A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense.
Sci-fi fans will want to read this story of #SocialMediaDystopianism before it becomes a reality.Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. But the cutting-edge tech has a short sell-by date time will tell whether this novel ages as well as, for example, past futuristic narratives about incredible secrets hidden on floppy disks.
This bracing story is a great ride, overall, even if the ending offers little resolution. However, the missing-Mila plotline, which seems tailor-made for cybernoir, evaporates into a click-thru world obsessed with ads, emojis, analytics, fame, youth, and materialism. He also dallies with social media femmes fatales, such as Sacha Villanova, a snooping investigative reporter, and A’rore, a cyborg supermodel who’s Eutopia’s “main influencer.” There are cameos of real-life figures, such as former boxer Floyd Mayweather and Donald Trump’s son, Barron, but the author’s sure, steady voice seldom ventures into satire. Travers enters the city to find answers and plunges into its intrigue and artifice. Mila’s disappearance has a connection to a brutal bombing of the local, fake Louvre.
Visitors and transient inhabitants of Eutopia include leading social media “influencers” and wannabe celebrities who monetize their stays by livestreaming their experiences-including outbreaks of crime and violence that seem suspiciously staged. She masterminded Eutopia, a resort metropolis built on Native American land and re-creating, with high-tech kitsch, the ambiance of a past Europe the real, war-torn Europe no longer gets many tourists. Now, circa 2027, he seems more dispirited than dismayed that his estranged wife, Mila Webb, has vanished. In Minh’s ( Nomad X, 2012) sci-fi novel set in the near future, a filmmaker’s missing wife is accused of terrorism, and he searches for her at the adults-only resort she envisioned-a Las Vegas–style city governed by social media.Ĭedric Travers’ directing career faded when YouTubers made Hollywood movies obsolete.
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