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Exploded View by Sam McPheeters
It’s 2050, and LAPD Detective Terri Pastuzka has drawn the short straw with her first assignment of the new decade. Someone has executed one of the city’s countless immigrants, and no one (besides the usual besieged advocacy groups) seems to much care. Even Terri herself is already looking ahead to her next case before an unexpected development reveals there’s far more to this corpse than meets the eye.And a lot already meets the eye. In a city immersed in augmented reality, the LAPD have their own superior network of high-tech eyewear—PanOpts, the ultimate panopticon—allowing Terri instant access to files and suspects and literal insertion into the crime scene using security footage captured from every angle the day the murder occurred. What started as a single homicide turns into a string of unsolved murders that tie together in frightening ways, leading Terri down a rabbit hole through Los Angeles’s conflicting realities—augmented and virtual, fantastically rumored and harrowingly true—towards an impossible conclusion.Exploded View is the story of a city frozen in crisis, haunted by hardship and overwhelmed by refugees, where technology gives everyday citizens the power to digitally reshape news in real time, and where hard video evidence is impotent against the sheer, unrelenting power of belief. After all, when anyone can forge their own version of the truth, what use is any other reality?
Paperback
First published October 20, 2016
About the author
Sam McPheeters
8 books41 followersSam McPheeters was born in Ohio and raised in upstate New York. In 1981, at age 12, he co-authored Travelers Tales; Rumors and Legends of the Albany-Saratoga Region. Starting in 1989, he sang for Born Against, Men’s Recovery Project, and Wrangler Brutes, touring seventeen times across North America, Europe, and Japan. Since 2009, he has written for Apology, Chicago Reader, Criterion, Vice, and The Village Voice, among others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
September 20, 2016
Conceptually, Exploded View is brilliant. It raises questions about how we decide what to believe about the images and situations presented by the media. As our ability to manipulate image and data becomes all the more sophisticated, and media sources are driven by the desire to profit, how can we judge what is true? A cut here, an addition there, editing can change how a situation is perceived, based upon what is being "sold" at that moment. Then ramp it up.
All but the poorest citizens or refugees have high tech eyewear connecting them constantly to a virtual world where commerce is supreme and social media is omnipresent. It juxtaposes transparency and the power of anonymity. It is a world where children play Strangers on a Train without thought acting against social media targets. Exploded View is thought provoking in the extreme, but as a novel it falters because it tries to do too much at once. It sacrifices a straightforward plot for ideology. Still there is a lot to like as long as you don't get too mired down.
I was somewhat disappointed by the ending. On the one hand the idea that a virus can change perception and cause drastic personal action is intriguing. On the other hand it seems to abdicate human culpability.
Stimulating thought is the hallmark of a good novel, but I can't help but think Exploded View would have benefited greatly by some streamlining. Based on writing alone, Exploded View rates a 3. Its innovative ideas, however, allow me to give it a 4.
4/5
I received a copy of Exploded View from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
--Crittermom
All but the poorest citizens or refugees have high tech eyewear connecting them constantly to a virtual world where commerce is supreme and social media is omnipresent. It juxtaposes transparency and the power of anonymity. It is a world where children play Strangers on a Train without thought acting against social media targets. Exploded View is thought provoking in the extreme, but as a novel it falters because it tries to do too much at once. It sacrifices a straightforward plot for ideology. Still there is a lot to like as long as you don't get too mired down.
I was somewhat disappointed by the ending. On the one hand the idea that a virus can change perception and cause drastic personal action is intriguing. On the other hand it seems to abdicate human culpability.
Stimulating thought is the hallmark of a good novel, but I can't help but think Exploded View would have benefited greatly by some streamlining. Based on writing alone, Exploded View rates a 3. Its innovative ideas, however, allow me to give it a 4.
4/5
I received a copy of Exploded View from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
--Crittermom
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 24, 2016
I appreciated the strong female characters, and the world-building is solid (even if it goes on, and on, and on), but the actual story is kind of weak and has a holodeck-type of ending in the last 5-6 pages that I found unsatisfying. I expect there will be more books in the series, but I don't plan to read them.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2017
Former Born Against/Men's Recovery Project/Wrangler Brutes singer Sam McPheeters has always been a great writer, going back to his Dear Jesus fanzine and Maximumrocknroll columns in the early 90s, and I always kind of wished he would do more with his writing, so when he started publishing novels I was delighted. His first novel was enjoyable if kinda flawed as was the novella he published last year, but I think he may have come into his own here. A near futuer police procedural mystery with tons of satire and an insane twist ending. This took me a long time to read, and I think in part it was because our world just took a giant leap into this near future dystopia of this novel, so it was hard to read this, but it's an excellent novel.
December 4, 2019
I believe you could be a Great writer. Alternate history..ok. Great technical explanations. But the meandering thought process and jumpy paragraphs had me going back to re-reading Alot. Some of the stuff I couldn't parse. Confusing. The ending was a suprise (not saying anything else about it).
I believe there is a better story here than what you gave us. I have to be honest.
I believe there is a better story here than what you gave us. I have to be honest.
July 31, 2017
a modern take on the hard-boiled detective novel. the mix of dystopian and singularity futures is fascinating, and the world-building was the highlight for me. the characters, however were barely sketched out, and the ending was wholly unsatisfactory
November 1, 2021
I'm always keen to check out crime/sci-fi genre blending, and so this police procedural set in 2050 Los Angeles caught my eye. I'm not a deep reader of speculative fiction, but it's often struck me that near-future sci-fi struggles to get both the macro and micro stuff right. That is to say either the large-scale geopolitical context is interesting, or the human-scale tech/social vision is interesting, but few authors are able to maintain control over both. This is a pretty good example of a book with that balance issue. The background is that India and China have destroyed each other in nuclear war, and the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles are now gang-controlled tenements stuffed to the gills with Indian refugees. Meanwhile, America seems to have splintered into several zones, and leaving the confines of Los Angeles means leaving the rule of law.
All of which is fine except that it's hard to imagine a scenario in which a splintered America would be opening the doors to huge numbers of refugees, or that the typical middle-class Los Angeles lives would continue in such a future, or that there could be celebrity musicians or sports stars in such a world. There are just basic things like food supply and transportation that would be completely upended, much less mass entertainment. But if you can set aside the impossibilities of the macro setting, the actual police procedural investigation of a murder is pretty good.
The idea is that in 2050, there are cameras literally embedded everywhere, and everything is recorded, and the police have access to all of it. So when there's a crime like the murder that kicks things off, they can enter a VR simulation that reconstructs the scene of the crime and they can play with all manner of data to ID the killer. Except in this case, the murder takes place in a dead zone with no camera coverage, and the suspect is wearing a dust mask and a hoodie... The story follows LAPD Detective Terri Pastuzka as she in driven around the physical Los Angeles (all cars are self-driving and all linked to a massive network, which allows cop cars to "zipper" through traffic at high speeds) and pilots herself through augemented and virtual Los Angeles to solve the murder.
For cops, with their special "PanOpts" (panopticon) headsets, everyone appears tagged with basically any information that might exist in a database. There is no more privacy, and it's all so eerily plausible. In the same vein, video footage is constantly remixed and remade, and there's very little to distinguish real from fake any more, and indeed, it takes "fake news" to creepy new deepfake heights. As Det. Terri follows leads from murder to murder, the pace picks up and the story starts to get dizzying, ending with the kind of plot twist that some readers will probably hate, but is the only possible solution.
All of which is fine except that it's hard to imagine a scenario in which a splintered America would be opening the doors to huge numbers of refugees, or that the typical middle-class Los Angeles lives would continue in such a future, or that there could be celebrity musicians or sports stars in such a world. There are just basic things like food supply and transportation that would be completely upended, much less mass entertainment. But if you can set aside the impossibilities of the macro setting, the actual police procedural investigation of a murder is pretty good.
The idea is that in 2050, there are cameras literally embedded everywhere, and everything is recorded, and the police have access to all of it. So when there's a crime like the murder that kicks things off, they can enter a VR simulation that reconstructs the scene of the crime and they can play with all manner of data to ID the killer. Except in this case, the murder takes place in a dead zone with no camera coverage, and the suspect is wearing a dust mask and a hoodie... The story follows LAPD Detective Terri Pastuzka as she in driven around the physical Los Angeles (all cars are self-driving and all linked to a massive network, which allows cop cars to "zipper" through traffic at high speeds) and pilots herself through augemented and virtual Los Angeles to solve the murder.
For cops, with their special "PanOpts" (panopticon) headsets, everyone appears tagged with basically any information that might exist in a database. There is no more privacy, and it's all so eerily plausible. In the same vein, video footage is constantly remixed and remade, and there's very little to distinguish real from fake any more, and indeed, it takes "fake news" to creepy new deepfake heights. As Det. Terri follows leads from murder to murder, the pace picks up and the story starts to get dizzying, ending with the kind of plot twist that some readers will probably hate, but is the only possible solution.
November 25, 2017
EXPLODED VIEW by Sam McPheeters is a neo-noir cyberpunk detective story which tales place in that delightfully sunny and depressed city of Los Angeles in the year 2050. The skyscrapers have been converted into government housing for the poor, television is completely interactive, and everything is watched at all times by the police.
LAPD Detective Terri Pastuzka is a lesbian and single mother who is suffering a mild case of depression due to the fact her wife has just left her for greener pastures as well as the soul crushing nature of her job. She spends most of her spare time mutilating the Nick and Nora Charles movies in order to make them dirtier as well as darker.
I like the depiction of Terri and her struggles to make herself care about her life as the broken down detective is a great protagonist for any sort of cyberpunk work. The fact her daughter is acting out for lack of attention (including playing a highly illegal social media-based prank game called "Strangers on a Train") felt realistic for the environment. Her sexuality is treated no differently as any straight man's but worked well in the future environment.
This isn't an action novel and most of the volume is spent exploring the tech as well as its implications in a poverty-heavy environment. All of the tech seems plausible with a bit of a stretch only for how interactive the programs have become in the future. Really, the most unbelievable element is the idea the United States would open itself up to millions of refugees from the India-China nuclear war.
I love the vision of 2050 Los Angeles which Sam McPheeters presents and while I wouldn't say it's necessarily plausible like the technology, I will say it's certainly authentic feeling. This is a lived in and dramatic world that does not revolve around our protagonist or the plot. Indeed, solving the murders that our heroine obsesses over will do nothing to make the world a better place. It will just make her sleep better.
In conclusion, this is an exceptionally good book and should appeal to fans of noir as well as cyberpunk. Terri is an excellent protagonist and I wouldn't be adverse to reading more of her stories as the conflicts within her aren't things that can be resolved overnight--if ever. The real lesson of her latest case wasn't that she had to get over her struggles but they will be there the next day and the next day after.
9/10
LAPD Detective Terri Pastuzka is a lesbian and single mother who is suffering a mild case of depression due to the fact her wife has just left her for greener pastures as well as the soul crushing nature of her job. She spends most of her spare time mutilating the Nick and Nora Charles movies in order to make them dirtier as well as darker.
I like the depiction of Terri and her struggles to make herself care about her life as the broken down detective is a great protagonist for any sort of cyberpunk work. The fact her daughter is acting out for lack of attention (including playing a highly illegal social media-based prank game called "Strangers on a Train") felt realistic for the environment. Her sexuality is treated no differently as any straight man's but worked well in the future environment.
This isn't an action novel and most of the volume is spent exploring the tech as well as its implications in a poverty-heavy environment. All of the tech seems plausible with a bit of a stretch only for how interactive the programs have become in the future. Really, the most unbelievable element is the idea the United States would open itself up to millions of refugees from the India-China nuclear war.
I love the vision of 2050 Los Angeles which Sam McPheeters presents and while I wouldn't say it's necessarily plausible like the technology, I will say it's certainly authentic feeling. This is a lived in and dramatic world that does not revolve around our protagonist or the plot. Indeed, solving the murders that our heroine obsesses over will do nothing to make the world a better place. It will just make her sleep better.
In conclusion, this is an exceptionally good book and should appeal to fans of noir as well as cyberpunk. Terri is an excellent protagonist and I wouldn't be adverse to reading more of her stories as the conflicts within her aren't things that can be resolved overnight--if ever. The real lesson of her latest case wasn't that she had to get over her struggles but they will be there the next day and the next day after.
9/10
January 3, 2024
An exhausting, demanding chore of a read from the get-go.
The author's belabored text comes across like a bad attempt at writing like J.G. Ballard (with the fantasist goal of being optioned for a movie adapation lensed by Paul Verhoeven).
The plot adds up to very little and it's not worth the effort it takes to wade through Expanded View's endless descriptions of the alt world it's so desperate to satirize, along with the slight, one-dimensional characters and corny dialogue that run throughout.
It's a shame, since the synopsis I read sounded intriguing and I was genuinely looking forward to reading this... But yeesh, this book was grating.
Overwrought, underwhelming, and discourteous to the reader's time and patience. The writing here is nowhere close to being as funny, intelligent, or perceptive as it thinks it is and ultimately, it reads as overly smug and excessively ornate.
In short, I hated this one. Like the worst of Don Delillo meets Jerry Stahl (remember that 90s hack?). NO GOOD. BAD BAD. 👎
The author's belabored text comes across like a bad attempt at writing like J.G. Ballard (with the fantasist goal of being optioned for a movie adapation lensed by Paul Verhoeven).
The plot adds up to very little and it's not worth the effort it takes to wade through Expanded View's endless descriptions of the alt world it's so desperate to satirize, along with the slight, one-dimensional characters and corny dialogue that run throughout.
It's a shame, since the synopsis I read sounded intriguing and I was genuinely looking forward to reading this... But yeesh, this book was grating.
Overwrought, underwhelming, and discourteous to the reader's time and patience. The writing here is nowhere close to being as funny, intelligent, or perceptive as it thinks it is and ultimately, it reads as overly smug and excessively ornate.
In short, I hated this one. Like the worst of Don Delillo meets Jerry Stahl (remember that 90s hack?). NO GOOD. BAD BAD. 👎
May 29, 2020
Some elements of Exploded View can be a bit confusing at times; there are a whole lot of characters interacting here and some of them- even main ones- can seem a little flat at times, and at times the plot moves along at such a breakneck pace that some story elements get a little muddled and lost. What makes this book stand heads above a whole lot of science fiction, though, is the world that McPheeters has built around these characters. This may be one of the best post-apocalyptic scenarios I've ever read, a world that has been devastated by nuclear war but bounced back, a world where the panopticon we all fear today has evolved to an insane level. In many ways, this world is more of the story here than the actual plot, and that is not necessarily a bad thing at all. I hope McPheeters has more novels like this up his sleeves.
March 29, 2025
Attempting to get to more of my cyberpunk library, I finally got this one. It’s a solid, feeling fairly commercial effort. Meaning it has the pacing and technophobia elements. The character work is fine, the plot quite fun, and the twist, while predictable, ultimately satisfying.
What drew me to it is the augmented reality aspects. I bet I’d have liked this even more years ago, since I’m very into AR, but more so mixed reality. AR feels, I don’t know, old tech, somehow, already. However, this was a solid effort. Though, I would like to see less technophobic efforts in modern cyberpunk works, it’s understandably hard to deliver, when the technology in the subgenre is generally repurposed to fight back against “the system”—making it hard to be more nuanced, and probably uncalled for in a commercial effort. I doubt an editor would care.
What drew me to it is the augmented reality aspects. I bet I’d have liked this even more years ago, since I’m very into AR, but more so mixed reality. AR feels, I don’t know, old tech, somehow, already. However, this was a solid effort. Though, I would like to see less technophobic efforts in modern cyberpunk works, it’s understandably hard to deliver, when the technology in the subgenre is generally repurposed to fight back against “the system”—making it hard to be more nuanced, and probably uncalled for in a commercial effort. I doubt an editor would care.
June 23, 2020
Bit weird feeling to be reading a cop book considering what is going on in June 2020, but there's a enough in this 2016 book that feels very topical to the here and now that I ate it up in a couple of days. Gritty grim dark near future crime noir, definitely more a social critique than escapism. To be honest like most books I give five stars, I'd prefer to award 4.5, but that isn't an option here. Solid genre conforming cyberpunk done well enough to make me think carefully about my interactions with technology and the effect it has on society.
Oh and Born Against were one of my favourite bands so totally biased.
Oh and Born Against were one of my favourite bands so totally biased.
July 15, 2022
I really like Sam McPheeters, but boy oh boy was this book ever a chore to get through. The premise is very interesting, but the book is littered with completely forgettable characters a plot that crawls at a snail’s pace because the overwhelming focus is sketching out the technological hellscape and social circumstances of LA circa 2050. It’s a world building exercise without much compelling you to want to stay in the world, which given the nature of what’s being described might be precisely the point.
June 23, 2019
I had a lot of trouble reading this book. English is not my mother tongue, so I was guessing a lot of the time if some words were actual slang or part of the world building.
Still I love cyberpunk and the worldbuilding is solid, so I struggled along. The main character is solid and interesting. I loved following her but the buildup of the story is somewhat confusing and the ending is just a disapointment.
Overall ok, but not great
Still I love cyberpunk and the worldbuilding is solid, so I struggled along. The main character is solid and interesting. I loved following her but the buildup of the story is somewhat confusing and the ending is just a disapointment.
Overall ok, but not great
December 31, 2016
HOLY CRAP that was amazing. I was not ready for that ending at all. This is a hilarious, dystopian, near-future noirish mystery/police procedural set in LA. It reminded me of Rudy Rucker and (weirdly, a little bit) of Connie Willis, so if you like those writers, you might like this too. (Not only because of the setting, either.)
September 7, 2017
Interesting World Building but the ending was a bit too confusing for my 65 year old brain to adequately parse. Once the author hones his skills I might stay involved to a greater degree. I hope I'm not being too condescending in my analysis. I will try it again in the near future.
December 11, 2018
Maybe this book got better and better, but I’ll never know because I just couldn’t keep reading it.
The story wasn’t going anywhere and the world building and character development seemed inconsistent and one dimensional.
The story wasn’t going anywhere and the world building and character development seemed inconsistent and one dimensional.
July 7, 2017
Good world building and story. My only complaint is maybe toward the end when we're caught up in the story, maybe ease back on the world building.
September 1, 2018
Really liked the world building, the technology, the peek into one version of the future. The actual plot didn't interest me much at all.
April 20, 2020
Too much reflection by its protagonist and not enough plot. Not even the twist ending could save this one.
June 18, 2020
Thrilling
Richly detailed story weaving realistic cultural foretelling, class war, poverty, and police-overreach, with a fascinating mystery. Loved it. Read it.
Richly detailed story weaving realistic cultural foretelling, class war, poverty, and police-overreach, with a fascinating mystery. Loved it. Read it.
June 15, 2021
I really enjoy futuristic books with technologies I’ll never see and this did not disappoint.
September 14, 2021
Tricky and weird
What happens when the simulacra sets the game pieces on the board and makes the first play. Is it even possible to step out of its game.
What happens when the simulacra sets the game pieces on the board and makes the first play. Is it even possible to step out of its game.
March 22, 2017
DNF around 30% of the way through. Just not feeling it.
December 29, 2017
Very well done and all too believable depiction of a dystopian computer-assisted future. Futuristic automation of police procedure is highly convincing, just about amazing.
November 18, 2022
The book doesn’t really get going til around the 200 page mark. Finally it ramps up and goes…nowhere.
December 31, 2016
This book was... okay. Like many people have said, the speculated future technology is very cool, and very believable. The story is a little convoluted, and it seemed like in places the author was trying to avoid obvious exposition in explaining the technology aspect, so he just dropped it in non-chalantly... But when the technology is as immersive as it is in this book, it can really confuse and make you have to go back and re-read to try to figure out what is really going on. The story was made more confusing by this, I think. To be honest, I stopped trying so hard to figure the exact plot line from about forty to seventy percent through the book. I figured, correctly, that the book would help sum it all up toward the end. The story itself was so-so. If you think you would enjoy a hard futuristic sci-fi book mashup with a detective story with conspiracy aspects, you would probably enjoy this one.
Addition: The message in the book about how people don't know what to believe, and end up believing what they want to believe, and editing footage and reporting to make it appear true--all very appropriate for our day. Think our current fake news issues multiplied several times over. Also, if you enjoy LGBT characters being included without being hit over the head with it, just there sort of matter-of-factly, you'll appreciate this as well.
**I received a free copy of this book in exchange for this unbiased review.**
Addition: The message in the book about how people don't know what to believe, and end up believing what they want to believe, and editing footage and reporting to make it appear true--all very appropriate for our day. Think our current fake news issues multiplied several times over. Also, if you enjoy LGBT characters being included without being hit over the head with it, just there sort of matter-of-factly, you'll appreciate this as well.
**I received a free copy of this book in exchange for this unbiased review.**
October 17, 2016
Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. - Jonathan Swift
This was a hard book for me to get into. For one thing, I have a difficult time visualizing things in 3D and since this story focuses around a world that does almost everything in Virtual Reality, it took me probably at least half the book to really "feel" the story. Normally I would have quit reading before the halfway mark but I was understanding enough to be intrigued.
There are many great concepts in this story of a future Los Angeles - self-driving vehicles; zippering; I loved the idea of ghosting; KANGAROO KORT; and the PanOpts, which are VR glasses for law enforcement.
Author McPheeters has created a dense, scary view of what 2050 might look like. As I hinted at before, it's almost overwhelming. LAPD Detective Terri Pastuszka is assigned a case with her partner Zack Zendejas that starts snowballing immediately.
This story is chaotic and crazy and too believable at times. If you like cyberpunk, science fiction, post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction check this out.
Oh, and I would have given a 4 star rating if the ending had been
beefed up. After pages and pages describing all the details of this future L.A., the author devoted very few pages to a satisfying ending. I do think the book is still worth reading but be forewarned about the ending.
I received this book from Talos Press through Edelweiss in exchange for my unbiased review.
This was a hard book for me to get into. For one thing, I have a difficult time visualizing things in 3D and since this story focuses around a world that does almost everything in Virtual Reality, it took me probably at least half the book to really "feel" the story. Normally I would have quit reading before the halfway mark but I was understanding enough to be intrigued.
There are many great concepts in this story of a future Los Angeles - self-driving vehicles; zippering; I loved the idea of ghosting; KANGAROO KORT; and the PanOpts, which are VR glasses for law enforcement.
Author McPheeters has created a dense, scary view of what 2050 might look like. As I hinted at before, it's almost overwhelming. LAPD Detective Terri Pastuszka is assigned a case with her partner Zack Zendejas that starts snowballing immediately.
This story is chaotic and crazy and too believable at times. If you like cyberpunk, science fiction, post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction check this out.
Oh, and I would have given a 4 star rating if the ending had been
beefed up. After pages and pages describing all the details of this future L.A., the author devoted very few pages to a satisfying ending. I do think the book is still worth reading but be forewarned about the ending.
I received this book from Talos Press through Edelweiss in exchange for my unbiased review.
February 11, 2017
Vivid near future-feeling.
October 21, 2016
I tried but gave up on this about a third of the way through. There's a good story here but it felt like the plot was sacrificed to the concept. Sci-fi fans and those who like more creative reading experiences will undoubtedly like this more than I did. THanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.
April 7, 2017
The world that the author built is intriguing, but I found his method of revelation about the various aspects of the world to be disjointed. This led me to be thinking too hard about new information about the world at times when I should haven thinking more about the action of the story. It felt throughout that there were too many holes in my knowledge about the environment and history of how to social milieu became what it was for me to become truly immersed in the world. The pay off in the end was kind of cool though. I really liked it (wont give spoilers though). Some readers have thought the ending was hokey or came out of nowhere, but it made perfect sense to me and was pleasantly surprising.
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