Reed King

Immerse yourself in a fully imagined American shitstorm taking place some time during or after the 2080s. Follow Truckee on a morbid journey with talking goat Barnaby, an android that is one of his 2.5 friends, and a lobotomized ex-con named Tiny Tim -- the crew charged with saving what is left of America. What a ride it is. Almost everything that could go wrong with America has, except for really excellent tech. The writer has a juvenile, raunchy way of writing at times, which could be attributed to Truckee since he is a sixteen year old... but the mostly body related humor is also apparent in the much quoted 'The Grifter's Guide to the Territories FKA USA' (at the beginning of most chapters). So I guess it's just the way Reed King writes? All of the similes and metaphors though -- egads, the subject matter is horrible enough without hardly a simile or metaphor that isn't body related. But if you can ignore all of those, there is some great writing and ideas here. The narrative is FULLY detailed and world built. Don't skip the footnotes - they are great. Small details like the rich being called the "uppercrust" and the workers called "crumbs" -- fantastic. There was only one sentence of a hint at what was happening outside of America and I would LOVE a worldly sequel.

This book reminds me of Ready Player One, Douglas Adams, Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy, the Fallout games, Jasper Fforde, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', Jonathan Lethem's 'Amnesia Moon', 'Bats of the Republic' by Zachary Thomas Dodson, 'American War' by Omar El Akkad, 'The Heap' by Sean Adams, the TV show Z Nation, the film Brazil, Mad Max and very obviously the Wizard of Oz (BUT REALLY RETURN TO OZ WHICH IS BETTER). So many many things I love that I can see in this book. How could I not enjoy it?

Honestly, this book is so dark, and part of it is even true already... I find it difficult for any writer to want to stamp this with their name. But I think whomever wrote it had a field day with the worldbuilding especially... all of the detail is striking and the best part of the book. So which writers are best at worldbuilding? Why is the writer a secret? WHO IS BEHIND THE PSEUDONYM?? (Really the most intriguing reason for me to read the book.) The only hints have been that they are a NYTimes bestselling author and they work in TV -- so not any movies? Only TV? Other than all those dreaded raunchy similes and metaphors, this is a solid book. The only reason it might be secret is because it doesn't really shine a very positive light on America (and understandably so in these times) but this book isn't saying anything that America might not actually be heading towards, as some evidence is already showing. OR the writer usually writes "literature" and not genre, and wouldn't want to be attributed to writing this future dystopian satire?

Here are my guesses:
+Before reading, I already suspected the book is written by George R.R. Martin because he knows he should be working instead on one of the most anticipated books in the world and people would be very angry with him if he isn't working on that. Then there is a Hobbit reference very early on? I know that is one of his favorite books. Also, the world building here is on par with GoT.

+Another guess is Neil Gaiman. Not originally from America, he might be hesitant to add his name to a DARK American satire (so my first guess would be a writer that ISN'T from America.) There is also the huge amount of influences this book reminds me of, which might be why I like it so much, and many of those things seem to fall into what Mr. Gaiman might like.... especially The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy if you replace all the funny with darkness (but really no one can compare to Douglas Adams.)

+My third guess might be Joe Hill. Because it just seems comparable to another book I read from him - NOS4A2, including a similar writing style. Possibly he figured he already wrote a dark road trip novel? And this can't really be classified as "horror" even though this future America is truly HORRIFYING. Maybe he is supposed to be mainly known for horror, like his dad. Also, he'd have a field day using a pseudonym using his dad's name!

+ Other guesses: Lev Grossman, Jim Butcher, Kass Morgan (who did the 100 show), Noah Hawley (Legion-like crazy), Max Brooks (this book is much like World War Z and he also wrote for SNL, so there is the TV connection), Joss Whedon (he loves his apocalypses and dystopias... is he on the NYTimes Bestseller list though?).... I really hope it isn't James Patterson (well, the team of writers using his name could probably come up with much of this book anyway).... Is the book dripping with raunchiness to throw me off, so I'm not guessing more female writers? The list goes on... I'm just very intrigued to know!
Who do YOU think wrote the book?… (más)

Not a good book. Consider yourself warned. Don't believe any of the hype. Comparisons to Hitchhiker's Guide are false. Yes, the main character does have a "guide" book of his own that is quoted at the beginning of every chapter, but the comparison ends there. HHGTG is light, fun, charming and overall hilarious. FKA USA is none of those things.

Whoever this writer is (Reed King is a pseudonym for, supposedly, a famous writer of some sort) clearly wanted to create a fantastic(-al) nearly post-apocalyptic world, and for the most part succeeds in that. The world itself is the best part of the novel. But the story he tells is through characters that we don't really care about. That's where it falls flat.

The Wizard of Oz motif that he carries throughout is mildly interesting. All the major characters are represented here. The main character Truckee is Dorothy and he travels through these lands (his version of Oz) with a female robot looking for her humanity (i.e., her heart), a cowardly goat (not quite a lion), and a "scarecrow," a man actually called that very term (Reed King sheds any pretense at subtlety) because he'd been lobotomized and thus had lost part of his brain and then I don't remember why they called him a scarecrow, but they did. This rag-tag group travels across Oz-but-called-something-else to meet a genius (or a wizard?) who is (not really a spoiler to anybody who has read/seen The Wizard of Oz) not what he seems. Shocking!

Unlike The Wizard of Oz, however, you don't really care about any of these characters. The rogue's gallery are likable enough but Truckee himself is not. And thus he's no Dorothy.

To make matters worse, it seems obvious that the writer intended to set this up as the first in a series. Not exactly leaving a cliffhanger ending, but not really wrapping up the loose ends either.

And then, finally, the straw that breaks the camel's back, is the blatant mis-use of the word "of" throughout this book. Characters from start to finish could have done something, or would have, or should have, or might have. And sometimes they do. But other times the actual words on the page are "could of" or "would of" or "should of" or "might of." I don't know what kind of well-known writer this Reed King seems to think he (she?) is, but I'm guessing, due to the lack of experience with how written English should appear on the page, he (or she) writes for television or movies. That explains the ending as well. Stay tuned folks for the next exciting adventure of Truckee Wallace and his band of misfits!

Pass.… (más)