Blueprints of the Afterlife

October 3, 2011
Boudinot��\x99s ingenious second novel (after Misconception) takes readers on a frenzied, hilarious, and paranoid trip through a hypernetworked near future. The story takes place after an apocalypse known as the FUS, or “the age of Fucked Up Shit” (which includes a monstrous war between humans and androids called “newmans,” fought by branded armies such as Pfizer and Boeing using weaponry made by Nike, Coca-Cola, and other companies). The story unfolds from the perspective of characters for whom post-FUS reality is, at best, in flux. They hallucinate. They encounter a giant celestial head and extraterrestrials who alter the already unmanageable courses of their lives. They’re genetically engineered and can erase troubling memories, but can’t escape feeling troubled. Implants allow a biological Internet (Bionet) to provide medical care remotely, wirelessly downloading “hormones, enzymes, and antigens” directly into the body. This also opens the door to radical hacking by “DJs” who, when they grow tired of their victims, can leave them on autopilot, sometimes dooming them to compulsively watch reality television as sadistic as its present-day incarnation but far more surreal. On one level, the afterlife is a video game that may be, entirely or partially, the creation of a delusional computer programmer who knows that it’s not a game. At times Boudinot writes with more exuberance than clarity, and some questions or threads are never answered or fully explored, resulting in sloppiness that may frustrate some readers. But those who are drawn in by the wonderful Woo-jin Kan, the world’s best dishwasher, won’t want to put the book down until they’ve devoured the last line. Like replaying a game, familiarity enhances recognition of what’s important, and the first chapter is worth rereading in light of what follows, if only to put into better perspective its ending call: Help me! A bracing dystopian romp through contemporary dread, extrapolated.

December 1, 2011
It's the end of the world as we know it, and everyone feels a bit out of synch with their surroundings. After getting his feet wet with a collection of comic short stories (The Littlest Hitler, 2006) and ruminating on youth in revolt in his debut novel, Boudinot (Misconception, 2009) goes all in with a Murakami-inspired fit of speculative madness that marries the postmodernist streak of Neal Stephenson to the laconic humor of The Big Lebowski. It starts in the future and, par for the course, humanity is screwed. Survivors find themselves in a warped version of reality known collectively as "The Age of Fucked Up Shit." How bad? The continent has been raked over by Malaspina, a sentient, roving glacier and her marauding polar bears. Into this crazy-quilt scenario Boudinot introduces a semi-heroic cast. Woo-jin Kan is an Olympic medal–winning dishwasher who gets a note from his future brain instructing him to write a book called How to Love People. "It's one of the only books the Last Dude has to read, so make it really good," writes Woo-Jin's future self. Abby Fogg is an archivist who is hired by a mysterious string-puller named Dirk Bickle to deconstruct an archive of pre-FUS material, held by a former pop star named Klee Asparagus and her army of clones. Interviews with software designer Luke Piper punctuate the story, flashing back to a drug-fueled hypnotherapy session that inspired the "Bionet," a sort of social media for the mind. Some of the funniest dialogue comes from an actor named Neethan F. Jordan, whose rote descriptions of his TV series might well serve as the polar opposite of this bizarre, imaginative novel. "It's a thought-provoking series, featuring state-of-the-art effects and wall-to-wall action, with more than a little tenderness," opines Jordan. Thought-provoking, beyond a doubt. Challenging, messy and funny fiction for readers looking for something way beyond space operas and swordplay.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2012
Boudinot returns to the comic, inventive form that garnered him attention for Misconception (2009), this time anticipating dark times to come. Set in the not-too-distant future, where the recent past is known as the Age of Fucked Up Shit, the novel introduces a world colonized by clones, computers, and free-roaming polar bears, and where Manhattan is being fully reconstructed in Seattle. Dishwasher Woo-jin Kan, a self-aware dullard suffering from a crippling overabundance of empathy, is haunted by a reappearing corpse. Mysterious Dirk Bickle offers Abby Fogg a job recovering important data from one-time pop star Kylee Asparagus and her subservient team of clones. Veteran Al Skinner recalls his bloody war experiences. Narcissistic actor Nethan Jordan recounts his adventures in a bawdy hit TV series. And running throughout are excerpts from a recorded interview with Luke Piper, creator of the Bionet, a neurotransmitted Web connection that unites everyone in all their uproarious despair. Boudinot's madcap world and mastery of various voices evoke Douglas Adams or George Saunders, but his novel is a work of sheer originality, readability, and joy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)