Although this story meanders into the realm of Scifi, it is also a warped reflection of our world. The governments of the countries of the world wage war just because; soldiers go out and fight; others create weapons so advanced they can change the fabric of reality. When one army gets pissed because the other army actually causes almost irreparable damage, they use the weapon (which they consider a creation of their own)in retaliaiton which leads to retaliation by the first army (the one who caused the first damage-following so far?) with the same weapon (surprise!). The world is irrevocably changed forever and the unsuspecting citizenry have to learn to cope until a huge corporation begins repairs and eventually becomes the new governing body. I recommend this book for everyone-not just those of us with a mind bent towards the unusual. The concept forces you to think about how we are ruled today and how large corporations, i.e. banks, finance corporations, Haliburton, control our government.

The description of this debut novel says that this story is “equal parts raucous adventure, comic odyssey, geek nirvana, and ultra-cool epic…a story of love, pirates, mimes, greed, and ninjas.” But it is also the story of a world, much like our own, in desperate need of heroes, however unlikely they may seem.” When I first read this I thought, “Wow! This must be some book to be able to put all that in between the covers.” Fortunately, for the most part, the book does live up to its review. The first chapter opens in a ramshackle pub called the Nameless Bar where the power has just gone out. As the occupants of the bar watch, the TV slowly comes back to life and shows that the pipeline, which is the lifeline for humanity, is on fire. The world in which our intrepid narrator and his friends live is a parody of what life used to be. Because of a senseless war, which came to be knwon as the “Gone Away War”, the world was irreparably changed by a weapon into two distinct parts: the “Livable Zone” and the “Gone Away World.” The dialogue is snappy and witticisms abound as the narrator relives life before the war (rather lengthy but necessary), during the war, and how humanity began adjusting afterwards. As soon as the narrator returns to the present, the story takes yet another turn, and we are treated to a clever twist that throws the whole book into a completely different light.