History Literature / Ambient

* BigRottenApple: As mentioned in the crapsack world entry below, this version of New York City was heavily influenced by the city's economic decline during the 80s, but here everything is cranked UpToEleven. Think of all the random violence, drug addiction, child prostitution and corporate greed of the 80s. Done? Well, it's '''''much, much worse''''' here. The stain of Reaganomics has not washed off of Dryco's NYC.

* ShoutOut: When he gets back home to his apartment, O'Malley notes that one of the movies being shown at the in-house nickelodeon downstairs is Film/AClockworkOrange. The movie is cited as a direct influence on ''Ambient''.
** Mister Dryden once remarked that the idea of the deathmatch conferences came to him after watching [[Film/{{Rollerball}}, a violent sports film featuring rollerblades]].

Seamus O'Malley is the bodyguard and assassin for Dryco's [[BadBoss tyrannical CEO]], Thatcher Dryden II. He's also in love with Dryden's mistress, the beautiful proxy named Avalon. After foiling an attempt on Dryden's life, O'Malley is roped into a murder plot by his boss. The target: Thatcher Dryden I, aka the 'Old Man'. It turns out that Dryden Sr. is actively attempting to destroy the company's solvency by speculating in the Bronx's real estate. O'Malley is hesitant at first, but when Jr. offers him the option to elope abroad to Leningrad[[note]]The book was published in 1987. The city's name reverted to Saint Petersburg in 1991.[[/note]] with Avalon, O'Malley plays along. However, things [[FromBadToWorse go south]] when unforeseen circumstances cause the assassination attempt to fail. With Avalon by his side, O'Malley goes on the run into the heart of NYC, to seek shelter with his sister Enid and the vilified race of mutants known as 'Ambients'...

Considered a cult classic in the cyberpunk community, ''Ambient'' introduced readers to an imaginatively shocking vision of a near-future world, replete with dashes of ultraviolence, disturbing social commentary and deviant sexuality. The novel has drawn comparisons to Creator/AnthonyBurgess's Literature/AClockworkOrange, especially in its usage of poetic FutureSlang by Dryco and the Ambients.

* BadBoss / CorruptCorporateExecutive: Dryden the Elder and Dryden the Younger are both just as cruel and Machiavellian toward anybody. Both have arranged the assassination of their rivals and would go as far as trying to kill each other. The evil extends to such an extent that[[spoiler: Dryden Sr. beat his own wife (his main business partner) to death with a baseball bat in front of his son to prevent the truth about the Pax Atomica and Alice from leaking out to the public]]. The world is such a nightmare that most people don't seem willing to overthrow Dryco anyway.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: After O'Malley confronts him to find out the truth about the Old Man, Mister Dryden commits suicide and O'Malley is escorted to the estate where the missing Avalon is discovered to be safe and sound, seemingly betraying O'Malley all along by siding with Dryden Sr. The latter gives O'Malley a key to a filing cabinet that contains the truth to various conspiracy theories, but the Pax Atomica conspiracy is missing. After being knocked out by Jimmy, O'Malley is taken to the Tombs beneath the estate where the Drydens' enemies are tortured and deformed by Alice, a supercomputer that can draw up any event from its memories. O'Malley is given permission by the Old Man to ask Alice any question. He discovers the truth about Avalon's childhood, his father's fate, and the murder of the Old Man's wife in relation to the Pax Atomica. This question infuriates the Old Man who tries to attack O'Malley but is subdued by him. Despite insisting that a failsafe is built into his body to set off the nuclear missiles on the world, the Old Man is shot by Avalon. Alice somehow prevents the nukes from going off and O'Malley and Avalon escape with Enid, who had her memory removed by Alice as punishment by Dryco.]]

* BigFancyCastle: The Dryden Estate is located outside the city. Its heavily fortified and guarded to the point of overkill: several walls surround the main building. Dogs, Army Boys and helicopters patrol the premises 24/7. Gun batteries line up every corner of the walls, along with barbed wire. And to top it all off, landmines are scattered about the place.

* {{Cult}}: The Church of E as followed by the Drydens and their associates. Who's E? While never named in the book, his physical description, as well as the sermons quoting his songs ("A Big Hunk O'Love", "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", etc.), and Dryden Sr.'s story about his visit to Graceland, make it [[Music/ElvisPresley pretty clear who it is]].

* DysfunctionJunction: Entire families are dysfunctional in this future world, but the Drydens take it a step further in their ongoing feuds with each other. Murder, child exploitation and [[spoiler: building a seemingly all-seeing supercomputer that experiments genetically on their prisoners]] is just another day in the office for them.
* EarthThatUsedToBeBetter: The climate is so bad that deserts have expanded everywhere on Earth and flooding is common. When it rains (and that happens a lot), NYC's streets are flooded with filthy water from the poorly maintained sewers. Dried clumps of excrement are swept up off the street during a cold spell and become a blizzard of falling shit, which the Ambients refer to as 'Le Muerta'.

* ExecutiveSuiteFight: Near the novel's climax, [[spoiler: O'Malley sneaks into Mister Dryden's HQ to confront him about being double-crossed and Avalon's whereabouts. Dryden sicks his secretary Renaldo on him. Renaldo is strangled to death by O'Malley who then proceeds to interrogate Mister Dryden before the latter kills himself out of fear using a [[CyanidePill poison pill]].]]

* FutureSlang: Everyone casually speaks a form of some street lingo in 2030s NYC. Some recurring words make sense when carefully following the dialogue, such as "vizz" (to 'look at', or 'to see') and "overmuch" (like 'too much'). Still, the bizspeak (or 'business speak' employed by Mister Dryden) and Ambient language feature short poetic sentences and deliberate instances of broken English. The Ambient language even has elements of Spanglish and French in it.

* HaveANiceDaySmile: The corporate logo of Dryco is a smiley face, named in-universe as a 'smirker'. Avalon has one tattooed on her right buttock.

* MasterComputer: Alice is a supercomputer that was developed by Dryden Sr. and his wife Susie D. It gradually developed a mind of its own yet remained subservient to the Drydens despite its lippy attitude. Alice can even devise experiments that malform prisoners captured by the Drydens. Later, [[spoiler: O'Malley discovers that Alice can generate memories of events from anywhere via its massive data. He gets it to reveal the fate of Mrs Dryden who was murdered by Dryden Sr. in order to keep the secret of their abuse of the Pax Atomica.]]

* {{Mutants}}: The Ambients are this in varying degrees. It's thought that they were born from parents who survived a nuclear accident on Long Island. Completely isolated from NYC itself and feared by the public, the Ambients formed their own community, culture, language and a religion based on the 'Godness'. While some of them are 'lucky' enough to lack limbs or end up as dwarfs, many of them are so deformed to the point of having grotesque mutations that rival those from real-life disasters such as Chernobyl. However, regular people ''voluntarily'' choose to become Ambients as an expression of solidarity toward them.

** Enid O'Malley, Seamus's older sister, is a voluntary Ambient. Standing at 6'3" like her younger brother, she had her head and eyebrows shaved clean and sharp spikes put in their place. Her breasts were also surgically removed. She regularly speaks to him in the Ambient FutureSlang.
** In the book's climax, it turns out that [[spoiler: they weren't products of the actual nuclear accident itself. In fact, their parents were given anti-radiation pills that deformed the fetuses during the mother's pregnancy. The Ambients' parents migrated from Long Island into the abandoned parts of the city to escape from being purged.]]
* NotSoDifferentRemark: When O'Malley criticises the Old Man's [[spoiler: hidden capability to use Alice to torture people and nuke anybody at anytime]] as evil. The latter puts him down with an epic comeback:

* RapeAsDrama: [[spoiler: O'Malley's sister Enid was gang raped by home invaders when she was just sixteen. The siblings took it upon themselves to avenge her trauma and kill the rapists when they come back for another attempt.]] This comes back into play later in climax when [[spoiler: Alice wipes out most of Enid's memory by inducing her with Korsakov's Syndrome. Her brain will not retain any new memories and is forever trapped in the traumatic aftermath of that brutal gang rape. As the novel ends, it's not clear if Alice could or would recover Enid's original mental state.]]
* SadisticGameShow: a very cruel example. A contestant in a jumpsuit enters a tube where quarters are fired at him at several miles an hour and he's supposed to catch them. It doesn't take long for the man to be turned into a bloody pulp.

** Mister Dryden once remarked that the idea of the deathmatch conferences came to him after watching [[Film/{{Rollerball}} a violent sports film featuring rollerblades]].
* TheDriver: Jimmy, Mister Dryden's valet. A Jamaican man much larger than the 6'3" O'Malley. He's on good terms with O'Malley, [[spoiler: and appears to be on his side as they drive up to the estate for the final showdown. But, surprise surprise, he was on the Old Man's side all along and is last seen KO'ing O'Malley before the climax]].
* TimeBomb: The method of assassination used to try to kill the Old Man in his estate's office. It fails when [[spoiler: Avalon resets it an hour earlier in a bid to kill both Drydens at the same time. O'Malley learns later that both Drydens survived because a lala that the Old Man invited to his office discovered it almost immediately.]]
* UrbanWarfare: The army is mostly made up of psychotic young boys who protect Dryco's interests. Urban areas that are trouble spots are cordoned off by them and there's active warfare between the Army Boys and other factions from Brooklyn to Long Island. Bombings and arson between the Army Boys and their enemies are an everyday occurrence.

* TimeBomb: The method of assassination used to try to kill the Old Man in his estate's office. It fails when [[spoiler: Avalon resets it an hour earlier in a bid to kill both Drydens at the same time. O'Malley learns later that both Drydens survived because a lala that Old Man invited to his office discovered it almost immediately.]]

* TimeBomb: The method of assassination used to try to kill the Old Man. It fails when [[spoiler: Avalon sets it an hour earlier in a bid to kill both Drydens. O'Malley learns later that both Drydens survived because a lala that Old Man invited to his office discovered it almost immediately.]]

* UrbanWarfare: The army is mostly made up of psychotic young boys who protect Dryco's interests. They often shoot up buses that glide by them and sexually assault women on a whim. Urban areas that are trouble spots are cordoned off by them and there's active warfare between the Army Boys and other factions from Brooklyn to Long Island. Bombings and arson between the Army Boys and their enemies are an everyday occurrence.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: After getting to a safe house in Brooklyn to hide from Dryco, O'Malley wakes up to find Avalon missing and a Dryco business card warning him he's next. After getting help from the Army Boys to be escorted to Dryco HQ upon Mr. Dryden's request, O'Malley interrogates him after killing the secretary, Renaldo. The fearful Dryden eventually spills the beans: the assassination attempt failed and Mister Dryden ratted out O'Malley and Avalon, forcing the Old Man's hand by summoning the Army Boys to hunt them across New York. He also reveals that the Old Man abused the Pax Atomica, a rule banning nuclear weapons on Earth, by possibly possessing his own hidden stockpile. Mister Dryden commits suicide and O'Malley is escorted to the estate where Avalon is discovered to be safe and sound, seemingly betraying O'Malley all along by siding with Dryden Sr. The latter gives O'Malley a key to a filing cabinet that contains the truth to various conspiracy theories, but the Pax Atomica conspiracy is missing. After being knocked out by Jimmy, O'Malley is taken to the Tombs beneath the estate where the Drydens' enemies are tortured and deformed by Alice, a supercomputer that can draw up any event from its memories. O'Malley is given permission by the Old Man to ask Alice any question. He discovers the truth about Avalon's childhood, his father's fate, and the murder of the Old Man's wife in relation to the Pax Atomica. This question infuriates the Old Man who tries to attack O'Malley but is subdued by him. Despite insisting that a failsafe is built into his body to set off the nuclear missiles on the world, the Old Man is shot by Avalon. Alice somehow prevents the nukes from going off and O'Malley and Avalon escape with Enid, who had her memory removed by Alice as punishment by Dryco.]]

* SadisticGameShow: One of NYC's most popular game shows features a contestant in a jumpsuit who enters a tube where quarters are fired at him at several miles an hour and he's supposed to catch them. It doesn't take long for the man to be turned into a bloody pulp much to the audience's delight.

* {{Cult}}: The Church of E as followed by the Drydens and their associates. Who's E? While never named in the book, his physical description, as well as the sermons quoting his song names ("A Big Hunk O'Love", "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", etc.), and Dryden Sr.'s story about his visit to Graceland, make it [[Music/ElvisPresley pretty clear who it is]].
** Meanwhile, the Ambients worship the deformed deity they refer to as Godness. O'Malley notices a painted mural of Godness, depicting it as a mutant with multiple conjoined heads and bodies, along with [[OtherworldlyAndSexuallyAmbiguous both male and female sex organs]]. Its shown holding the world over its head, ready to drop it into oblivion.

* EyeScream: While traveling via train, O'Malley and Avalon witness a man (who was continually vomiting on himself moments earlier) having his eye casually gouged out with an ice pick.
** Due to constant burglaries at their homes, computer operators for Dryco are forced to work in the World Trade Center offices in single shifts that could last nearly a week. Because they aren't allowed to take regular breaks, some of the girls eventually lose their eyesight and need walking sticks to navigate the office.

* EarthThatUsedToBeBetter: The climate is so bad that deserts have expanded everywhere on Earth and flooding is common. NYC routinely floods sewage onto the street whenever it rains and dried clumps of excrement are swept up off the street during a cold spell and become a blizzard of falling shit, which the Ambients refer to as 'Le Muerta'.

* TheBigBad: Thatcher 'Old Man' Dryden I fit this to a T.

* TheBigBad: Thatcher 'Old Man' Dryden III fit this to a T.

Seamus O'Malley is the bodyguard and assassin for Dryco's tyrannical CEO, Thatcher Dryden II. He's also in love with Dryden's mistress, the beautiful proxy named Avalon. After foiling an attempt on Dryden's life, O'Malley is roped into a murder plot by his boss. The target: Thatcher Dryden I, aka the 'Old Man'. It turns out that Dryden Sr. is actively attempting to destroy the company's solvency by speculating in the Bronx's real estate. O'Malley is hesitant at first, but when Jr. offers him the option to elope abroad to Leningrad[[note]]The book was published in 1987. The city's name reverted to Saint Petersburg in 1991.[[/note]] with Avalon, O'Malley plays along. However, things [[FromBadToWorse go south]] when unforeseen circumstances cause the assassination attempt to fail. With Avalon by his side, O'Malley goes on the run into the heart of NYC, to seek shelter with his sister Enid and the vilified race of mutants known as 'Ambients'...

Seamus O'Malley is the bodyguard and assassin for Dryco's tyrannical CEO, Thatcher Dryden II. He's also in love with Dryden's mistress, the beautiful proxy named Avalon. After foiling an attempt on Dryden's life, O'Malley is roped into a murder plot by his boss. The target: Thatcher Dryden I, aka the 'Old Man'. It turns out that Dryden Sr. is actively attempting to destroy the company's solvency by speculating in the Bronx's real estate. O'Malley is hesitant at first, but when Jr. offers him the option to elope abroad to Leningrad[[note]]The book was published in 1987. The city's name reverted to Saint Petersburg in 1991.[[/note]] with Avalon, O'Malley plays along. However, things go south when unforeseen circumstances cause the assassination attempt to fail. With Avalon by his side, O'Malley goes on the run into the heart of NYC, to seek shelter with his sister Enid and the vilified race of mutants known as 'Ambients'...

Seamus O'Malley is the bodyguard and assassin for Dryco's tyrannical CEO, Thatcher Dryden II. He's also in love with Dryden's mistress, the beautiful proxy named Avalon. After foiling an attempt on Dryden's life, O'Malley is roped into a murder plot by his boss. The target: Thatcher Dryden I, aka The Old Man. It turns out that Dryden Sr. is actively attempting to destroy the company's solvency by speculating in the Bronx's real estate. O'Malley is hesitant at first, but when Jr. offers him the option to elope abroad to Leningrad[[note]]The book was published in 1987. The city's name reverted to Saint Petersburg in 1991.[[/note]] with Avalon, O'Malley plays along. However, things go south when unforeseen circumstances cause the assassination attempt to fail. With Avalon by his side, O'Malley goes on the run into the heart of NYC, to seek shelter with his sister Enid and the vilified race of mutants known as 'Ambients'...

* NotSoDifferentRemark: When O'Malley criticises the Old Man's [[spoiler: hidden capability to nuke anybody at anytime]] as evil. The latter puts him down with a quick comeback.

* Delinquents: Youth gangs terrorize NYC. From young men blowing up and derailing trains to all-female girl gangs that randomly gouge people's eyes out.

* MasterComputer: Alice is a supercomputer that was developed by Dryden Sr. and his wife Susie D. It gradually developed a mind of its own yet remained subservient to the Drydens despite its lippy attitude. Alice can even devise experiments that malform prisoners captured by the Drydens. Later, [[spoiler: O'Malley discovers that Alice can generate memories of events from anywhere via its massive data. He gets it to reveal the fate of Mrs Dryden who was murdered by Dryden Sr in order to keep the secret of their abuse of the Pax Atomica.]]