Mockymen

Mockymen

by
Ian Watson

Synopsis of Mockymen

This wonderfully weird tale uncovers the secrets of the "mockymen," aliens who have inhabited drug-addled humans' bodies. A young British couple who make jigsaw puzzles are hired for an outlandish job in a park by an elderly Norwegian man. Toward the end of the Second World War, a blood sacrifice was carried out in this park by Nazis trying to create an occult cordon around Norway, and the aging Norwegian hopes to access the power residing in the park to achieve reincarnation for himself. The Hardship Years intervene, when climate change, ecological collapse, and global economic crises derail human civilization, but in 2010 salvation arrives in the shape of an alien expedition promising new technologies. As the aliens begin to inhabit the bodies of humans strung out on the drug Bliss, a young Blisshead named Jamie recalls his prior life as a Norwegian, and the aliens' true motives are revealed. This wild, absurd, and far-out tale reveals a keen intelligence at work and at play.

Reviews of Mockymen

50%

The story he tells is so complicated, and the background needed to understand it so curious and multifarious, that the narrator, a British spook for the Ministry of Alien Liaison named Anna Sharman, has no choice but to keep filling us in. -- Gerald Jonas, The New York Times

Fans of one of science fiction's most inventive and playful intellects and those who prefer new ideas with their science fiction should find Mockymen rewarding. -- Pamela Sargent, Scifi.com

Watson writes in a convincing female voice and is able to hook and carry along the reader, even where information has to be imparted. -- Pauline Morgan, SF Crowsnest