 US hardcover edition (2002) under original title, The Dark Fields. | |
| Author | Alan Glynn |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Human enhancement |
| Genre | Techno-thriller |
| Publisher | Little, Brown and Company |
Publication date | 2001 |
| Publication place | Ireland |
| Media type | Print, e-book, audiobook |
| Pages | 336 pp. |
| ISBN | 1-58234-224-5 |
The Dark Fields is a 2001 techno-thriller novel by Irish writer Alan Glynn. [1] It was re-released in March 2011 under the title Limitless, in order to coincide with its 2011 film adaptation. [2]
Eddie Spinola is a copywriter at a small publishing house in New York City. He starts using MDT-48, an experimental drug granting heightened intellectual, creative, and learning powers, and enabling its user to see meaningful patterns in large amounts of disparate data. Using his newly acquired intellect, Eddie amasses a small fortune short selling technology stocks. His trading escapades don't go unnoticed, and he is offered a job by billionaire tycoon Carl Van Loon, mediating the merger between entertainment giant MCL Parnasis and Abraxis, the country's second largest Internet service provider – a deal he sees to completion.
However, his indiscriminate use of the drug leads to panic attacks and blackouts. [3] Eddie is suspected of bludgeoning to death Donatella Alvarez, the wife of a prominent Mexican artist, during an MDT induced fugue state. He further learns the full scope of the side-effects from his ex-wife Melissa, who had dabbled in the substance and suffered permanent neurocognitive damage, prompting him to gradually discontinue use of the drug.
Eddie initially reduces his intake to half a pill a day, but this quickly proves insufficient to maintain the level of mental acuity required to work out the details of the merger, and he is forced to increase the dosage. Realizing he is on a treadmill of addiction, Eddie tracks down another user, from whom he learns of the existence of a drug, readily available over the counter, capable of negating some of the harmful side-effects. Armed with this knowledge, Eddie resumes taking MDT and is filled with a renewed surge of energy and motivation.
This proves to be a mere stop-gap measure, as Eddie realizes the need to secure a steady supply. His stash running out, Eddie makes a desperate attempt to blackmail the pharmaceutical conglomerate responsible for developing MDT into providing him with continued access to the drug. His gambit fails when men break into his apartment and steal his remaining MDT. He then receives an anonymous phone call on his land-line informing him that he had been under surveillance all along, and an unwitting guinea pig in a clandestine clinical drug trial.
Facing imminent death from withdrawal, Eddie comes to terms with his own actions and travels to Mahopac, New York, where he seeks redemption by leaving a bag full of cash at his ex-wife's doorstep. He then continues driving aimlessly up north, and eventually checks into a remote motel along the Vermont highway, where he pens his account of the last few months of his life and the events leading to his ultimate downfall. As he drifts into a semi-conscious state, Eddie watches as the President – visibly under the influence of MDT – announces the deployment of US troops into Mexico in a televised address to the nation.
The epigraph of the book is a quotation from the closing lines of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Limitless is a 2011 American thriller film based on The Dark Fields. The film was directed by Neil Burger and starred Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Andrew Howard and Robert De Niro. It was released in the United States and Canada on March 18, 2011.
The screenplay roughly mirrors the events portrayed in the book, albeit with a number of significant differences. For example, the novel is set during the peak and subsequent collapse of the Dot-com bubble and the "irrational exuberance" of the financial markets. In the film, while Eddie mentions adverse market conditions indicating a bear market, the viewer is never given a clear time frame for the events portrayed. Any mention of the growing tensions between the United States and Mexico is also absent from the movie adaptation, as is any reference to government involvement with MDT-48 (renamed NZT-48).
The role of several characters was also changed in the movie adaptation, while others are altogether absent. Hank Atwood, for instance, who is shown to be quite fond of Eddie in the novel, has no qualms about hiring a hitman to eliminate him and steal his supply of NZT in the film. Carl Van Loon, too, takes a similarly antagonistic view towards Eddie, whom he tries to blackmail into doing his political bidding in exchange for a steady supply of the drug. Van Loon's daughter, the object of Eddie infatuation in the novel, is replaced by Lindy – who leaves him at the beginning of the movie, only to rekindle their relationship after being charmed by Eddie's NZT persona.
The film has a happier ending, with Eddie surviving, and running for the US Senate.
Illuminating The Dark Fields is mentioned in the film as the name of the book written by the main character.
A spinoff of the film based on the novel premiered in 2015, under the same title. It is a sequel which follows the events of the film. [4]
A sequel to the book The Dark Fields, Under the Night, was announced by its author and Amazon indicated that the sequel (in ebook form) would be available as from 4 October 2018. [5] [6]
It was subsequently republished in America as Receptor: A Novel, released on 8 January 2019.
In 1950s Manhattan a man Ned Sweeney finds himself an unwitting participant in MK Ultra trials, the CIA's covert study of psychoactive drugs. The experiment introduces him to MDT-48, a mind-expanding smart drug, which takes him away from his wife and young son and straight to the corridors of the richest and most powerful people of his day. But before long, Ned is dead. Over 60 years later, Ned's grandson, Ray, meets Clay Proctor—a retired government official who may be able to illuminate not only Ned's life and death, but also the truth behind the mysterious MDT-48. [7]
Clive Barker is an English writer, filmmaker and visual artist. He came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the Books of Blood, which established him as a leading horror writer. He has since written many novels and other works. His fiction has been adapted into films, notably the Hellraiser series, the first installment of which he also wrote and directed, and the Candyman series.
Dan Simmons is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works that span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes within a single novel. Simmons's genre-intermingling Song of Kali (1985) won the World Fantasy Award. He also writes mysteries and thrillers, some of which feature the continuing character Joe Kurtz.
George Raymond Richard Martin also known by the initials G.R.R.M. is an American author, television writer, and television producer. He is best known as the author of the series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, which were adapted into the Primetime Emmy Award–winning television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019) and its prequel series House of the Dragon (2022–present). He also helped create the Wild Cards anthology series and contributed worldbuilding for the video game Elden Ring (2022).
I, Robot is a fixup collection made up of science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950 and were then compiled into a single publication by Gnome Press in 1950, in an initial edition of 5,000 copies.
Patricia Oren Kearney Cadigan is a British-American science fiction author, whose work is most often identified with the cyberpunk movement. Her novels and short stories often explore the relationship between the human mind and technology. Her debut novel, Mindplayers, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988.
The Foundation series is a science fiction book series written by American author Isaac Asimov. First published as a series of short stories and novellas in 1942–50, and subsequently in three books in 1951–53, for nearly thirty years the series was widely known as The Foundation Trilogy: Foundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952), and Second Foundation (1953). It won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Asimov later added new volumes, with two sequels, Foundation's Edge (1982) and Foundation and Earth (1986), and two prequels, Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1993).
Alan Dean Foster is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction. He has written several book series, more than 20 standalone novels, and many novelizations of film scripts.
The Dark Tower is a series of eight novels, one novella, and a children's book written by American author Stephen King. Incorporating themes from multiple genres, including dark fantasy, science fantasy, horror, and Western, it describes a "gunslinger" and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical. The series, and its use of the Dark Tower, expands upon Stephen King's multiverse and in doing so, links together many of his other novels.
Derry is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Maine that has served as the setting for a number of Stephen King's novels, novellas, and short stories, notably It. Derry first appeared in King's 1981 short story "The Bird and the Album" and has reappeared as recently as his 2011 novel 11/22/63.
A novelization is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book, or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of home video, but continue to find commercial success as part of marketing campaigns for major films. They are often written by accomplished writers based on an early draft of the film's script and on a tight deadline.
Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 American science fiction adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. The film is about a submarine crew who is shrunk to microscopic size and venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain. In adapting the story for his script, Kleiner abandoned all but the concept of miniaturization and added a Cold War element. The film starred Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasence, and Arthur Kennedy.
Leslie Dixon is an American screenwriter and producer.
John Allen McDorman IV is an American actor best known for the 2014 film American Sniper and starring on television shows such as CBS' Limitless (2015–2016) and the Disney+ historical drama The Right Stuff as Alan Shepard. He is also well known for his roles on the ABC Family comedy-drama Greek (2007–2011), the fourth season of the Showtime comedy-drama Shameless (2014), the revival season of the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown (2018), FX's What We Do in the Shadows (2019), and Peacock's sci-fi comedy drama series Mrs. Davis (2023).
Less than Zero is a 1987 American drama film directed by Marek Kanievska, loosely based on the 1985 novel by Bret Easton Ellis. The film stars Andrew McCarthy as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair and his friend Julian, both of whom have become drug addicts. The film explores the culture of wealthy, decadent youth in Los Angeles.
Limitless is a 2011 American science-fiction thriller film directed by Neil Burger and written by Leslie Dixon. Loosely based on the 2001 novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn, the film stars Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro, Andrew Howard, and Anna Friel. The film follows Edward Morra, a struggling writer who is introduced to a drug called NZT-48, which gives him the ability to use his brain fully which helps him vastly improve his lifestyle.
Alan Glynn is an Irish writer born in 1960 in Dublin.
Dark Fields may refer to:
The Dark Tower is a 2017 American neo-Western science fantasy film directed and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel. Loosely based on Stephen King's novel series of the same name, the film stars Idris Elba as Roland Deschain, a gunslinger on a quest to protect the Dark Tower—a mythical structure which supports all realities—while Matthew McConaughey plays his nemesis Walter Padick, and Tom Taylor stars as Jake Chambers, a boy who becomes Roland's apprentice.
Limitless is an American comedy-drama television series that aired on CBS for one season from 2015 to 2016. It is a continuation of the 2011 film of the same name, and takes place four years after the film's events. The series stars Jake McDorman as Brian Finch, who discovers a mysterious nootropic drug NZT-48, which unlocks the full potential of the human brain and gives its user enhanced mental faculties.
Nebula Awards 27 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by James Morrow, the second of three successive volumes under his editorship. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt Brace in April 1993.