David Heath (6)

This novel begins with the aching depression of a man who has taken to the online world as a numbing solace. Its transparencies and superficially sensationalist monotonies have come to steer Trigger’s mind to recycle the blankness of his existence. Medicated, frustrated and underwhelmed with life his residue of functionality sticks to the fleeting influence he anonymously holds on an obscure chat room. Here, each comment exists as its own entity, proud to exist for itself outside of threat show more of permanence or context even, thrust out to receive judgement or the harshness of indifference. With this his final avenue for expression Trigger takes his disillusionment and alienated state and drifts toward willful disengagement.

Through an effective recounting of the experience of hopelessness and of moving through the world in a automatic fog the novel introduces a well worn path that is littered with the entertaining detritus of mainstream culture. Our central characters are drawn from familiar reference points but their introductory forms grow to undermine our staged preconceptions and they make an intriguing pairing. An ambivalence determines the relationship to technology, the interconnected world as distancing device and surrogate ever present.

As Trigger struggles to fathom the true nature and implication of his situation the novel takes a nicely twisty tone, moving from horrific farce to soul sinking straightforwardness and onto quiet reflection. The story rattles along at quite a pace, the characters swept along by events turning into the inevitable and chaotically predictable consequences of any butterfly effect.

Fortune 69 goes from the brutally sad representation of someone struggling with some very unseemly and painful depths, moves on to tackling a tense and engaging tale of technological power balancing and online boundaries, and by the end asks some very worthwhile questions about how we got here and what we do about it. All the time the central thread being the never-ending quest for a feeling of unfiltered human connection, the dominant theme in so much new writing that I’ve read recently. Something’s going on! That being said, this novel gets it too and very enjoyably so.

Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy show less

This novel begins with the aching depression of a man who has taken to the online world as a numbing solace. Its transparencies and superficially sensationalist monotonies have come to steer Trigger’s mind to recycle the blankness of his existence. Medicated, frustrated and underwhelmed with life his residue of functionality sticks to the fleeting influence he anonymously holds on an obscure chat room. Here, each comment exists as its own entity, proud to exist for itself outside of threat show more of permanence or context even, thrust out to receive judgement or the harshness of indifference. With this his final avenue for expression Trigger takes his disillusionment and alienated state and drifts toward willful disengagement.

Through an effective recounting of the experience of hopelessness and of moving through the world in a automatic fog the novel introduces a well worn path that is littered with the entertaining detritus of mainstream culture. Our central characters are drawn from familiar reference points but their introductory forms grow to undermine our staged preconceptions and they make an intriguing pairing. An ambivalence determines the relationship to technology, the interconnected world as distancing device and surrogate ever present.

As Trigger struggles to fathom the true nature and implication of his situation the novel takes a nicely twisty tone, moving from horrific farce to soul sinking straightforwardness and onto quiet reflection. The story rattles along at quite a pace, the characters swept along by events turning into the inevitable and chaotically predictable consequences of any butterfly effect.

Fortune 69 goes from the brutally sad representation of someone struggling with some very unseemly and painful depths, moves on to tackling a tense and engaging tale of technological power balancing and online boundaries, and by the end asks some very worthwhile questions about how we got here and what we do about it. All the time the central thread being the never-ending quest for a feeling of unfiltered human connection, the dominant theme in so much new writing that I’ve read recently. Something’s going on! That being said, this novel gets it too and very enjoyably so.

Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review. show less