Wow. It sounds like utter tripe. Does the author also do fan fiction for Lost?

Las Vegan? Was that a Freudian slip, or just fucking brilliant?

Was that a Freudian slip, or just fucking brilliant?

Uh, fucking brilliant. Which is why I've already changed it. After consideration, I've decided parading my brilliance in front of the world is just bad manners.

Uh, did I read a kitchen sink in there too?

Sounds simply awful, and a truly lame attempt to integrate all the bad pop "entertainment" fads (with the possible exception of a "reality" show element)

Is something wrong with me that I feel a little inundated with the "brilliant psychotic killer" motif. Gosh, there must be about a 100-to-1 fictional-to-real ratio of these guys. And just what the hell does it mean for him to be named Darwin?

eh, on second thought I'm not even interested enough to decide I hate the damn thing.

How can it be worthwhile with no superpowered G. Gordon Liddy?

Ferrigno once wrote for The Rocket, a Seattle alt-weekly the predated The Stranger. His stuff was good then. He took off to write novels and screenplays, and it would seem as if his work has gone to into a bit of a decline. This sounds dreadful.

Was gonna just let it slide, but...

I immediately thought of the movie Escape From New York, a story which would sound horrible if condensed. The hero is named Snake for gawd sake. And, yes, I liked that movie.

I'll wait for Jonathan's take on it.

And a novel like this comes out of the mind of a supposedly more educated American.

That's it.

Why doesn't anyone think about writing an alternate future novel where the "New West" emerges as the oil supply runs out, and then some college students in the cities have to make it home by learning all the crafts of the Old West? That's far likelier and more entertaining than this...

It's sort of the ultimate in American victimology. We've turning half the young women of Russia and Thailand into pornie girls, are doing God-knows-what to the Iraqis. Here's from MLK's "Beyond Vietnam":

"We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men."

But now WE'RE the ones under threat, they are changing our flag (recall Chalabi or one of our cronies tried to change the Iraqi flag into one with the colors of the Israeli flag...)

Ferrigno was great as the Hulk. You could see the humanity.

When I saw this movie, it had Mel Gibson in it. Or was it Kevin Costner? I always get those two confused. They're such pre- and post-apocalyptic hunks. Keanu Reeves played Darwin, Cindy Crawford played Sarah, and Costner/Gibson played Rakkin. Morgan Freeman played a wise outlaw gang leader (who met an undeserved fate), and James Caan played the suave manager of the casino in Vegas where it all went down in a game of high stakes stud poker. Oh, and Edward James Olmos played the clandestine Arab behind the Zionist Betrayal plot. It was smokin'. Best movie since Dreamcatcher.

I'd double check to make sure that this actually wasn't published by Skribners or Scribbnor.

This sounds HILARIOUS.

I meant brilliant on Ferrigno's part-- I like the idea of "anything-goes glitter" among vegans.

What's the line from "Annie Hall"? "Liberal homosexual pornographer responsible-consumers?"

I like speculative fiction but this sounds about as likely as "...the blue angels, but with pigs."

A more likely outcome of suitcase nukes in NYC, DC, and Mecca: Nothing.

Here's a link to Mr. Potboiler's blog on the subject of his own book:
http://www.republicworldnews.com/robertsblog/overview.

This is worse than overt hate or propaganda lit. This is half-informed, popular fiction. I'm terrified.

Not to get all sci-fi fan geeky, but this is like the corpse of George Alec Effinger being fucked up the ass by Johnny Ringo.

I guess "Locus" better save some ad-space for when Ferrigno poops out his next pot-boiler.

Thank god that young historian is beautiful. And young. Otherwise no one could get interested...

It sounds like a really weak update of Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle. :/

My favorite part of the book is where Rakkim and Sarah stop for fast food at Falafel King instead of Kentucky Fried Falafel. And she gets tahini on her silver spandex space burka. And he finds the severed hand of a holo-koran-data thief in his tabouleh. Man, who knew the future would be so strange!

Smeg Head,

That comment deeply pleased me. Thank you.

Happy to oblige. I was gravely dissapointed when the year 2000 rolled around and we weren't all issued silver suits. There was a tacit contract!

Speaking of burkas, ever seen the Canadian series The Newsroom? Hilarious. Everyone should watch it, Clockwork Orange-style if necessary. In one episode in the second series, the obtuse anchor asks the executive producer about whatever happened to the "burka" on Salman Rushdie's head. Although the producer corrects him (fatwah), he later makes the same mistake and causes Rushdie to walk from a scheduled interview (Rushdie won't interview with an idiot). Excellent media satire. I suppose we should expect nothing less from McLuhan's homeland.

Not only have I never seen The Newsroom, I actually had never heard of it until you mentioned it just now.

Some people might claim this says a lot about me, but I think it really says a lot about the failure of Canadian television to spend $100 billion promoting every show, including projecting advertisments for them on the moon.

In any case, thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely check it out.