northern Iowa and built a giant supercollider underneath the fields, and he wants Alex to write a book about it, something that will counteract the negative press the project has received to date. Despite some misgivings, Alex accepts the job and moves to Sioux Crossing, where he finds that however friendly and welcoming the locals are (with the exception of his deeply cantankerous next-door neighbour) he can't escape the sense that something strange is going on. And then, just as it starts to feel that Alex might finally be going to find some answers, Hutchinson flips everything on its head and the final 25% is a very different story, one that seems like a much better fit for the title. I found this a bit disconcerting, especially as the second part doesn't answer many of the questions posed in the first. (I gather that Hutchinson published a short story called 'The Incredible Exploding Man' a few years ago, and from the synoposis I think that may have been substantially similar to the final section of the novel, with the earlier part forming an origin story for the characters in the short story.)
Aside from the slightly odd structure, I really enjoyed this; it's generally lighter in tone than Hutchinson's Fractured Europe series, but shares its wryly humorous tone and is a similarly easy, plotty read with interesting and mostly likeable characters.
(Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC for review.)
Aside from the slightly odd structure, I really enjoyed this; it's generally lighter in tone than Hutchinson's Fractured Europe series, but shares its wryly humorous tone and is a similarly easy, plotty read with interesting and mostly likeable characters.
(Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC for review.)
cullen_mi's review against another edition
3.0
Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy.
It pains me to give three stars to this, as I am such a big fan of Hutchinson's Fractured Europe Sequence, and have thoroughly enjoyed his other works as well.
I had two major problems with this:
Problem one: The pacing. It's called The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man. There's a picture of an incredible exploding man on the cover. You would think the book would largely be about an incredible exploding man, right? No. The first 80% of the book is kind of a mystery story about an author exploring a town and its particle collider facility. This might work alright, except that 80% is really not that enjoyable to read. Partly because of...
Problem two: The writing. I've read six other books by this author and always felt his writing varied between pretty good and excellent. Here I started to notice sentence constructions that were used all the time. Almost every page had one or two exchanges of dialog that were prefaced by a level stare or a grin. It got very distracting. The characters were also not fleshed out particularly well, and some of the subplots just went... nowhere.
[b:Europe in Autumn|18143945|Europe in Autumn|Dave Hutchinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1382971951l/18143945._SY75_.jpg|25491267] worked so well because it had a well-written and interesting story about near-future espionage, and hits you with a sudden high-concept sci-fi curveball in the final act. This book seems to try to recapture that formula, except the story isn't well-written or particularly interesting, and the sci-fi curveball is prominently displayed in the title and on the cover.
Maybe if the title of the book had been The Arrival of the Pudgy and Awkward Science Writer the final act could have made this into a 3.5 or 4 star book, but the writing would still be holding it back. More realistically, the first 200 pages could have been shortened to the first 30 pages of a really good novella.
It pains me to give three stars to this, as I am such a big fan of Hutchinson's Fractured Europe Sequence, and have thoroughly enjoyed his other works as well.
I had two major problems with this:
Problem one: The pacing. It's called The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man. There's a picture of an incredible exploding man on the cover. You would think the book would largely be about an incredible exploding man, right? No. The first 80% of the book is kind of a mystery story about an author exploring a town and its particle collider facility. This might work alright, except that 80% is really not that enjoyable to read. Partly because of...
Problem two: The writing. I've read six other books by this author and always felt his writing varied between pretty good and excellent. Here I started to notice sentence constructions that were used all the time. Almost every page had one or two exchanges of dialog that were prefaced by a level stare or a grin. It got very distracting. The characters were also not fleshed out particularly well, and some of the subplots just went... nowhere.
[b:Europe in Autumn|18143945|Europe in Autumn|Dave Hutchinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1382971951l/18143945._SY75_.jpg|25491267] worked so well because it had a well-written and interesting story about near-future espionage, and hits you with a sudden high-concept sci-fi curveball in the final act. This book seems to try to recapture that formula, except the story isn't well-written or particularly interesting, and the sci-fi curveball is prominently displayed in the title and on the cover.
Maybe if the title of the book had been The Arrival of the Pudgy and Awkward Science Writer the final act could have made this into a 3.5 or 4 star book, but the writing would still be holding it back. More realistically, the first 200 pages could have been shortened to the first 30 pages of a really good novella.