Private Property

by Seth Kenlon

Fear and Loathing in Post Apocalyptic America. The future, after the genetic experiments of the great Doctor Patricia R. Durham, leaves all women on the planet with snakes instead of hair, and the unique and terrifying ability to blind, and even kill, a man with a simple stare. The birthrate is at all-time low, the population dwindles, the world's governments are all but disbanded. One woman walks across Amerika without a destination. College students get drunk and cause trouble. A man in a bar in the mid-west stops believing in love. A radio station broadcasts old Doctor Patricia R. Durham interviews all day, every day. An old out-of-commissioned factory crushes a tourist into an eight-inch cube of flesh and bone. Albino cobras. Alive, and deadly. See them, five dollars per guest. Pancakes for a dollar, a cup of coffee for seventy-five cents. It's the future. Not much has changed.

188 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 2011

Reviews

[Randall Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not a dystopia, per se. In fact, it's a world not even too unlike the present. But it's Amerika and the women are medusae whose snake hair can blind or kill men at will. So everything is different.

This is a fun science fiction romp, told in a staccato that brings out the irony and the agony of a world not too unlike our own. In this world though, every single person has a middle initial in their name, and the issues of private property, of having fun, and of attachment, separation, anxiety, and comfort play out in ways that bring new meaning to the words.

Maybe it's an exercise in creative vocabulary. You wouldn't think the expression "private property" can be open to too much interpretation. But in Kenlon's world, that's exactly what can happen. Watch out or she'll burn your eyes out. Freud had nothing on this.

[Seth Kenlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book a lot. I am probably biased although I have to say that I don't feel like I'm biased. This book infected me and made its way through my fingers into a computer, but I really don't feel like I, myself, wrote it, and I think I'd love this book regardless of who'd taken credit. It's a science fiction, post-feminist road trip book, of sorts, but really it's just about a far off future when women have been genetically mutated to have snakes instead of hair, lasers in their eyes, and what such a change in power would do to ethics and personal morals. And I guess it's also about being human. You should probably read it.