(282pp Mark Ziesing Books PO Box 76 Shingletown, CA 96088)
On the inner title page of my copy of this book, John Shirley wrote "Choose your aliens well.". In this case, I did. I pegged the proper aliens to align with & fear from the moment they were introduced. Why, because it was obvious? No. It was largely because Shirley works so well with the functions of conspiracy theory in these pages that, when you couple a basic working knowledge of them with general governmental distrust & a leaning toward the higher self, you pretty much need to know which way to go. The read is wonderful, whether you have the proper basic paranoias & leanings or not. The cover illustration, by Paul Mavrides, is of a slightly green-hued Grey alien, green-hued due to the rendering of "our" earth in the globe of its forehead. Mind you, I'm using the term "our" very loosely in conjunction with this earth. We were merely some of the barnacles that managed to "evolve" here -- preceding us were God, or the gods, or higher powers, longer sentient alien forms, & universal consciousness. Does this actually pertain to the book? Yes! It does! It's a crucial element! & I'm not going to tell you any more about it. Characters come & go in this book, they die or they go their own ways. Everyone has a different path to follow, some people definitely don't seem to follow the right ones. Paths have a knack for interlinking though. In separatist & fundamentalist gang ruled California you meet Quinn, Zizz, & Mahler, as they watch their companion get his head blown open by ex soldiers. Quinn is obsessed with media terrorist Black Betty & his remaining friends share his dreams of finding out why she disappeared. Quinn & Zizz are moreso arty journalists, Mahler is moreso a communist with anti-establishment leanings. Their incident is happening fairly closely to Westward Condoplex -- heavily defended home of militant Jack Sullivan & his 2 kids, Anatole & Kian (the latter adopted after his parents were killed in the same riots that took Anatole's mother), plus Yamahira & his daughter Lila. Across the state line, in Nevada, a PR man named Mike Farraday is being instructed, psyched, & threatened, into a high security governmental project that even the President isn't supposed to know about. After all, no one really knows what is going on in Area 51. The converging paths for all of these people are certainly not easy, moreso violent & torturous, I can't even claim that each of the currently named characters survive. All I can claim is that Jesus made some comments on a mountain over 2000 years before this story takes place, & this is when the comments begin making sense. Be leery of a government that only seeks its own betterment, & be wary of those they take power from. To quickly ground this review in reality I have to say that the book just doesn't let up. My favourite character, from the moment of his introduction, was a rather sweet & intelligent hybrid squid named Ceph. Other than country consuming gang warfare, extreme military conspiracy, prison raids, detailed futuristic technological (& techno-shamanic) imagery, false advertising, a hell of a lot of pain, & perhaps a larger amount of transcendence, you'll also find some great media reference worked in throughout. One of my favourites was the oft- remembered incident of Chris Carter being arrested on the set of the last, never finished, episode of X-Files. Ah, but it'll likely never happen ago I finished reading this novel, I still have the Black Betty song constantly pounding through my brain. Shirley also supplies several pages of commentary, on the involved themes, at the end of the book. Read the actual story 1st so you don't ruin it for yourself. If you need more proof, you can browse excerpts at Shirley's web site: http://www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley.html