Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits
by David Wong
St. Martin's Press
Thomas Dunne Books
Sci Fi & Fantasy
David Wong's unique, humorous voice is a major draw for his fiction. He wrote the strange paranormal investigator series, John Dies at the End (the last book, What the Hell Did I Just Read, reviewed here).
His best characters are deeply flawed and have a modus operandi, a philosophy for living.
Zoey's father, a deadbeat beat dad who happens to be a famed rich inventor, has just died, which means that people are trying to kill her since she has the key that everyone wants to unlock some technological wonder. The novel opens enticingly enough:
The radio had stopped working years ago, and so Zoey made up for it by singing a hit pop song from her time called "Butt Show (and I Don't Charge Admission)" while she plugged in the strand of Christmas lights she had tacked around the top of the car's interior. She peeled the lid off her chili, watched steam waft into the frigid air, and decided that things really could be worse. Zoey always tried to appreciate the little things in life, like the fact that just a generation ago you couldn't devote both hands to eating a bowl of fast-food chili while the car drove itself (how did people use to eat car chili? With a straw?). She had also recently upgraded her phone to one that displayed a little holographic image of the caller, but so far she had found this feature was only useful for terrifying her holophobic cat, which hardly justified the cost of the upgrade. However, a moment later that feature did allow her to see that the call that saved her life came from a man who was fond of wearing fancy suits.
And we're off to the races in her Toyota with her hopeful would-be abductor trailing close behind.
Zoey isn't sure whom to trust--just as she finds someone to trust, even becoming attracted to him, he's dead. Somehow Zoey has to get past those who want to kill her, and those who want to use her for money for the technology she unwittingly has the key to.
Part of the pleasure of the novel is the near-futuristic milieu--a city so deeply rich in money and technology that we join a wide-eyed Zoey at the surprises that await her. Everyone's online and recording everyone, so that it's impossible to run away and anonymously melt into the crowd. She hates her father's absence and resents his using her this way, but she becomes accustomed to the lifestyle as she sticks around.
Part of the mixed pleasure and pain is that the author may love Zoey too much. She isn't terribly flawed in a significant way. Occasionally her personality takes off when expressing her desire for what clothes she'll wear, but as is, she's a little too idealistically drawn. In the John Dies at the End series, the female protagonist is defined by her contrast with her boyfriend. Zoey doesn't really have a companion here to be defined against.
Her antagonist is powerful and possesses a most wondrous reason for being--wondrous, not in that he's agreeable but fascinating. Unfortunately, he is so generously mocked, we don't quite believe he's a real threat to our protagonist.
It may be that since Zoey Ashe has a whole series planned around her, the author has a long-range arc laid out for her that isn't yet visible. She does become a master of her destiny near the end of the novel, but one can hope for an increased dynamic in the next novel of the series. Still, with Wong's skill for odd-ball characters, readers should look forward to the next novel, soon to be released--October 13, 2020.
