The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man by Dave Hutchinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Welcome to Pulp-Land! In more ways than one!

1. 3/4 of the novel is about a slow-simmering failed science-writer landing a cush job to write a book for a tech millionaire who bought a town. Add a bit of espionage and some funny interpersonal experiences with his new home and neighbors, and I still had a fun time wondering HOW THE HELL THE TITLE FIT IN. This is old-school SF technique, btw. Total pulp. :)

2. The last part is TOTAL freaky quantum superhero stuff with time travel, teleportation, and pretty awesome callbacks to the events in the first 3/4. I had a total blast with this particular pulp.

3. Pulpy! Like, literally. An explosion of biomass! PULP-LAND!


I had a good time. I didn't expect it to be like the Fractured Europe Sequence and I came into it expecting a light-hearted SF, and this is what I got. :)

Kinda like orange juice. Freshly squeezed.

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.

I got this book as I absolutely loved the “Fractured Europe” series, although given the prospect of Brexit it scared the living daylights out of me. This is rather different, although equally scary.

Alex Dolan is a down on his luck former science journalist, who is offered a dream job, writing a book about the Sioux Crossing Supercollider (think Large Hadron Collider, but well, larger). He moves to Sioux Crossing, a town mostly owned by Stan Clayton, the Elon Musk type figure who is bankrolling the project, and then things start to get weird.

The first three quarters of the book show Alex settling into the town, starting work on the book, getting to know his neighbours, and the reader starts to wonder when something is going to happen. In the final quarter, it does. At that point the book started to feel rushed.

The strength of the book is in the characters, Alex’s neighbour, scientists working at the SCS, and the editor of the local newspaper. Alex feels very much like an observer, rather than a participant, which is why the ending is such a shock.

I enjoyed the book, but I didn’t love it.

Alex Dolan is a Scottish ex-pat living in Boston. An unemployed science journalist, he spends his days floating article ideas to magazines and avoiding his landlord on the stairs. So, when he receives a job offer from Sebastian Clayton, 5th richest man in the world, he's not really in a position to refuse.

Having accepted the job, to write a book chronicling work to bring the Sioux Crossing Supercollider online, Alex finds himself transported to to Sioux Crossing itself, a county almost entirely owned and rebuilt by Stan Clayton and populated by a mix of the original residents and scientists and personnel from the SCS facility. And things start to get strange almost mediately. How does everyone he meets seem to know who he is and where he lives? Is his house bugged? Why did the former occupants leave all their stuff behind? And what should he make of all the sightings around town of an “angel”?

OK, first off, let me clarify that The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man is NOT a sequel. So, don't waste any rime trying to find “The Incredible Exploding Man” at your local book store or library. Not that you would, you're way smarter than that.

I am a fan of Dave Hutchinson. His Fractured Europe Sequence was brilliant and TROFIEM (as we shall henceforth refer to it) is just as enjoyable, the writing style even more so as the prose is a lot simpler and easier to enjoy. There are many characters that you'll meet and like. The cynical local newspaper reporter, the scientist that Alex befriends and the grouchy neighbour and his farting dog. And the mystery of what is happening in Sioux Crossing and whether Alex is really being surveilled is intriguing and it's all presented in a funny, entertaining way.

BUT

This book ultimately feels unfinished. The first three quarters set the premise and the tone, they lay the groundwork for a deeper mystery behind the town and the SCS, they hint at sinister machinations and histories behind the actions of various characters.....and then nothing. The final quarter just comes at you like a rush and you feel a little bit cheated by everything that came before because, ultimately, none of it was especially necessary.

And that is why, as much as I enjoyed reading The Return Of The Incredible Exploding Man, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone simply because I wouldn't like to set them up for the same disappointment.

(Caveat: if it turns out that this is only the first book in a new series and everything in the first part

Down on his luck Alex is tasked with writing about the a new Large Hadron Collider, however when something goes terribly wrong the real danger begins. This novel is the best kind of technothriller - the focus is less on the actual fallout than the creepy endstage-of-capitalism/god-complex experienced by Alex's secretive benefactor. The novel starts out slow and focuses mainly on interpersonal relationships Alex creates with the people living in the town the LHC is in, but the last quarter of the book is a thrill ride to a conclusion that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

A special thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

A promising novel from a talented author with an odd ending. It seemed a bit experimental. I liked some of the characters very much, and the skill in which the story is told is what saved it. Overall, he's written much better.

I really appreciate the advanced copy for review!!

I love the title. I love the cover. I wanted to love the content, but I can't. It has poor pacing, repetitive vocabulary, and an unexciting plot. A shame, really. I think it could be 30-40 % shorter without hurting the book, and it would probably make it stronger.

Hutchinson follows on from his painfully prescient Fractured Europe series with another, possibly even nearer future story; aside from the references to 7G, and the MAGA caps being faded, it could pretty much be today. Stan Clayton, a Musk/Bezos-style zillionaire, has bought up an Iowa county pretty much wholesale, and is installing a larger than Large Hadron Collider there. Protagonist Alex, a broke Scottish tech journalist, is Stan's choice to spread the good word about the project, and evoke the requisite 'sensawunda'. There's a faintly creepy air about the whole set-up, but is that just standard late stage capitalism creepy, or something stranger going on? At first, it feels like a technothriller, albeit a fairly sedate and slow-building one. There's even a touch of Stephen King in the detailed depiction of the small-town setting and Alex's developing bonds with its inhabitants. But there's too slow a parcelling out of the spooky stuff, and it doesn't help that anyone who's read a comic* should be able to work out most of the solution to the mysterious happenings almost immediately. And then in the final quarter of the book, things speed up considerably, and we power through three or four genres in next to no time - but an awful lot of the story still involves sitting around and waiting for things. Which was an element in Fractured Europe too, and is a big part of life, and maybe part of what interests Hutchinson as a writer is precisely to reflect that in genre fiction. But it still makes for a certain grind in the experience of reading this.

*By which I mean one specific comic, but also that, if you've read any American-style comics at all, you've more than likely read this one.

(Netgalley ARC)

The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man has just blown me away!
Full disclosure: I've never read Dave Hutchinsons work before and I've not dabbled in the science fiction genre much either but this book just appealed to me from the get go.
Scotsman Alex Dolan is a freelance science journalist just trying, but pretty much failing to make ends meet, when on a gloomy day in his apartment in Boston everything changed.
The unpaid bills that he'd been avoiding were magically paid by a anonymous source, thinking he was losing his mind his interest was further peaked by a single envelope containing airline tickets to SanFrancisco & a letter.
He made the call, that call would change his life forever. Stanislaw Clayton the 5th wealthiest man on earth was creating something amazing and he wanted Alex to write the book and a few pieces here and there, What had he got left to lose?
In Sioux Crossing, Minnesota Clayton had built A one of a kind Supercollider, A machine that one day could control the Forces of the Universe.
Things were strange from the start but Alex built himself a new life, with good friends and a no pressure job, however that investigative spirit just couldn't ignore the little oddities and he began to look a bit further and delve a bit deeper. Until one day it all went wrong. Very wrong. Life has he knew it disappeared in a puff of blue sparks.
An easy and very enjoyable read, I'm
off to look into Mr. Hutchinsons back catalogue until the sequel...

(This review will post Sept 4, 2019, at https://wp.me/p7sUl-th)


The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man by Dave Hutchinson (Solaris) - Alex Dolan is a down on his luck journalist is hired by a billionaire to help with a pet project.  It's the largest supercollider project ever, holding the promise of high energy physics breakthroughs.  Once he arrives in rural Iowa, Dolan discovers that there are a lot of secrets waiting for him.  Then an accident changes everything, including Dolan himself.


I have to admit, the title sounded like a '50s B-movie sci-fi flick.  But I like '50s B-movie sci-fi flicks, so I thought what the heck?  What I got was a well written, nicely thought out story science fiction story.   The story of a media pro out of work for an extended period time may have also struck a personal chord in this reader as well, lol.


There is a certain "Spiderman" aspect to the story.  Alex Dolan develops supernatural powers following an accident during a science experiment.  Unlike every superhero story, Dolan isn't sure he wants any part of it all.  Being changed at a fundamental level is, and should be, scary.  When your powers take you places that no one understands, and your control of them is shaky, it's the only possible sane response.  Hutchinson does a nice job weaving us through the series of events, and personalities that bring Dolan to that point in his life.  The story offers a few well-placed twists and turns to keep you guessing.


Hutchinson has never shown up on my reading radar before but has an established reputation as a solid science fiction writer.  His novel "Europe in Autumn", described as a "speculative espionage thriller" set in a near-future Europe.  It's received nominations for awards from the British Science Fiction Association, plus the John W. Campbell and Arthur C. Clarke awards.  I'll be moving him onto my "Authors to Explore" list.


The end of the book doesn't offer a resolution to all the plot lines, so I'm assuming there's a sequel to come.  How an author handles that moment has a huge influence on whether I want to read the next book or not.  For me, the first question is this: does it feel like this has concluded the action of the book I've just read?  Or am I left hanging (which I HATE).  When Dolan collapses into a chair on the last page, it felt like a reasonable place for the book to end.  So it cleared the first hurdle.  The second question has to do with my reaction to the end arriving.  I was sorry the book was over.  I want more about this character, his story and the people that surround him.  So the book was a resounding success for me.


The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man hit the shelves yesterday!


Rating - **** Recommended


This review was done from an Advanced Reader Copy, and is consistent with our state review policy.

I grew up in a city and in a time without bookstores. There were plenty of booksellers, though, selling the stuff people most wanted to read - the Stephen Kings, the Danielle Steele's. There were only a few who stocked less popular books, wrapped in clear plastic to ward off fingerprints and dust. When I had finally exhausted the local inventory, I went to these shops to discover new authors and new stories, and I had no way to judge the books other than by their covers, since the sellers would not remove the plastic unless you bought the books. And that is how I have discovered some of my favorites authors - for example The Sacred Art of Stealing took me down a very enjoyable Christopher Brookmyre rabbit hole, and I have happily read most of his stories. Sometimes, such a practice of judging a book by its cover has not failed me, but it isn't always foolproof as the adage says. But it is an unconscious practice honed by experience.

And with this book, it paid off. I had heard of the author in passing, particularly because of his sci fi awards, and so thought I would give this book a shot when I saw it on Netgalley, since it seemed like a standalone book and the cover seemed intriguing. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this before publication.

I really really enjoyed this book - in fact, if I had to pick one word to describe the experience, I would say it was a very enjoyable read. This is despite the many contradictions that it left behind.

First of all, the main character Alex. I very much liked how relatable he was - the sense of constant befuddlement that he felt at his situation throughout the book was superbly written, but at the same time made me want to scream at him internally on various occasions - I haven't felt so much for a book character in a while.

Second, I loved that the author didn't try to spend a lot of time trying to explain everything - quite a few things were left unresolved, which is perfectly fine. I don't need a detailed explanation for all of the science behind the science fiction to enjoy the book. Plus I enjoyed how there was no super-scientist who figured it all out which would ruin the story. But some readers might be a bit turned off by how the author sometimes throws in a few scientific terms - gravitons, gravity shear - as possible explanations, only for none of the ideas to take root. Frankly, readers need to suspend their need for an explanation and let the story itself overtake you - which I find the book really does well.

Finally, I loved the ending. There is no resolution or pay-off at the very end, and I quite liked that. Readers who prefer everything wrapped up and tied with a bow - and I admit there is a part of me that wants similar endings - might be a bit disappointed, but I thought the story that it tries to tell rather deserves the ending, and that it is difficult to try and end it neatly. Unlike other similar books, I liked that it felt like the ending was planned all along - it didn't feel like the author had run out of ideas and was struggling to end the book. Plus I am excited by the potential for the story and the universe to continue in future books - I wouldn't mind returning to another journey into this world in the future.

The only thing that was a negative to me about the book - and it is a very minor point - was that it felt to me that the author has a tremendous sense of humor that he was intentionally trying to limit. There were significant moments of levity - but I couldn't help feel like the author had much more in store that was left out that would have been amazing to have. It is a bit hard to explain - I don't want a laugh-out-loud book because I am not sure how it would contrast with the rest of the story, but I couldn't help feel the author was holding back on the jokes.

I'm really happy I got the chance to read this book, and many thanks again to Netgalley and the publisher. Now, if you excuse me, I think I see a Dave Hutchinson-shaped rabbit hole of books that I need to go jump down.

The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man is a difficult book to classify and to review. The cover and blurb strongly indicate a superhero-type story, which is what attracted me to the work. However, the first 75% of the book is essentially a slow, tedious drama/mystery story. Then, without warning, the story does a complete flip and turns into something else entirely, dropping a number of characters and unresolved plot points and introducing others. The ending then also feels unresolved in the way it is left. There were bits towards the end of the book that I enjoyed, but I would have liked to have seen those introduced much earlier, because the snail-pace of the first 75% had already lost most of my interest and attention by that point. There is a spark of something in the premise, and I think it would have had potential if not for the pacing issues and the general disjointedness. I'm giving this 2.5 stars that I will round up to a three. There were some interesting moments, but overall the book's structure was too flawed for me to truly enjoy the tale.

Here's what I'd tell this author if I was his editor. Obviously, I'm not.

Your prose is well above average. That's what kept me reading through the very slow first quarter; I don't know that it would do as much for most readers. Your structure, on the other hand, needs a lot of work.

The first quarter consists entirely of a sad loser (one of my least favourite kinds of character, speaking for myself) resisting a decision that it's clear he will end up making. What's not clear is why he's resisting it. Is he fiercely independent and doesn't like being railroaded? If so, you need to show that more obviously, and also make it a trait that carries through into the rest of the book. Likewise if he's just self-sabotaging. I couldn't figure out which one it was, or if it was something else, and it never ended up mattering anyway.

The middle half is stronger, but at the three-quarter mark it takes a sharp left turn, and practically all the plot lines and characters that have been gradually developing through the middle are thrown away, never to be resolved. Your title promises, and the blurb hints, that this is a supers book. It isn't for the first three-quarters, and the last quarter is only a supers book if you're extremely generous with the definition. Then the ending is a complete damp fizzle.

Here's what I suggest you do. Cut two-thirds of the first 75%, including most of the first 25%. Get rid of all the plotlines that go nowhere and the characters that disappear at the three-quarter mark for no particular reason except that the book has suddenly changed what it's about. If possible, bring in at least two of the three new characters you introduce in the last quarter (the Polish scientist and the two government agents); don't introduce significant new characters after the first act if you can help it.

Develop the relationships with Wendy, the scientist from the early part, and if possible Rob Chen. They're underutilised. The relationship with Wendy doesn't have to be a romance (you briefly hint at the possibility, but never follow through), but it should be more than it is. Chen is a throwaway at the moment. You developed the relationship with Ralph, the old man next door, well; I want to see you do the same with other characters that last until the end of the book.

And definitely develop the relationship with the villain. Perhaps you could toss in the theory that the reason Alex and he were the only ones who were able to leave after the accident was that they were having a confrontation at the time; either the emotional heightening or the physical proximity could provide an explanation for what is, at the moment, unexplained. It's fine if that's just a theory that never gets confirmed, but humans come up with theories to explain things. At the moment, no explanation is even attempted. Have the scientists at least figure <i>something</i> out, and show us a bit of their process, and their personal process around the scientific process. That's your chance to give the female characters, particularly Wendy, more to do; at the moment, they're tokens. "Look, my book has women scientists! Two of them!" Yes, well, good for you, but they don't play that much role in the plot, especially not as scientists, and not as fully realised people either.

Instead of just having the agents tell Alex about the damage the villain's doing, have him go and see and feel the devastation it's causing for himself. Have him try to help the victims with his new powers, which are seriously underutilized; there's not even a suggestion that he should be considering the good he can do on a large scale. He barely does much on a small scale.

The whole new middle should be about him trying to come to terms with his new powers, trying to use them in a way that matters, hitting limitations, discovering that helping people isn't simple, opening out beyond his self-absorption, differentiating himself from the villain, and becoming more determined to stop the villain. Give me a reason to be emotionally invested. Lead up to the second confrontation with the villain, and make it the turning point of Act 3, not just an inconclusive thing that happened without much foreshadowing or emotional weight. Then show us how things resolve for the characters we've now come to care about. Not everything needs to wrap up in a neat bow, but <i>something</i> needs to resolve. At the moment, the ending is nothing. It has no thematic resonance (in part because the book is so disjointed), it has no sense of a plot coming to a conclusion, it's just a place where you stop writing. Everything has changed for Alex, but nothing has changed for him. Give him an internal journey to match his external one.

In the current version, the book Alex is writing never comes together and ends up just being lost, uncompleted. I assume that's not intended as a metaphor for this book, but it certainly could be.

If you wrote the book I describe above, or anything close to it, it could be a five-star book for me. You're a clever writer. You could make it not cliched, you could have things that are left unsettled, you could avoid turning it into a Hollywood cookie-cutter plot. Yes, it's more conventional than what you've done, but classics are classics because they work. As it stands, your version only makes it to three stars because of the quality of the prose; structurally and in terms of pacing, it doesn't work for me at all, and I think there are serious missteps. It's certainly not the "thrilling science fiction masterwork" that the blurb promises.

(I received a review copy via Netgalley.)

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 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.

Europe in Autumn 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.

It felt like this was 2 different books in 1. The first 75% was a simple fiction novel with character building and some science. And then came the last 25% of the story which was insane, incredible greatly insane.

Alex Dolan is a science journalist who has seen better days. Now he is in serious need of money so after some careful thinking he accepts the job offer of Stanoslaw Clayton who is the CEO of Clayton Dynamics. The job is to write a book about Sioux Crossing Supercollider. Clayton want to use the collider to research gravity. This was supposed to be an easy job but when something goes horribly wrong, Alex’s life turns upside down.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect after reading the book’s description but this was so not it. I liked Alex instantly, he is a smart, cocky guy.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and Dave Hutchinson for my copy.

Damn good science fiction that grabs and doesn't let go. The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man is an inventive and, yes, "incredible" read that entertains consistently. I want to read more from Dave Hutchinson.

To read this is to see an author maturing into his style. I've read most of the Kindle titles from Hutchinson and with this one he seems to have found his pace. He spends a lot of time creating characters and a place for them to live in and we don't really mind as readers that the book isn't science fiction until we hit the 55% mark. I do wish we had more foreshadowing of the end but I think he felt that would give it away. Honestly, I guessed what was going on at 10% but that didn't ruin it for me.

The last 20% took a sharp turn into all-SF, which was a strange turn after so much character-building. I liked the characters but it was almost like the first 80% was written to flesh out a short story that was the last 20%. (I don't really think that was the case.) What I hope is that the author intended to show the protagonist growing into the last 20% and how he handles it. This only works as a standalone novel for this reason and it needs to be intentional. If this turns out to be an origin story for a sequel, I will come back and lower my rating.

The nitpicker in me wishes he had researched American geography and climate a little. It is not hot in San Francisco and Wisconsin is not southeast of Iowa. He also makes the mistake of having American characters use British idiom (no one in Iowa says "bollocks"!). If the narrator is British, he can get away with it. The characters cannot.

Anyway, I zoomed right through and enjoyed it to the end. There were no slow parts, it was all well done, and I do recommend it.