Other Authors
A collection of my reviews, with Amazon links through the covers and links to author websites where applicable:
Apex Five (The Plane: Book One) by Sarah Katz - 4 stars
Apex Five by Sarah Katz is an ambitious and creative work set in an unfathomably futuristic Earth that is scarcely recognizable, populated by strange beings with exotic biology and technology. The degree of care focused into the sheer worldbuilding effort is impressive, as is the political plot featuring an arms race, terrorism, and the combustible ingredient of religion playing rolls across several nations simultaneously.
The in media res narration is executed consistently, avoiding info-dumps that could paralyze the plot’s momentum. However, the rapid introduction of characters, concepts, locations and factions requires that a reader be on their toes. Apex Five never lulls anywhere, perhaps to the fault of rushing us along from scenes that we could have studied a bit longer. We are sometimes scrambling to understand the stakes involved, the history that brought us here, the overall mission of some characters, or the limits of the available technology, and some explanations come rather late (and the ending overview would have been more helpful at the beginning). Character conversations are well-executed, avoiding the ‘as you know’ trope that can intrusively give us necessary facts – but without a ‘fish out of water’ character in this universe the reader is jumping in the deep end, and will either sink or swim. I was compelled to check and confirm that this was indeed the first book in the series, as it assumes a level of familiarity on the reader’s part that I would consider more common for a sequel.
The minimalism of ‘establishment shots’ and the few introductions for most characters can be disorientating without rereading at times. Furthermore, there are 50+ named characters as part of a sprawling cast. Economy of characters (three doing one job) and distinction between characters inevitably suffers outside the main cast, and there is a further difficulty: practically none of the characters have surnames, and nearly all names have 5 letters or less wherever they come from in this world. In such an intricate setting this was a small but rather distracting bit of simplicity, not corresponding to the real-world regionality of names (in which we can know that Reginald is probably not from Ethiopia and Mohammed is probably not Japanese, and their family names will tell us further). In a move that I’m sure was deliberate, the names do not always obey the conventional gender expectations based on sound (‘Ava’ is male, ‘Inad’ is female), a sensible feature for a strange realm but adding to the potential disorientation invited by the rapid progression of the plot and the sheer number of similar names. And that’s before we wrap our heads around the seasonal changing of gender and name for some characters!
Nevertheless, creativity and commitment elevates this novel from a 3 to a 4 out of 5. Rival cultures, attitudes and animosities are portrayed believably, and the temptation to ‘read into’ the plot for commentary on our real world’s issues shows that Katz has made a setting complex enough for the reader to ‘play in’ and interpret non-trivially. The technological wizardry is limited enough to avoid the ‘playing tennis without a net’ problem of less careful science fiction, with only a little techno-babble. The setting blurs technology and effective magic to an ambiguous degree, and is more focused on the numerous relationships between the characters and cultures.
Overall, I would compare this book to the musical piece ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’. It is a competent and compelling novel with lots of interesting details, and it is most impressive to the musicians in the audience who know how damn hard the fingering is. Indeed, I think other authors of science fiction and fantasy would find this work most enjoyable, while other readers may be a bit overwhelmed and struggle to fully appreciate the effort.
Bastard Son by Sean Benham - 5 stars
George Carlin once said that the comedian’s duty was to find the line – defined by society’s tastes and taboos – and then cross it deliberately, and make the audience happy about crossing the line with them. For Sean Benham’s Bastard Son, I have to say: mission accomplished. I’m pretty sure that he lives across that line and had to smuggle himself over to pick us up and bring us back to tour his native land.
At the peak moments of Mr. Benham’s wild ride I’m reminded of Roald Dahl’s dark humor in the face of grotesque absurdities. If Dahl didn’t write for children I think the result would be something like this. Bastard Son’s world is a dilapidated and wacky mess, on the brink of total collapse but still energetic and commanding attention – like a senile old man trying out Viagra.
On the subject of smut and gore and all things transgressive, I sometimes run across an unforgettable passage in a book or a scene in a film and silently think to the writer ‘oh, you’re just having fun, aren’t you?’ Trolling the audience and teasing the sensitive people who can’t take it is fun when done right, and on the continuum of doing it right (Mr. Creosote) or wrong (The Human Centipede) Benham is much closer to right. Of course, it’s very hard for me to say why one entertains and the other does not – the right attitude of goofiness, perhaps. A lack of pretension is necessary, and Bastard Son passes this tricky test and somehow makes automated necrophilia (among other things) work. Bravo.
Fishnets In the Far East: A Dancer's Diary in Korea - A True Story by Michele E. Northwood - 4 stars
First and foremost, this is an extremely authentic novel – so authentic that the normal inspection of plot, pacing and characterization cannot apply, because this is a retelling of real events. The recollection by Michele E. Northwood shies away from nothing, delivering exactly what’s promised in the title: a dancer’s diary of their 6 months in South Korea. Nothing felt unreal, or ‘adjusted upon reconsideration’ years later.
An uneasy atmosphere that could become horrific at any moment is sustained throughout Northwood’s tumultuous novel. The general feeling of dread around every corner in this books was reminiscent of the film Hostel – we see these young, foolish people who aren’t paying much attention bumping around in a foreign land in scuzzy dives where terrible things can happen, practically waved enticingly in front of drunk men in their ridiculous outfits. Their lack of real concern or safety instinct is understandable from naïve young people, though there are a few scenes of exasperating cluelessness – accepting invitations from total strangers, accepting sudden changes in schedules that would be instant red flags to most adults, carelessly insulting people who might be best left not insulted, and so on.
Fishnets in the Far East deserves particular praise for not flinching away from the dirtiness, rudeness, backwardness and chauvinism that can be found outside the West, and authentically communicating an outsider’s uncomfortability purely on grounds of being in a different culture – something that many authors would avoid to escape any frivolous accusation of xenophobia. Everything from differences in manners, to hygiene, to food, to how women are expected to act in different countries is faithfully pointed out as at the very least bothersome to the travelers, properly delivering this sense of otherness. None of the events or characters have been polished, not even the narrator, and at no point does Northwood ‘break voice’ to sound more like the woman she is today – a decision that grants her book maximum authenticity and immersion, letting us ride around in the head of a 21-year-old dancer who speaks and thinks with frequent exclamations, small-world observations and youthful mirth of the kind that is sometimes just there to keep the tears away.
This decision to keep that young voice throughout means that we are sometimes not ‘with’ the young lady telling the story, since many of us have the perspective to say ‘wow, that was foolish or mean of you’ or ‘that joke was a little flat’. But you can’t expect responsibility and refined humor from anyone in their early twenties. Aside from some very minor editing issues (that actually grant further authenticity, as this is all transcribed and expanded upon from an actual diary written irregularly at odd hours while tired or drunk while travelling in Korea with two friends thirty years ago) this is an excellent novel for people who want to travel the world without leaving home.
Flit by Ed Morawski - 4 stars
Ed Morawski has explored a classic sci-fi problem in the modern age, in the shadow of such works as Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano and Karel Capek’s R.U.R. With the feel of a futuristic documentary enriched by actors playing people in our time, Flit is a look back at a strange look forward.
The extreme bird’s eye view of the narration allows for a story in which science and technology are the main characters. As in real life a story of invention is going to jump around in time and place, picking up and discarding characters that make their contributions – most of the time, there is no solitary Frankenstein or Doc Brown, or Tesla. Morawski has populated his story with a large number of very ordinary and relatable people to midwife the plot in an engaging way.
Most progress really is extremely gradual, creeping up after the hype and disillusionment to surprise. Being a researcher myself, I can tell you than 99 percent of the time would not belong in any story of interest to anyone – so a narrator who traverses days and weeks and even months on a single page is appropriate, cutting out the grind. Still, simplicity might have been overdone, though this largely is a matter of taste and I am naturally biased toward long-form fiction. Documentaries must be summary, after all. Flit flits, quite simply, getting to the point and not wasting time, but at a few moments to the extreme where it possibly interferes with visualizing a scene.
Of the main characters Irina Taras Petrov is very interesting, and perhaps more interesting than even the author originally intended given the current day-to-day suspicions about Russia’s worldwide influence in government and business. The ITP’s path from invention to proliferation is comparable to the atomic bomb’s, invented in America but quickly becoming of interest overseas, though the very essence of the ITP is to abolish borders. The old world resists, naturally. The notion of wondrous technology being suppressed for profit is a familiar conspiracy theory, and not without inspiration from the real world – though here there is a timeless debate to be had, which Flit maintains as a constant theme, about unintended consequences. The American government’s reaction is not quite taken to outlandishness – like suppressing the cure for cancer to keep ‘Big Pharma’ rich – and keeps a foot in reality. Importantly, Morawski has successfully shown how real politicians mask selfishness as concern, in this case for the economy that they want to take credit for.
Inventing fantastical contraptions only to have them go horribly wrong is a well-worn sci-fi path that was shunned in favor of something more inspirational and perhaps believable, with no fly-headed men. Morawski’s vision of the future is, after some shakiness, refreshingly optimistic in an age of prognosticators preaching AI and nanotech dooms with forced edginess, a return to sci-fi as a source of wonder rather than dread.
The Humanarium 2: Orbital by C.W. Tickner - 4 stars
To start this review, two questions and answers.
One: is this hard science fiction? Absolutely not. There is unexplained gravity in a spaceship that is orientated like a conventional ship without centrifugal spinning. There are visible lasers in space. There is thermodynamically-questionable harvesting of organic matter as depicted in The Matrix, with humans being the most potent energy source. And of course the gargantuan natives of the planet below defy the square cube law with every step and breath.
Two: does that matter? Probably not for most readers. This is an action/adventure story on an alien planet, and it’s hard to comment on the scenery when the plot of this novel is a relentless sequence of running, flying, fighting, crashing and escaping. Undeniably this was a work of great passion on Tickner’s part – it shows in the novel’s creativity, its banter between main characters, and just slightly in the feel of ‘rushing along to the next important thing’. He is excitedly showing us this thing and that thing and another thing in a relentless rush.
Having no down time means the story never lulls, but it also means that the novel can’t turn up the tension because the stakes are always maximal. The effectiveness of the action scenes is above average in attention to detail and change of scenery, with few scenes being unnecessary or repetitive, though once the main cast is established the feel of true danger is a bit undermined. The real question is how many of the people stuck on the Orbital will be delivered to safety.
The setting introduces an abrupt change from the first novel’s rural setting to include a dilapidated spaceship, the titular Orbital. A human-made container even more claustrophobic than the Aylen terrariums, the Orbital’s atmosphere of unmapped labyrinths and secretive bottom-dwellers at times has the feel of a haunted house. This new challenge comes complete with some of the first novel’s problems: obstructionist and traitorous assholes. Tuckner’s characters generally avoid moral complication: there are scumbags like Turpin who wear their scumbag status on their sleeves, and there are wholesome good people like Sonora who have the presence of mind to care for others even while she’s about to give birth. Between good and evil, very little grey. Uncomplicated evil and thoughtless obstructionism applies furthermore to the Aylens, who are generally either compassionate or determined to rape their own planet into a barren rock.
But overall, Tickner has taken his foundational idea of humans stuck in terrariums by alien giants into a reasonable direction, building more of the world and expanding the conflict … still with a blacksmith doing most of the heavy lifting. There are a few generic placeholder elements in the science fiction setting (like the engineer who is Scottish in all but name) but overall this is a fresh and well-constructed story, part of an unfolding universe that I am pleased to see growing in publications and popularity.
Koraalen: Planetary Symbiosis by Heather Murata is the story of a utopian world under a mysterious threat, something insidious that must be caught and stopped by a young woman named Nerissa with a passion for marine biology and a deep link to the corals. This link is no metaphor: the coral holds conversation and has a better personality than some humans. Unlike the story of Dr. Dolittle (or the more recent Avatar) in this story there is no skepticism from others about this communication with the alien Gaia, which is an accepted reality on Koraalen. Something is hurting the corals, and Nerissa and her new friends must find the problem and the solution before permanent harm is done.
Environmental stories are hard to do right, but this is no On Deadly Ground. If any such comparison to that film could be made, replace the mindless violence with a passionate and optimistic atmosphere, something that is not often seen in such environmental stories, which usually resort to either utter fantasy (Fern Gully), wallowing hopelessness (Samson and Sally), or distracting spectacle and violence (On Deadly Ground, or Avatar) to make audiences digest their message. We need some optimism in our environmentalism and our science fiction, and Koraalen is a speck of light in a long line of dire predictions and morose science fiction writers who create dystopias with forced edginess (of which I’m personally guilty).
On this world the problem has been caught early, because vigilance pays. Magic is not the answer, but we’re not going to blow up Michael Caine to fix this either. There actually is something non-ridiculous that can be done! Nerissa is supported by a vast interplanetary apparatus of scientists and corporate stakeholders to conduct her vital work, and there are almost no one-dimensional ‘obstructionist’ characters that so often populate these stories of saving the planet. People are good, people do care and can help, sometimes.
The novel seems to be primarily a coming of age tale for the young lady with a hint of mystery, and if I have to poke a hole anywhere I must state that it doesn’t make use of science fiction for more than aesthetic purposes in a few places that feel largely superficial. This could have been Earth, maybe in a few years when the coral decides to yell at us. Most of the characters have a clear personality but there is a large cast that feels out of place for a stand-alone novel that is focused primarily on one person’s journey, with three characters sometimes doing the work of one. The seamlessness of some relationships felt a little extra-utopian, with a flirtatious workplace relationship having no MeToo issues, and the wealth of luxury hotels and idyllic scenery (important to establish what we’re fighting for) was topped off by more wining and dining than I would expect from scientists racing to save the world. Or maybe I’m just being cranky and muttering ‘young people’.
Because of how quickly the premise is established I don’t think it is a spoiler to say that, to step a little behind the scenes, the primary villain of this story is apathy. The problem on Koraalen is small, and only a few notice, but by the time many people notice it will be far too late. Apathy is a very tricky villain for an author to take on, especially mass apathy. It’s harder than mass ignorance – if all you had to do to make people stop using drugs was to teach them about what drugs can do, addiction would be far less of a problem. When it comes to addiction or a neglected environment most people already know the core fundamentals, but how do you make them care? In Murata’s story, you make people care by creating a powerful relationship, a new symbiosis. If you’re not caring about something as passionately as Nerissa and her corals and her friends and family, what the hell are you doing on this planet with your limited time?
The Orion Crucible by Micah Z'Dar - 3 stars
The Orion Crucible by Micah D’Zar is an ambitious, detailed but troubled novel, as much of a green cadet as its main cast, hardworking but struggling. A part of me wants to imitate its nasty drill instructors and bark out its several problems, but I won’t be quite that mean.
With a Terran Federation, and one main character named Johnny, and a headfirst dive into military training, and a grotesque alien foe, the reader will naturally be thinking ‘OK, how is this not Starship Troopers?’ The choice of names assures us that Z’Dar knows what he is imitating, so there has to be a ‘punchline’ here. There’s an abundance of material to criticize or subvert in Heinlein’s novel, as the movie showed, so once the apparent duplicate story is set up how will it be undermined, subverted and expanded upon? Do I want to know more?
Unfortunately, if there is any such disillusionment coming, Z’Dar is playing a long game across several novels. Judging only this particular book, there is nearly uncritical and unironic acceptance of the status quo from the main cast, with all doubts succumbing to duty, all rebellions being mere locker room antics. The new things not in Starship Troopers are not new: a hefty amount of inspiration also came from Ender’s Game. Beyond these two pools of inspiration, we have generically friendly or aggressive aliens, generic robots, and a generic space setting that we truly have yet to explore, having spent the entire novel in school or with simulations.
Beyond limited originality, the prose bears minimal conversation and tells almost everything, including feelings, rather than showing, especially in the first half. The level of detail in the setting and the grand machine of the military is impressive, from regalia to equipment to ritual and the explanations behind them, but it has to be because there’s very little outside of these details for most of the story. The overall result is dry and stiff. The characters announce their biographies, but most of their past life is irrelevant as they are hazed, stripped down and reprogrammed by the military machine, and when inner thoughts are presented they share a collective inferiority complex with trivial variation. There is an abundance of quick, near-emotionless terminations, with suggestions of depth clipped off. In one introduction, we are told ‘maybe there was something more to her than it at first appeared’. Next chapter, something happens, and we’ll never see that one again. We get main characters out of this merely by the process of elimination, and all the while we are told that they are mad, or told that they are motivated, or inquisitive and clever, or happy, when I can only say ‘if you say so’. Swaggart being a prick was the only one who needed no telling because it was shown.
The impulse to tell rather than show is so extensive that even after a conversation we will be re-told what was just said by the narrator. There’s no risk of ever being lost – but unfortunately this kind of writing is more appropriate for a textbook than a novel. The characterization improved slightly in the novel’s second half, with some more showing, although a particular formula of giving subtext – alternating back and forth between idle thoughts and a lecture, or idle thoughts and a game – grew to be rather monotonous. I would have considered a 4/5 if the first half matched the second half in quality.
Furthermore, in a story that stands almost entirely on its world being competently constructed with rich detail, there are several examples of low-level impracticality that cumulatively hurt. One little example: the cadets are given a schedule of pills. ‘They were brightly colored to try and keep kids from swallowing them’. But there are no kids for millions of miles – and making things brightly colored tends to make young children MORE likely to notice them and put them in their mouth. AND many forms of candy come in bright colors. This one line is a throwaway, but I include it as an example of something half-thought-out. If we’re making a story with more complex characters, this half-done detail would be acceptable and maybe even unnoticeable; but in a story where technology and science and the general setting are the stars, with characters being more like chess pieces (ironically, as they spend most of their time playing games), I have higher standards for the reasoning behind the tech/science/setting and I’m paying more attention to those things. ‘She knew that the military didn’t separate the male and female facilities because the logistics of it would be costly’ is another unmissable example of a detail being half-done, and out in the open when there’s nothing else to see but these details. We’ve already established that entry-level recruits are being shipped in from many locations across the inhabited universe to this facility rather than being trained and sorted locally … but they can’t afford two locker rooms. That’s too expensive, but rocket fuel is cheap. And they have robots that can pass for human – but sorry, no extra toilets.
Overall, I’m giving this a 3 even though I know that plenty of inferior books get inflated reviews – this is an honest 3. If you’re a veteran reader of military science fiction you might be curious to see what the new ‘cadets’ are up to, and it might be fun to play their games – but a bit more practice is needed before this one is ready for the front line.
The Symbol by Peter Fratesi - 4 stars
The Symbol by Peter Fratesi is a captivating journey through territory superficially familiar, involving figures and events of early 19th century history that any lover of literature must know, but made fresh and vivid by the vantage of his chief witness Polidori. Knowing what is coming provides an intimate sense of excitement and dread as hints are carefully laid out, from encounters with a pre-Frankenstein Mary Shelley and immersion in the legends that we know will produce Stoker’s Dracula, to a view of the London East End’s desperation and danger before the Ripper. The language is evocative but not overwrought, and his fictional characters blend well with the historical figures, maintaining a consistent level of detail and interest. The horror is effectively executed with ominous clues and apparent dead ends of speculation, confidently abandoning the comforts of strict logic and tidy summaries to emphasize the confusion and vague foreboding that defines lurking, gothic fear.
In fiction such as this there is the difficulty of having a relatable protagonist in a time of relatively backward social attitudes, and the absurdity of trying to solve this problem by simply inserting a person with enlightened, 21st century attitudes toward class and gender and sexuality and race into such a year as ~1815. Fratesi’s Polidori is almost unbelievably likable for where and when he exists, but he is young and naïve and somewhat sheltered by a rich upbringing, making his progressive and uncorrupted stance digestible. The issue still persists in the ability of Fratesi’s characters to be so direct and open even about personal subjects in a way that is natural to many of us today after the lifting of numerous taboos, but feeling out of place in a time of such antiquated customs. Making a choice between historicity and relatability, I think the right choice was made; giving his characters modern candidness makes the narrative more efficient, and for the most part it is a success. When the criticism is that some parts feel rushed along by the plot, this indicates that the setting was well-constructed and the reader wanted to stay longer.
The Turing Revolt: The War Against Infinity by Rob Bartlett - 3 stars
To avoid spoilers in this review, I’m simply going to be referring to the Surprise.
Rob Bartlett has produced an ambitious work that stradles multiple genres and adopts multiple tones. As told by the mysterious Captain Milo, it is a surprising novel that adds on additional surprises to sustain a continous level of excitement, keeping a good pace for a fast, fun story and not ‘feeling its length’. Our protagonist is being blackmailed, but for a good cause, and a shadowy organization seeks to undermine him at every turn with increasingly violent tactics.That’s already the start of a very interesting novel … before the Surprise.
Without specifying, a fantasy element shows up in a setting of futuristic sci-fi. And with it comes a brand new tone – less intricate, less preoccupied with the original civil rights struggle. The new tone is all violence and sex, a shot of adrenaline to appeal to readers who came here to have fun. The juggling act between readers who want to think or feel, who want strategy or violence, or just science fiction or fantasy is embraced with full enthusiasm by an author who goes for both.
As a minor issue inherent to the very mixture, a novel that combines elements from different genres is going to struggle to find a consistent tone. We are lured in with a science fiction setting and a story of AI rights in which the conflict is executed not with incredible violence but, initially, with an intricate piece of white-collar crime and semi-legal finagling that could occur on Wall Street today. In an age of gerrymandering and tax evasion and slavery-in-all-but-name it’s an interesting and relevant premise. Then the Surprise happens.
Such a Surprise can be very disorientating and might shake off readers as the rules change, as the interest that was building in the initial premise is twisted or even abandoned. Something similar happened in From Dusk ’til Dawn, in which a story about two runaway criminals and their hostages becomes a tale of campy supernatural violence (not horror, but violence). A story of more realistic and brooding concerns is replaced with a totally new tone of straightforward sex and action, with a heavy BDSM component here. If we don’t care enough about the first premise, the Surprise works – so there’s the tricky act of making the front premise interesting enough to suck the reader in but not so compelling that we feel betrayed when the Surprise hits. In FDTD the tone was similar enough to work for many viewers – but here the tone mismatch might be even more severe, as we went from intricate scheming and ‘realistic’ legal/business maneuvering with stakes of emancipation for an oppressed class in society to maximum kink.
But aside from the attempt to manage the tone of such a bipolar story, the novel’s biggest problem is not its characters or its descriptions or its conversations, which are above-average: the biggest problem is apologetic self-interruption, what I generally regard as self-sabotaging behavior that an insecure author engages in when they want to run with something ‘silly’. One way to handle something silly is to be up-front and acknowledge it before moving on, which is fine if it happens once. But frequent self-interruption, repeatedly winking or nodding to the audience and concealing the lack of self-confidence in a flippant attitude with fourth-wall breaking remarks (‘see what I did there?’ or ‘I know it’s a really weird metaphor, deal with it’ or ‘now this was more like it!’ or ‘pun intended!’ or ‘see? I’m good! Heh!’ or ‘just go with it’) starts to remind me of Mel Brooks’s lesser work. The word ‘heh’ in particular is often used to apologize for these moments.
And outside a work of comedy it’s even more of a problem, because the character is not ‘in’ the story anymore. For action scenes that require tension, almost all risk goes away. For a techno-thriller story that require working within established rules, almost all challenge goes away. Why did we spend time being serious and learning the original rules when a witty remark can shrug off an admitted absurdity? And would the author actually remove an idea they considered substandard if they fall into the habit of ‘justifying’ an odd metaphor or a tired cliche or trope with these remarks amounting to ‘I know what that was, I know, but I’m going to use it anyway!’
To put on my evil-critic hat (it’s a fedora, of course) I challenge all newer authors who engage in this self-interrupting behavior with the question: ‘why didn’t you cut and rewrite until you stopped feeling the need to apologize and explain yourself in this way with self-depreciating remarks in every chapter?’ And see what I did there with the fedora? It’s a reference to snooty Internet critics and arrogant edgelord atheists. I know, I know, I’m terribly sorry.
Nevertheless, The Turing Revolt is a fun read, and it could never be accused of taking itself too seriously. I could find fault in the fact that the ending is not an ending, but of course the story is not done, and I do intend to find out what happens.
White American by Sean Benham - 5 stars
This is a work of serious goofiness. If propaganda footage of a murderous dictator went unedited, and we saw the man stubbing his toe and hopping in pain as he inspects his troops, we’d have the perspective that Benham gives us of his global dystopia. He constantly undermines any potential ostentatious scene in favor of pulling down his characters’ pants at the big moment. No hero or villain is safe, not even the Messiah or Satan.
Flipping the script on colonialism, America is under the control of a frivolous and sour overseas dictator and has deteriorated far below the level of banana republic. Bananas are a distant memory; it is an illegal porn and organ trafficking republic, or zoo, or experiment. In this gleefully transgressive setting Satan hunts for the Messiah, and flying priests hunt for Satan and his spawn – downright apocalyptic goofiness. With all this overhead, a confused high school senior named Billy Lopez has begun his odyssey.
The fusion of things that should be serious with metaphorical stubbed toes and dropped pants is a tricky exercise, but Benham succeeds. White American has a consistent theme of capricious and clownish incompetence that steamrolls over human lives. It reminded me at times of Catch-22 in tone, which alternated wildly between ridiculousness and people getting exploited, humiliated and killed, and then more ridiculousness.
This book deserves all 5 stars for never stalling and never hesitating to invent new affronts to the imagination. The ending is so abrupt that it seems nearly amputated, and I imagine it must have been painful when people had to wait for the sequel, Bastard Son. Having read the sequel as well, I can say that the story begun by White American loses no momentum.