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Crache by Mark Budz
01/10/2004 . Source: Andy Stout 
pub: Bantam Books. 368 page paperback. Price: $ 6.99 (US), $10.99 (CAN). ISBN: 0-553-58659-9. 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.bantamdell.com
released: 23 November 2004
Bantam Books
By all accounts, Mark Budz's first novel, 'Clade', went down rather well. Nominated for the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, it's attracted numerous snippets of praise from such authors as David Brin and Kevin J. Anderson. Inside the front jacket of Budz's second novel, 'Crache', Anderson even goes so far as to say, 'Budz may well have created a new genre: BioPunk.'
Er, not quite. A few others such as Paul Di Filippo and his ilk got there first with the hard-core stuff and you can safely argue that bio-technology has always had a fairly significant bit-part to play in the evolution of the cyberpunk genre. It is though a useful quote when it comes to letting the reader know what to expect out of the novel: cyberpunk essentially, but strained through a bio-tech filter.
Out in the Kuiper Belt, the environment (termed the ecotecture in Budz's bioengineered universe) is mysteriously starting to degrade on an asteroid called Mymercia. It falls to three separate individuals to combine their efforts and stop the deadly degradation spreading: Fola Hanani, molectrician and former Jesuette missionary; gengineer and White Rain drug addict A. Rexx and former musician now crippled migrant worker L. Mariachi. Somehow they and their IA's (Intelligent Agents, artificial intelligence helpers at loose in the datasphere) have to first work out what's going on, deal with their individual demons and then work out how to stop it. All the time working against some fairly insurmountable odds.
It's a fairly functional plot, but there are enough neat twists and kinks to keep the reader interested. The problem is that the majority of it is written in that peculiarly staccato cyberpunk style that always seems to be trying to trumpet style over content, coming across more like a half-formed film script than an actual novel. To get away with it you have to be a truly great writer, but too much of what Budz has committed to the page here is muddled and difficult to penetrate. Occasionally, he'll put his foot down, throttle up through the narrative gears and deliver a really compelling scene, but not often enough to imbue the book with any real momentum.
It's a shame because some of the 'biopunk' concepts of Budz's post-ecocaust solar system, such as the clades into which humanity and what bits of the biosphere are left are sorted, are intriguing. He's also playing some slyly entertaining games with language, too, such as describing arrogant Caucasians as being 'caucsure', leaving you to suspect that somewhere down the line Budz is going to come up with something really impressive.
Not yet, though. 'Crache' is a good bet for dyed-in-the-wool cyberpunk fans who fancy something a little different or people who want to see how the world Budz created in 'Clade' is progressing. Casual readers though are as likely to find it as infuriating as it is interesting.
Andy Stout 
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