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Spares

by Michael Marshall Smith (Goodreads Author)

4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 · rating details · 1,325 ratings · 104 reviews

Spares - human clones, the ultimate health insurance. An eye for an eye, but some people are doing all the taking.

Spares - the story of Jack Randall: burnt-out, dropped out, and with a zero credit rating at the luck bank. After five years lying low on a Spares farm, looking after inmates that can't even spell luck, he is finally faced with a chance at redemption....if he,...more

Paperback, 317 pages

Published November 2nd 1998 by HarperCollins (first published 1996)

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Nov 07, 2012 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Spares was written way back before Michael Marshall dropped the Smith from his name, was just starting out as an author and was single-handily responsible for some of the best British sci-fi that had been seen in years! The third of his offerings after One Of Us and the ground-breaking Only Forward, Spares was a novel that redefined the term Cyberpunk and gave us something entirely different from anything we had seen before. Part comedy, part tragedy, part post-modern satire, Spares takes us on...more Spares was written way back before Michael Marshall dropped the Smith from his name, was just starting out as an author and was single-handily responsible for some of the best British sci-fi that had been seen in years! The third of his offerings after One Of Us and the ground-breaking Only Forward, Spares was a novel that redefined the term Cyberpunk and gave us something entirely different from anything we had seen before. Part comedy, part tragedy, part post-modern satire, Spares takes us on a dark journey into an all too believable future where cloning is commonplace and shopping malls are located in vast spaceships that can move about whenever the need arises......

Jack Randall is an ex-cop with a past. A former soldier, he managed to destroy his life through drink and drugs and has now ended up as a caretaker at one of many cloning farms all across the country. The clones are owned by the very rich and famous and, should anything happen to them, doctors come in the middle of the night and remove the appropriate organ or body part from the relevant clone ~ it is Randall's job merely to make sure they are kept fed and watered.

Only, as he begins to sober up and straighten out, Randall begins going outside his remit. He slowly begins to believe that the clones are not just eating, sleeping and defecating machines but people in their own right. And one night, he lets them all go.....

What follows is a gritty sci-fi thriller-noir, as Jack Randall returns to his old stomping ground, meets up with some old friends and attempts, for the first time in his life, to do the right thing.....unfortunately, taking the moral high ground isn't always that easy as Jack is about to find out....

Much as Iain M Banks writes both sci-fi and mainstream fiction, so too has Marshall in later years dropped the sci-fi element to his books and instead gone the more dark thriller route with stuff like The Straw Men trilogy and The Intruders. This, I believe, is to his detriment as he has never been as good a writer as he was at this stage in his career when Spares was released. His characterisation here is spot on, his plotting suitably dark and complex and the story moves at such a pace that, at times, it is almost impossible to keep up! Think the likes of Blade Runner here and you won't be far wrong!

This remains one of my favourite books of all time and, reading it again recently, I was reminded of just how good and relevant it still is today! It's dark themes of the more sinister side of cloning may only pay a small part in this novel but they help make it one of the most memorable sci-fi novels of my generation!(less)

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Oct 22, 2012 Evelyn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Feb 06, 2012 Donovan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

Not quite up there when compared to Only Forward, it is a stark look at the idea of human cloning and where it could lead (with the typical mind trip that Marshall-Smith likes to introduce.

Plot ***Spoilers***
Take one surreal, futuristic city, built in the wreckage of a five-mile square shopping-mall-airship. Blend with copious amounts of illegal, mind-altering substances. Gently fold in a network of villains with all the odds in their favour. Take one hero – he should be morally challenged, conf...more Not quite up there when compared to Only Forward, it is a stark look at the idea of human cloning and where it could lead (with the typical mind trip that Marshall-Smith likes to introduce.

Plot ***Spoilers***
Take one surreal, futuristic city, built in the wreckage of a five-mile square shopping-mall-airship. Blend with copious amounts of illegal, mind-altering substances. Gently fold in a network of villains with all the odds in their favour. Take one hero – he should be morally challenged, confused, and fighting to exact vengeance for the deaths of family members. Leave to expand. In a separate bowl introduce a cause – let’s say cloned children (Spares), retained as spare parts to mend the rich and generally mistreated. With great care add a pinch of danger – something unknown, possibly from the past, possibly with a mystical element which poses yet another challenge for the hero. These should be heated slowly in a saucepan along with several insane action sequences and horrors so shocking you almost (but not quite) have to put the book down, never to return. Throw everything into a dark, dubious-looking tin and decorate with an abundance of dry, sophisticated humour and sentient machinery with attitude problems!

The moral of this story is best summed up with the quote “Memories are nothing more than a book you’ve read and lost, not a bible for the rest of your life”. So basically, get with the program. This is the recurring theme in Jack Randall’s life. The moral only makes it into words at the end of the book and is significantly less important than the journey which precedes it. Spares is the story of Jack Randall, an ex-cop from a corrupted force with a growing trail of dead friends and family members. He doesn’t consider himself a safe man to know. After abandoning hope, Jack lands a job at a ‘Spares farm’ and succumbs to his drug addictions. He is woken from days of unconsciousness with an urge to takes his current position as caretaker one step further and gradually becomes a father-figure for the children. His caring approach leads him into several worlds of trouble and every man and his dog seems to want him dead.(less)

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May 25, 2013 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

During freshers week, when I first went to University, back in 1999, the freebies they were handing out on my campus were pretty damn good. Today, you're lucky if you get two pens and a slice of pizza. Back then, Waterstones was at Freshers Fair, and they were handing out BOOKS!

Well, a book, to be precise. A sampler, with chapters from a variety of books that Waterstones thought were up-and-coming and cool. And, from that sampler, I ended up outright buying half a dozen novels. One of them was M...more During freshers week, when I first went to University, back in 1999, the freebies they were handing out on my campus were pretty damn good. Today, you're lucky if you get two pens and a slice of pizza. Back then, Waterstones was at Freshers Fair, and they were handing out BOOKS!

Well, a book, to be precise. A sampler, with chapters from a variety of books that Waterstones thought were up-and-coming and cool. And, from that sampler, I ended up outright buying half a dozen novels. One of them was Michael Marshall Smith's "One of Us", and I became an instant fan. I devoured all his other books in a row. Then, of course, he started writing serial killer thrillers as Michael Marshall, and, though he might bring an uncanny, surreal element to that genre, he basically lost his way.

Spares was one of the novels that had bits in it that stuck in my mind for more than a decade. It's science fiction, it's Noir, and it's written with energy aplomb, and wit, too. You can almost imagine Ridley Scott turning some of this into a classic movie.

The basic premise of the book has been done a few times by now. "Grow clones for rich people in case they need spare parts" has been Hollywoodised as The Island (apparently by the same studio that bought an option on this novel, but then "changed its mind"), and lit-fic-ed as "Never Let Me Go". Spares, I think, preceded both. But the thing is, this is not a single-premise book. It is a novel brimming with ideas. Too many ideas, probably. There is the flying city that turned into a static city after a break down. There is the hierarchy of wealth within the city based on the floor people live on. There are the Spares and the Farms. And then there is The Gap, and the war there...

Organised crime. Dirty and clean cops / ex-cops. A lone wolf type stirring things up and prodding rich, powerful, evil people in between being chased, shot at, abducted. Vendetta / revenge quests. Veterans from a surreal jungle war. Crimes against humanity / the soul of mankind. If you mixed up Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner and The Island and added wit and anger, then maybe something like Spares might come out. The book has many ideas and scenes that stuck with me, but it is also a bit incoherent and surreal and a mess. A glorious, imaginative mess, and I still like it today.(less)

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Feb 24, 2012 Emmanuel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook

Les prémisses de cette histoire, qui donnent son titre au livre, ne sont pas totalement surprenantes : des clones qui servent de pièces détachées. Mais ce n'est pas grave, en fait l'histoire ne parle pas vraiment d'eux, plutôt de la société de New Richmond (un peu à la monades urbaines) puis de la brêche (quoi que ce puisse être) et surtout de cet anti-héros ex-flic, ex-fermier, yeux-de-feu qui sert de narrateur.

Après Avance Rapide, j'ai trouvé que la brêche était de trop, elle n'apporte pas gra...more

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May 22, 2012 Carrie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: pre-2012

The point of art is to create a reaction in people, good or bad, the stronger the better. Michael Marshall Smith always accomplishes that with me, but unfortunately in this case it was a hate reaction. I had previously read and loved "One of Us" and "Only Forward", so dove into this book eagerly.

MMS always creates interesting, oddball worlds that are very full and developed around the characters. I found the clone concept to be very upsetting in and of itself - the entire way it was set up and...more

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Feb 12, 2009 Dorie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-sci-fi

I've come to count on Michael Smith for imaginative, quite bizarre stories that are well written with an interesting main character. This story is set in the future and is about Jack Randall, an ex-soldier in the war in The Gap. You don't actually find out what this means until the last quarter of the book. After his wife and daughter were murdered, Jack was quietly sent out of New Richmond to a Spares farm, where important people keep their genetic clones handy in case of accidents. You never k...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Stuart rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book was TERRIBLE.

I had 2 chief complaints with the book:
1) The writing is piss poor.
2) The story has almost nothing to do with the "Spares". A more fitting title would have been "Crackhead Ex-Cop".

Let's just assume for a moment that Michael Marshall Smith actually wrote a book about the Spares. Here's a rundown of the *completely* believable premise.

In the near future, rich people pay lots of money to keep clones of themselves in "farms". Whenever injured, the rich people just carve a piec...more

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Jun 07, 2011 Alain Dewitt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

Where do I begin? I recall hearing on a podcast or reading somewhere that this book influenced Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs trilogy (a huge favorite of mine). And in reading 'Spares' I had to remind myself that 'Spares' was published before 'Altered Carbon'.

'Spares''s hero (well anti-hero actually) reminds me a lot of Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs. 'Spares' doesn't have the same wide scope as 'AC' (no space travel and no colony worlds for Randall to explore). Most of the action takes place in New R...more Where do I begin? I recall hearing on a podcast or reading somewhere that this book influenced Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs trilogy (a huge favorite of mine). And in reading 'Spares' I had to remind myself that 'Spares' was published before 'Altered Carbon'.

'Spares''s hero (well anti-hero actually) reminds me a lot of Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs. 'Spares' doesn't have the same wide scope as 'AC' (no space travel and no colony worlds for Randall to explore). Most of the action takes place in New Richmond (Virginia). Like Kovacs, Randall is a man with a checkered past. He's also a veteran of a tough and brutal war, although unlike with Kovacs' experience at Innenin, we are given a fairly full account of Randall's experience in the Gap.

I don't want to get into plot too much for risk of spoiling. What I found with Smith's plotting was that as Randall tries to unravel the mystery at the heart of 'Spares' you feel like Smith has given you hints and that you could almost figure out the mystery. Except you can't. I always had this feeling with some of Michael Crichton's better thrillers; as if the author has given me the information to solve the mystery and yet it remains tantalizingly out of reach. I always take this as the sign of a well-crafted plot.

I enjoyed Smith's writing style very much. I think he manages to paint a picture of a very disturbing, dystopian future and yet at the same time Smith manages to inject quite a lot of humor into the story, which has some very disturbing aspects. His characters are real with both positive and negative (sometimes very negative) qualities, quite unlike the All-American Supermen protagonists found in the works of Tom Clancy or other similar thriller writers.

I've made mention of this in other reviews but the ability to write good metaphors and similes is what separates a really good writer from a more pedestrian writer. In my opinion, it's the metaphors that add poetry to a writer's prose. It is also a writer's metaphors that allow for the more trenchant and insightful commentary on the human condition. In my opinion, the greatest metaphorist I've read is Michael Chabon. China Mieville is also quite talented in this respect. If Chabon gets an A for metaphors, and Mieville and A- then Smith is a solid B+ bordering on an A-.

If you like dark, dystopian cyberpunk/cybernoir, I don't think you will be disappointed with 'Spares'.(less)

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Aug 10, 2012 Arwen56 rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: romanzi

Questo romanzo l’ho letto nel 1999 e ricordo che non mi era piaciuto per nulla. Mi è tornato in mente solo perché ho visto il film Non lasciarmi, tratto dall’omonimo romanzo di Kazuo Ishiguro, che mi sono affrettata a mettere in wish list.
Il tema affrontato è lo stesso, ovvero la clonazione umana al solo scopo di fornire, in caso di necessità, organi da trapiantare senza che causino problemi di rigetto. Ma è il tenore ad essere completamente diverso. Sono proprio curiosa di leggerlo, perché Kaz...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Joanne Parkington rated it 3 of 5 stars

Phew !! I've finally finished it !! I'm not the biggest sci-fi reader but after reading The Straw Men i thought i'd read this & see what all the hype was about. Don't get me wrong, i enjoyed it alot, especially the character of Jack Randall who, for me, had shades of Alec Leamas about him .. a sort of futile detachment from the world & all the people in it and a firm belief that whatever good deed's he tries to do his bad deed's of the past will always rise up & thwart them. I liked...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Julia Walsh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first of Michael Marshall Smith’s work I’ve read, but I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I enjoyed the plotline about the darker side of cloning and I thought there were some wonderful ideas at work, particularly in Smith’s depiction of a bizarre, and truly disturbing dystopian future and the stratified society inhabiting a 200 storey flying shopping mall. At first I found his writing a bit irritating, and was annoyed by the unexplained tech but once I got into the novel I start...more

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Jun 27, 2010 Sharil rated it 2 of 5 stars

Sci-fi noir. This book had some wonderful ideas to play with: the dark side of cloning, another universe with different physics, and a series of murders to be solved by the damaged protagonist. I started getting bored with some of the ruminating in the last half of the book. I prefer the type of writing that makes ME process the "moral of the story". Also, there were solutions to problems that just fell out of the sky. The result was a feeling of superficiality accompanied by unnecessary brutali...more

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Apr 30, 2011 Victor rated it 5 of 5 stars

This novel combines two of my favorite genres: hardboiled crime noir and dark comedic dystopia. It's like a mash-up of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Never Let Me Go and Sleeper. Even though the underlying themes (cloning, police states) are terrifying, there are plenty of hilarious and settings and scenes that lend some brevity to the overall tone of the novel. For instance, in the city where most of the story takes place, there is an extreme stratification of castes, and it’s a very brut...more

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Sep 08, 2009 Interlol Jones rated it 5 of 5 stars

In the 12 years since I have first read this book, no other story has managed to inspire me and capture my mind as well as this one. After one of my friends demanded I read MMS' first novel: Only Forward, I went looking for more work by MMS.

Spares, I feel, is his greatest novel as a science fiction writer and by far his most developed plotline. The ideas are sound and imaginative, his protagonist is full of flaws and not some magical do-gooder and the bleak background of the novel sets up a tap...more

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Jun 26, 2010 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 06, 2011 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Michael Marshall Smith totally blew me away with Only Forward, so Spares was going to be a tough act to follow. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as great as Only Forward (few books are), but the quality of writing was right up to par.

I get the feeling that MMS' stories are an outlet for him to get a few things off his chest. His characters tend to wax philosophic during lulls in the action, and where this seems to annoy some readers, I found these lulls the best parts of the novel.
Like Stephen Ki...more Michael Marshall Smith totally blew me away with Only Forward, so Spares was going to be a tough act to follow. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as great as Only Forward (few books are), but the quality of writing was right up to par.

I get the feeling that MMS' stories are an outlet for him to get a few things off his chest. His characters tend to wax philosophic during lulls in the action, and where this seems to annoy some readers, I found these lulls the best parts of the novel.
Like Stephen King, MMS has his finger adroitly placed on the pulse of the human condition. Huh...I don't think I've ever used the word adroitly before. Hm.
Anyways, everything from relationships, addiction, or just getting
through the day are explored through his hero's musings.

All that aside, we have a story that many have likened to a Blade Runner/Coma sort of thing. And it certainly has that Blade Runner feel to it: a vertiginous (ANOTHER word I've never used!) noir (and I'm not a big fan of noir, it's been done to death) action-mystery.
But, as per MMS' track record, there is much more to things than meets the eye.
Man, where does this guy get his ideas? Acid? Dreams? Whatever it is, dude, keep it up and keep writing this stuff.

Folks, this is one of the most talented guys writing today. Besides taking you on a mind trip, his pacing is excellent, you feel for his characters, and his touches on the human condition are bang-on.
There's even a laugh or two. To wit:
"He was uglier than three types of shit in a one-shit bag."

I was set on giving Spares another 5 stars. I wish to heck I could give it a strong 4.5, because as good as it was, I wish I had a better
understanding of what The Gap was. Don't let this discourage you, though. Even though it was a little foggy to me, it didn't detract from the story at all. I just accepted it for it was, and let him carry me through the story.
So...what to rate it? I liked it a lot, even loved it at times, but it wasn't Only Forward, so...
Ah, what the heck. It doesn't cost anything and this was a feat of the imagination and this guy deserves a lot of exposure.
I'm rounding up this up to a 5. So there. Read Michael Marshal Smith. You won't forget it.
(less)

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Aug 11, 2011 Ketan Shah added it · review of another edition

Near perfect future noir. A bitter war veteran and ex cop is forced to make some dubious alliances with underworld figures in a crowded corrupt city.All this wrapped in some cutting edge sci fi ideas and descriptions of a future war that is truly nightmarish.Anyone who enjoyed this should look up the works of K.W Jeter.Especially his Blade Runner novels,Noir,Dr Adder and Farewell Horizontal. Lucius Shepard also explores some similar ideas about how a future war might be fought ,especially in his...more

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May 08, 2012 Miguel Ángel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Es increíble, acabo de leer el primer libro en mi vida, cuyo título no tiene nada que ver con la historia, realmente se centra muchísimo más en la odisea de Jack Randall y su vida quebrada por las drogas y el asesinato de su familia que en los clones, los cuales son mencionados muy efimeramente.

En verdad la historia se me hizo bastante confusa y no tiene elementos que me hubieran permitido saber en que punto era donde estaba.

Menos mal que al fin lo pude terminar, no me dejaron deseos de volver a...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Toby Andersen rated it 2 of 5 stars

So 'Spares' by Michael Marshall Smith is at once a sci fi thrill ride of intricate cyberpunk proportions. It is fueled by a great idea and loads of invention - such as the sentient computer systems and viruses. all very interesting. its well written and witty to the point of sniggering in places. However, the premise of Spares begins as an interesting jaunt into the ethics of cloning and the spare humans it involves. This section is great (roughly the first 3rd) then suddenly Smith wants to writ...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Kelanth, numquam risit ubi dracones vivunt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantascienza, favorites

Questo libro è stata una piacevole sorpresa. Anzi, non propriamente una sorpresa, visto le molte recensioni positive che ho sempre visto riguardo a questo titolo. Era da tantissimo che l'avevo nella lista "da leggere" e immancabilmente finiva sotto qualcosa d'altro. Chissà perchè, visto che questo libro mi ha veramente divertito.
Era da tempo che non trovavo un'ambientazione così benfatto e meraviglioso nella sua costruzione, nella sua cupezza, nella sua originalità. Un mondo dove un'enorme citt...more

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Jun 07, 2009 Ugh rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is pretty similar to Only Forward, Smith's first novel, except that this one doesn't descend into tedious drivel halfway through... Both feature a very interesting setting and a street-smart but self-depracating male protagonist who knows how to handle himself as a result of a somewhat shady past and who embarks mostly unwillingly on a mission that involves wise-cracking, shooting and often jammily stumbling through a series of encounters with quirky people in odd locations. Both hence have...more

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Feb 19, 2010 Nicolas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: anticipation, enquête, far-future, handicap, inclassable, ville, rayon-fantasy-et-sf

Avant d’aller plus loin, un avertissement au lecteur. Il s’agit d’un ouvrage de Michael Marshall Smith. Il faut donc dès le départ abandonner pas mal de choses au vestiaire : comme par exemple l’illusion souvent entretenue que le personnage principal doit être positif, car l’auteur a des racines manifestement issues du roman noir, et son héros part toujours (tout au moins dans les différents romans que j’ai lu) d’une image assez classique du privé un peu glauque, limite malhonnête et trop souven...more Avant d’aller plus loin, un avertissement au lecteur. Il s’agit d’un ouvrage de Michael Marshall Smith. Il faut donc dès le départ abandonner pas mal de choses au vestiaire : comme par exemple l’illusion souvent entretenue que le personnage principal doit être positif, car l’auteur a des racines manifestement issues du roman noir, et son héros part toujours (tout au moins dans les différents romans que j’ai lu) d’une image assez classique du privé un peu glauque, limite malhonnête et trop souvent drogué (quoiqu’il ait ici de bonnes raisons d’avoir un tel comportement). L’un des autres points forts de cet auteur, excessivement déconcertant pour le lecteur, et son utilisation d’un unvers très dickien dans l’esprit, où la réalité n’est pas vraiment ce qu’elle devrait être et, quand bien même elle l’est, elle n’est peut-être pas aussi réelle qu’elle en a l’air.
Mais je me rends compte à l’instant que je n’ai pas évoqué du tout ce roman. Il n’est pourtant pas mal du tout, quoique pas au niveau d’Avance rapide, par exemple. Il semble aussi que ce roman ait été dévoré pour servir de base au script de The Island, une platitude cinématographique d’outre-Atlantique, ou tout au moins utilisé, comme nous le dit FilmDeCulte. Bref, pour ne pas trop le déflorer, le héros prend donc pitié d’une bande de clones utilisés comme stocks d’‘organes en bonne santé pour les emmener. Dans sa fuite, pas de bol, il est obligé de repasser par son ancienne ville, une espèce de cité-immeuble du vice à plus de deux cents étages et autant de perversions au moins. Et, comme si ça ne suffisait pas, pour aider ses jeunes orphelins, il doit replonger dans un passé glauque, mélant une guerre virtuelle et la disparition de sa famille.
Comme je le disais dès le départ ou presque, ce roman ne vaut pas Avance rapide. En effet, le rythme n’y est pas aussi bien maîtrisé, les personnages ne sont pas forcément très bien campés, et le décor, quoique très élégant dans un style tout en décadence, n’a pas le charme foncièrement dévastateur de cette cité-monde touchée d’une fièvre séparatiste. Mais, surtout, l’intrigue, bien qu’on soit dans un univers à la Smith, est un peu trop confuse à mon goût.
Ca reste donc un assez bon roman dans l’absolu, mais un cran en dessous des meilleurs de l’auteur.(less)

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Jun 15, 2008 John Dalton added it

This is an excellent and strange book. It's a sci-fi noir detective thriller with some serious excursions into surrealist territory, and liberal helpings of humour thrown in between all the drugs and violence. Despite this confusion, the author has managed to pull off a cohesive story with fully fleshed-out characters in a vividly described world.[return][return]A cop goes off the rails after a mob hit on his family takes away all he had left in life. He wasn't exactly on the rails to begin with...more This is an excellent and strange book. It's a sci-fi noir detective thriller with some serious excursions into surrealist territory, and liberal helpings of humour thrown in between all the drugs and violence. Despite this confusion, the author has managed to pull off a cohesive story with fully fleshed-out characters in a vividly described world.[return][return]A cop goes off the rails after a mob hit on his family takes away all he had left in life. He wasn't exactly on the rails to begin with, so this leaves him a complete wreck. A friend helps get him into a job as caretaker of a "Spares Farm", a medical facility designed to house human clones intended to act as live organ donors, basically as a macabre insurance policy for the clone "owners". The day-to-day activities of the farm are handled by robots, which is just as well as our protagonist is in no state to look after himself when he arrives.[return][return]After some time in the farm he gets the opportunity to see just how bad this situation is for the clones who, despite being human, are treated worse than most livestock. He cleans up and begins trying to teach some of the more responsive clones, to give them an opportunity to become "human". This all comes to a head one day when one of his clones is selected for a procedure which would end up killing them, so he helps a group of clones make their escape out into real world.[return][return]That when things really start to go down hill for all involved.[return][return]The story jumps back and forth, with flashbacks gradually filling in the background and not too infrequently putting events in a new light in the process. The narrator and protagonist is a very flawed individual indeed, and constantly struggling with addiction and other vices. Despite this, he's a likable enough character burdened by remorse for past actions, and for failing to have appreciated his family properly while he had them.[return][return]I bought this on the recommendation of one of the staff at my bookstore - my own dealer who can always get me the fix I need. It's unlikely I'd have bought this book otherwise, but I enjoyed this enough that I'm now going to have to go find more from this author - and thank Richard for putting me on to him while I'm in the store. ;)(less)

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May 27, 2008 Lucy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, sciencefiction

Jack Randall is an washed out ex-soldier, ex-cop who has spent the last five years guarding a Farm. Now he’s on the run with six (well, five and a half) fugitives from the Farm. He’s heading back to the place he swore he’d never return to—the gargantuan city of New Richmond, where he left behind the few friends he still had, and a host of enemies. There’s a price on his head, and some very dangerous baddies out for blood. And whole pieces of the past he thought he had left behind for good are st...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Sam rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Although I loved the premise of this book I did find the actual story a little over exhuberent with more about Jack Randall and his various problems, dilemmas and issues than about the Spares themselves, who only make occasional appearances during the story. It is an engrossing story and an image of the future that is utterly terrifying in its simplicity and its potential. However, there were times where I found my attention flagging a little as MMS went on a bit of a detour here and there and g...more

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Oct 31, 2009 Grace rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, young-adult

This is the messy side of cloning. There's plenty of shock value here, but I think it's worth the work; this was the first book I read that vaulted over the ethical issues and plunged straight into a world where cloning is already an accepted practice. And it's unfortunately convincing in its portrayal of how something like spares might work.

This is one of the question-your-humanity books, and that's a large part of why it's good. It falls down in plenty of places, but still worth a shot.

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Jul 07, 2011 Lett' rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

J’ai personnellement adoré ce livre qui montre la condition des clones, dans un environnement futur. On les décrit comme des bétails, ils ne savent ni parler ni rien faire d’humain alors que ce sont des humains à part entière avec une âme.

Mais il y a aussi La Brèche, un monde parallèle qui m’a fait tellement peur que j’avais peur de lire le livre la nuit. La raison est que la Brèche a une ambiance tellement bizarre, qui fait peur, que l’on a peur.

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Aug 31, 2010 Mikolaj Habryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

MMS doing his trademark blend of SF and outright batshit crazy. It's a testament to his writing ability that he sucks you in with the story so effectively that it takes you most of the book to realize just how weird the world is, and just how little he respects traditional genre boundaries. The beautifully dry humor is only on show in the early part of this book, unlike his later novels, and some of the exposition is a little stretched, but still an excellent read.

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Sep 03, 2009 Charmaine rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really, really enjoyed this book. Although it could of done without the last 2 chapters which were very transparent and stereotypical. However, i enjoyed the rest of the book so much i'm willing to over look it... Or rip the pages out, i haven't decided yet.

Every time i put it down i had to tear myself away...

However, i was annoyed it was set in America when it's written by an Englishman. Practically every book and movie is set in the US, why not have it elsewhere for a change? But maybe that...more

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About Michael Marshall Smith

Michael Marshall (Smith) is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. His first novel, ONLY FORWARD, won the August Derleth and Philip K. Dick awards. SPARES and ONE OF US were optioned for film by DreamWorks and Warner Brothers, and the Straw Men trilogy - THE STRAW MEN, THE LONELY DEAD and BLOOD OF ANGELS - were international bestsellers. His most recent novels are THE INTRUDERS, BAD THINGS and K...more

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