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Loading... Elvisseyby Jack Womack
A complete and total mindfuck, but not just for the plot, which involves two time-travelers from a future based around Elvis Presley going back in an attempt to abduct the young King and bring him back as a Messiah. Language in the future has evolved and mutated to an almost alien level, making the vocabulary of the two would-be kidnappers as much a challenge for the reader to decipher as the Scottish patois in Trainspotting was. (  ) conformer | Feb 9, 2010 |  Womack was recommended to me as being a good writer, and this is the first book of his I've attempted, so I can only imagine that it must not be one of his better books. An alternate-universe, alternate-history, cyberpunk-themed book in which the protagonists often talk in a dreary newspeak and in which, despite reaching near the top in a corporate hell, they are too stupid to realize that they are being taken advantage of in ways that the reader notices immediately. I can see that Womack has talent, but this book, despite occasional moments in which he shows what he can do, is a failure. (  ) rpuchalsky | Nov 21, 2008 | no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0802134955, Paperback)A troubled couple sets out from a dismal future to retrieve Elvis Presley from an oddly different 1954. They need the King to be a savior to what's left of humanity, but he's a murderous freak with no desire to be anyone's god. Elvissey is set in Jack Womack's maybe-not-cyberpunk future, where the Dryco corporation runs everything, and everyone has been or will be "regooded," for their own good. Womack writes in an evolved language, full of odd verbs and newspeak: "He unpocketed a bottle of small blue pills; Dryco's standard eyedots and smile were imprinted upon each tablet. Three hours sole could pass between dosings, no more, no less. Swallowing dry, he fixed a doorways stare; shook, and resettled.... Regooded or not, his unscratchables still itched."This is a bleak tale, buzzy and complex, full of human failings. Elvis is a disgusting jerk. The United States of Dryco is horrifying and manipulative. And Iz and John are mutually lonely, despairing in their failing marriage, and betrayed by Dryco. Despite its darkness--or maybe because of it--you owe it to yourself to read Elvissey. Womack is one of the most interesting writers in the business, and nobody does cultural science fiction funk like he does. --Therese Littleton (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:49:53 -0500) No library descriptions found. |
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