Saturday, November 1, 2014

Metrophage

Metrophage by Richard Kadrey
HarperCollins: 11/4/2014 (re-release)
eBook, 320 pages
ISBN-13: 9780062334480
richardkadrey.com
The cult-classic dystopian cyberpunk tale from New York Times bestselling author Richard Kadrey, after twenty years, now back in print in a special signed, collectible edition
Welcome to our future: L.A. in the late twenty-first century—a segregated city of haves and have-nots, where morality is dead and technology rules. Here, a small wealthy group secludes themselves in gilded cages. Beyond their high-security compounds, far from their pretty comforts, lies a lawless wasteland where the angry masses battle hunger, rampant disease, and their own despair in order to survive.
Jonny was born into this Hobbesian paradise. A streetwise hustler who deals drugs on the black market—narcotics that heal the body and cool the mind—he looks out for nobody but himself. Until a terrifying plague sweeps through L.A., wreaking death and panic, and no one, not even a clever operator like Jonny, is safe.

My Thoughts:

Metrophage by Richard Kadrey is a recommended cyber-punk classic that is being re-released.

Metrophage is set in a future LA that is harshly divided into those who have wealth and those who don't. LA itself has been partially destroyed. Now the city is populated by hustlers of various ilk and specialties.  Jonny Qabbala is a street hustler who sells drugs, but right now he's out looking for Easy Money, another dealer who killed one of his friends. Circumstances send Jonny on the run. While he's trying to survive, a plague is breaking out and beginning to spread.

This is a dark story with lots of violence and a kinetic, frantic feeling to all of it. The strengths of the novel are the characterizations and the imagery Kadrey manages to capture.  The downside is the violence. The jury is still out on cyberpunk for me, but for those who want to read one of the early ground breaking cyberpunk works, Metrophage is a novel you would want to include.


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of HarperCollins for review purposes.

No comments: