Simon Logan

Nonstop action from the first page until the last as several desperate people try to get off some sort of Russian slave labor island and back to the mainland. Logan creates a memorable world of chemical labs, video arcades, dark streets, and continual violence as everyone tries to gain control of a vial to hand over to a man on a cargo ship at midnight--in return for safe passage to the mainland. The story is told out of sequence, and very effectively so, as the various characters converge show more on the ship for the climax. It's a good one, and lives up to the high quality of the rest of the narrative. I have never read this author before. I see his work described as "industrial fiction", and it is as good a description as any. I can tell you that, as bleak as the world he depicts is, the characters in it still have hopes and dreams, however desperate. Those dreams provide an unstoppable momentum to KATJA FROM THE PUNK BAND, and I won't hesitate to read more by Logan. There is way too much going on in this book for me to have any hope at providing a good description--just buy it. Just read it. show less

You want weird? Katja is Elmore Leonard via William Gibson, a fast-paced cyberpunk thriller that commands attention with great dialogue, twisted characters, and a fine sense of place. Set on an unnamed urban island and following a woman delivering an unnamed vial of something, Logan traipses back and forth through time and POVs, keeping the reader off-balance and filling in the blanks later with a precision that would do Christopher Nolan proud. This is a grimy, gritty, terribly unpleasant show more world, and I'd go back in a second.

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Katja is a young woman with a partially-shaved head and a tracheostomy tube coming out of her throat. Playing in a local punk band on an 8 by 12-mile island work camp called home, like everyone else, she wants to get to the mainland by any way possible.

Katja shoots her boyfriend and takes a very valuable vial from him (perhaps it's a new chemical drug). There will be someone on the mainland waiting for the vial, but the deal is for two people, so Katja enlists the help of Nikolai, a local show more junkie. The ship is leaving for the mainland in a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, Aleksakhina, Katja's corrupt parole officer, chooses tonight to do his job and detains her for not checking in on schedule. He is not the only one who wants the vial as the ticket to the mainland. There's Vladimir Kohl, a local chemical dealer; there is his boss, Szerynski, along with Dracyev, a rival chemical kingpin, and Ylena, his lover.

Katja and Nikolai regain possession of the vial. Their next problem is getting on the ship. The area is full of police who are authorized to kill anyone who attempts to stow away on the ship. If a stowaway is found on the ship while it is in transit, getting shot and thrown off the ship in the middle of the ocean is the least of their problems. Do Katja and Nikolai board the ship? Do they get off the ship on the mainland, also without the police finding them?

This is a really good industrial crime/suspense tale. The reader can almost hear the punk rock soundtrack all throughout this book. It is raw, fearless and very much worth reading. show less

I was intrigued by Simon Logan's KATJA FROM THE PUNK BAND, reading about it on his "coldandalone" author website about a year before it was published. I was re-reminded of the book via Spinetingler, who short-listed it on their list of 2010 Best Opening Lines.

I finally picked up a Kindle copy, couldn't put it down, read it furiously like I was sweating out a fever dream, and subsequently picked up Mr. Logan's entire bibliography. KATJA is a strong intro to his unique vision and show more worldbuilding, and is above all a fantastic novel - a fast, tight read that straddles sci-fi dystopia and hard-boiled crime noir.

The story takes place over the course of roughly 24 hours on an unnamed Russian "island" - a landscape that resembles a ROBOCOP New Detroit shantytown, without hope or cybernetic heroes. We are introduced to Katja, the titular punk rocker, armed with a mean survivalist streak, a guitar that doubles as a battleaxe, and a drug vial that is her ticket off the island - if she can live that long.

Chapter to chapter the point-of-view changes between several characters that have connections to either Katja or the vial, knowingly or unknowingly. Mr. Logan jumps-starts their backstories and staggers their POV's so that they overlap, giving us multiple perspectives on the same events and set-pieces while creating suspense and surprise.

The book is like looking at an industrial Escher print, and Mr. Logan writes with expert skill. The characters hurtle through the narrative, which is strewn with double-crosses, near-misses, and violent, extreme collisions.

Though it has elements of a "day after tomorrow" sci-fi and hard-boiled crime fiction, in KATJA Mr. Logan has created his own unique genre - apunkalyptic noir, maybe. His prose is cinematic, and white- or bloody-knuckled in equal measure. KATJA FROM THE PUNK BAND plays out like a Coen Brothers' movie set in Mad Max's universe. I look forward to reading more from Simon Logan in the future. show less