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The Resurrected Man
by Sean Williams
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Pyr (2005-04-08)
ISBN: 1591023114
EAN: 9781591023111
Dewy Decimal #: 823.914
Hardcover: 529 pages
Edition: First Edition
Condition: New
Comments: Hardcover with dustjacket. Book & Dustjacket are in Unused Condition. Book is completely intact with inside pages in Excellent Condition with no tears and with no notations (no pencil marks, no underlining, no highlighting, etc.) Fast Service. Books well packed and mailed USPS with Delivery Confirmation.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Private detective Jonah McEwen is wanted for murder. Someone has been killing women who resemble Marylin Blaylock, his former colleague and ex-lover. The latest grisly discovery is right on his doorstep. He is the obvious suspect. The problem? He has been in a coma for three years - a coma he has no memory of entering. And there's worse to come. Using matter transporter technology, or 'd-mat', a serial killer know only as the Twinmaker has been brutally torturing and killing perfect facsimiles of his victims and leaving the originals alive. As legal arguments rage about whether this even constitutes murder, Jonah finds himself in the awkward position of defending his innocence when his own exact copy might actually be guilty. Set in a time where the lines between human and machine are increasingly blurred, "The Resurrected Man" explores the future of terrorism, law enforcement, and globe-spanning conspiracies. A perfect blend of suspense and science fiction, the novel follows the complexities of Jonah and Marylin's relationship and their quest to find the killer before he strikes again, as well as unravelling the tensions between Jonah and his father - a man who has been dead for three years but who might yet hold the key to everything...Nominated for the Aurealis Award and winner of the Ditmar Award, "The Resurrected Man" was hailed as a 'tour de force' in Australia, the author's home country, and described as 'compulsively readable' by Locus.
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Customer Reviews
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Good story line -- good book
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-12-12
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
As both an author and reader of fiction, I was impressed with "the Resurrected Man". Maybe it is because I have always enjoyed a book that could hold my attention and make me think at the same time. Give this book a try.
The fiction book that I have written main story theme is about ten years in the life of a little girl who was "chosen by God" to be the next Madonna in the second coming of Christ. Yes it has cloning in it.
Tommy Taylor
Author - The Second Virgin Birth
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Great Tweak on the Noir Detective Story
Rating  (3)
Date: 2007-12-03
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
While I often browse the Sci-Fi section at the library, I would not generally get this kind of book. But my first born son, now 5, is named Sean Williams so I just had to read this one.
The book really reminded me of a noir detective novel, with a sharp-minded, but critically flawed hero, and a tough, no-nonsense love interest. The whole idea of DMAT (de-materialization, basically the transporter from Star-Trek) was intriguing, particularly the author's delving into possibility of not just transporting, but making multiple copies of an individual, and also that niggling issue that in order to replicate someone elsewhere, you have to destroy (murder?) their original.
Good stuff, and a fun read. It could have gone deeper into the moral and philosophical issues involved, but instead chose to end more like a classic crime story. But we all have to finish our tasks and make a living after all!
I will most likely read more of his works, and not just because of his name!
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Australian SF Reader
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-08-01
Here we have a science fiction mystery story. Transporters of the Star Trek variety are available, so transport is cheap and easy. Any technology can be used for crime, however, and a serial killer is discovered.
This very twisted individual utilises this tech to copy people, and kill a copy. What does all this mean philosophically? A detective on the case realises that there is some relationship between all this killing and her own identity.
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The Twinmaker Murders
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-12-21
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
The Resurrected Man (2005) is a standalone SF novel. In 2069, the matter transmission network covers more than seventy percent of the planet. The d-mat is used not only for personal and freight transmission, but for replication of material goods.
In this novel, the man was awakened by a dull, but persistent murmur. His body hurt everywhere and his limbs were too cramped to move. He found himself lying beneath the surface of in a pool of water. He was not breathing! Suddenly he erupted from the water in terror.
Hands reached out to support him as he coughed up the fluid in his lungs. The voices identified him as Jonah McEwen and, when his eyes cleared, he found himself facing Marylin Blaycock. Now her hair is not blonde and she is not working for him, but for the police.
Jonah has been missing for more than three years under a privacy seal. The police had not come to his apartment to rescue him, but to investigate another crime. Now they suspect him of killing the victim. The medics take care of his immediate needs and then the officers start interrogating him. When Jonah recognizes their approach, he refuses to answer any more questions. Then they show him the remains.
In this story, the Matter-transference Investigative Unit (MIU) is an official branch of the Earth Justice Commission, but is funded by Kudos Technologies Incorporated (KTI), which owns the d-mat patents and operates the d-mat network and other related services. The MIU believe that the body in Jonah's d-mat booth is the sixteenth Twinmaker killing.
A composite image of the Twinmaker victims looks very much like Marylin Blaycock as Jonah knew her. Moreover, the first case occurred one week after Marylin joined the MIU, about six months prior to his awakening. The Twinmaker victims are tortured to death, but somehow the victims themselves are still alive. The Twinmaker seems to be kidnapping a copy of the victims when they use the d-mat, but leaving the originals alive and unaware of the crime.
The novel raises the question of whether users of the d-mat are the same persons after they arrive at their destinations. A few people refuse to use the d-mat, calling it the death-mat, and even some of those who habitually use the system wonder whether they are gradually being changed by such usage. Complicating this issue is the method of resurrecting victims of accidental or intentional deaths; for an exorbitant price, the person can be reconstructed from network records into much the same body.
One of the characters is an Artificial Intelligence called QUALIA. Es is based on twenty Standard Human Equivalent processors designed to induce consciousness. SHE is not just a spearcarrier, but an integral part of the plot, with Es's POV running throughout the story.
This story does not include any new technology per se, for matter transmission, duplicate bodies, virtual minds, and artificial intelligence are old themes in SF (see Gallun's People Minus X (1957) and Pohl's Gateway series). However, the manner in which such technology is used to commit these crimes is rather unusual. Still, one of the crimes per se is most unusual, but you will have to read the book to find out the nature of this crime.
This work is by no means the first novel by the author nor it is even his first solo effort, but his works have not been readily available in the USA. That has changed recently, especially for his collaborations with Shane Dix. Amazing how American publishers are finally discovering the authors down under.
Highly recommended for Williams fans and for anyone else who enjoys futuristic detective stories.
-Arthur W. Jordin
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interesting future mystery
Rating (4)
Date: 2005-09-13
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
Jonah McEwen is a suspect in a series of murders he knows nothing about, having spent the last 3 years in a state of hibernation. This makes it an interesting book to get sucked in to, as the main characters don't know what happened during a critical period of time, and the reader does not know exactly how the murders are possible, not being familiar with the details of how the key technology works. The murders were commited using d-mat, a transmitter that transforms someone into information which is then rematerialized at their destination. Many people have qualms about having this done to them, but eventually holdouts are in the minority due to d-mat's convenience. "All I see are zombies", says a leader among the holdouts, referring to the majority of society. Jonah points out that these sorts of arguments have been made for every new form of technology. The book raises more questions than it can answer, but I mean that in a good way.
I would like to add that if you enjoy this book you might want to also read David Brin's "Kiln People", which brings up similar questions.
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