Publisher: Spectra
Format: Tradepaper, 371 pages.
ISBN 10: 0553384406
ISBN 13: 978-0553384406
Reviewer: Victoria
On the back of the book. . .
In this outrageously funny, outrageously inventive debut, one of the most outrageously talented new writers to break into the sci-fi scene in decades asks the most loaded question of all. . .
"Don't you hate it when this happens?"
. . .that's what the business card asks Jonny X67, dream architect to the rich and jaded. It's all the thieves who stole his house left behind. And if that weren't bad enough, a saleswoman named Caroline E61 drops from the sky to sell him a set of encyclopedias and won't take no for an answer. Can his luck get any worse?
In this rip-roaring roller-coaster ride through a brilliantly imagined future of paranoid absurdity, Jonny X will learn the answer soon enough when he falls afoul of a lunatic motorcycle gang nicknamed the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse, a relentless Belgian assassin, and his own irate girlfriend. Traversing a cityscape whose neighbourhoods are organized by musical genres, running into joke-telling elevators and holographic computer viruses, Jonny is about to learn what a nightmare its going to be to get his old life back in a reality warping faster than the speed of imagination. Outrageous Fortune heralds a marvelous new talent sure to be delightfully altering the minds of readers for years to come.
This book is hilarious. It's one of the funniest books I've read in a while. Hands down. It had me laughing all the way through. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the setting is a mixture of Douglas Adams and Orwell, and the characters are fully formed walking canisters of awesome. If you were to put Douglas Adams, Tom Holt, George Orwell and maybe some William Gibson into a box and then shake the heck out of it, Tim Scott would pop out like a crazed jack-in-the-box.
The book opens up with the hero, Jonny X67 standing on the sidewalk in front of where his house used to be. Someone stole his house. That, to me, is absoloutely fantastic. They didn't just go in there and steal the stereo and computer, they just came in and took the whole damn thing. That was the first surprise. Then, as we follow Jonny around some more, we realize something else. . . The city is divided into musical genres. There's the ambient noise neighbourhood, the techno neighbourhood, the soul, the punk, the rave, the country and the all-abhorrent Christmas music neighbourhood. This allows Scott to really play with characters. What type of person would choose to live in the punk neighbourhood? The soul neighbourhood? The jingle neighbourhood? And who wants it to be Christmas every day of the year?
And while everyone lives in their musical niche, they're bombarded with virus ads, a paranoid society and an Orwellian government. Not to mention paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork.
As funny, interesting and novel as this book is, Scott does owe quite a bit to Douglas Adams. Scott shares Adam's absurd humour and whimsical settings. Some readers might not be able to get past this, because there are a fair amount of similarities, but if you can, and just take this book for what it is, you'll be highly rewarded with an entertaining read.
Characterization: 8.5
Plot: 8.5
Style: 9
Overall Rating: 8.5
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