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When We Were Real

By: William Barton
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Warner Books
ISBN: 0446607061
ISBN-13: 9780446607063
Released: 22 Jun 1999
RRP: £6.25
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Galaxy spanning romance - not so much - By: Katrine Myra, 17 Mar 2003
This book was described as a romance story on the back of the copy I bought. I'll be charitable, & presume that this was an attempt by the publishing company to sell more copies to romance-craving readers, rather than the authors honest opinion of the plot. Because if the authors idea of romance is what is described in "When We Were Real", then I feel genuinely sorry for him.

The main character, "Murph", escapes a female-dominated society where men are opressed much like women were on our world before the onset of feminism. He joins a corporate army, where he meets Violet, a fox-human hybrid. The two become friends & have sex a few times, & are then separated by an accident. And that, for almost the entire length of the novel, is alll we hear about Violet.

The main part of the story sees Murph travelling the universe, meeting women, having sex with them & moving on. At one point, when meeting a new woman who seems to take an interrest in him, Murph thinks "oh no, not again". I couldn't agree more. While I find nothing wrong with graphic descriptions of sex, too much of it becomes reptitive, boring, & pointless.

When we finallly meet Violet again, the reader reallly doesn't care. For one thing they have probably forgotten about her, & for another there was no indication that Murph felt anything more for her than any of the countless other women he had been with.

In addition to alll this, although the story is told in first person perspective, we never seem to get inside Murph's head, which is pretty impressive. Not even when he is violently gang-raped or forced to kill innocent civillians do you get more than an inkling of an idea of what his personality is like.

A lot of the ideas presented are interresting, if only they had been developed further... But they never are. The book is thick, but even so I got the feeling that the author was trying to present too many ideas at once. Yes war is bad, sexism is bad & racism is bad... But there are other books that tell us this in a much better way.

Avoid. Not even worth it for the graphic sex scenes.

pornography posing as Science Fiction - By: , 20 Jul 2001
There was a time when critics said there is no sex in Science Fiction, meaning that is a bad thing. This time is definitely long gone. I made the mistake of buying more than one book written by William Barton alone & together with Michael Capbianco, without knowing them. The cover text seemed nice enough. If I had known only one of these books beforehand, I wouldn't have bought any more. There are no 3 sequential pages in these books where the "hero" does not either [you know which 4 letter word I mean] a woman (no, "making love to a woman does not describe it correctly), thinks about it, remembers a previous encounter or imagines what her most private parts look like. Great, that's exaclty why I buy a Science Fiction book. Science Fiction in Germany was once thought to be boy's literature, nothing that grown man would read. Books like this one are still not fit for grown man, but we have progressed: They are also not fit for boys. Only adolescents might find something interesting.

I hope this review is not censored because of offensive language, I tried to restrain myself, but William Barton definitely did not.

Ouch! The honesty is brutal ... and that makes it great! - By: , 18 Aug 1999
Loved it. Barton is a brutal writer in emotional terms, but that's what makes him so darned good. Seems every issue of ASIMOV'S I pick up has a terrific story by him, too. Another great book from a great SF writer.
Barton's Usual Great Stuff - By: , 13 Jun 1999
I'm not going to bother outlining the book for you. If you have read Barton's previous works & were not repulsed by them for their blatant honesty, you'll find more of the same here - great plotting, wonderful insight, deep characterization. I've always empathized with Barton's characters because they are so flawed. On top of that, his characters always end up learning something, end up much different then when the book starts out.

If you like sci-fi - moreover, GOOD, WELL-WRITTEN sci-fi, buy this book. Read it. Then go out & read ALL of Barton's stuff. You'll not be disappointed. Ya get Melville & Clarke in one neat package.

Great stuff, this.