No Aloha : The Friendly Happy Music of the Past

by Deran Ludd

Sometime early in the new century following the collapse of the former United States, Pastor-Governor Bill Kingson and high-ranking members of Team Jesus flee the theocratic genocidal police state they have created in Colorado. All that remains are scurrying masses of ex-suburbanites desperate to escape from the Golden West gated-community republic and Disney's ReLive USA! theme-park nationstate for the legendary safety of Bulgaria. A band of feral youths join together for protection and love as they struggle to cross the city formerly known as Denver. Gus, the oldest, who dreams of being a sumo champion; his partner in crime and love Maude, a onetime little league superstar pitcher, Gladys, a 10 year old electronics whiz, and Walter, a 12 year old boy who wears girl's clothes and may be the Messiah, become the post-apocalyptic nuclear family that cares for each other in the face of a historical disaster they don't begin to understand. Hovering between a terrifying present and a frightening future, No Aloha begins where William Gibson's novels leave off, projecting us into a world of a war torn adolescent consciousness of blind loyalties and survival skills that supersede the confines of race and gender.

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Deran Ludd takes traditional genre fiction, twists it and twists it, adds unusual characters, and tells tales pumped with action, woe, and dark humor.

Ludd is the author of three novels: Sick Burn Cut (Semiotext[e], 1992) and No Aloha (Semiotext[e], 1999; DIY ebook edition, 2010) and The Carnage Motel (DIY ebook edition 2017)

Ludd is also the author of several short stories, including eshort stories Upshot, He Has A Face Like A Steel Trap, and Hypnotizing Chickens. All my short stories are available FREE at Smashwords and from most other ebook outlets.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not quite ironic or satiric enough to be funny, and so close to the current Republican vision of what the US should be, this low budget version of Delaney's Dalghren. The chaos is mainly led by salivating variations of messianic xian idiots, very similar to Dumbfuck's rabid crowds. Even First Lady for Life Nancy Reagan and Ronnie have abandoned the country for Bulgaria. That the story occurs in Denver is not a random choice, as the thumpers have installed themselves south of Denver in Colorado Springs... and that is not fiction. Stephen King, in The Stand, made Boulder the center of goodness, and Las Vegas the bad one. It should have been Colorado Springs where the sanctimonious bastards are today.

[Larry-bob Roberts]

In an alternate world not so different from our own, where Ronald and Nancy Reagan have served seven terms, the U.S. has splintered, and Colorado has been under a religious dictatorship, a group of teenagers make their way across the remains of Denver. In the real world, oppressive governments based on religious fundamentalism or bigotry have resulted in mass human suffering (see former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, etc.) Maybe it takes seeing it happen to the country we know best to wake up Americans. And homeless kids in this country are not science fiction.

Gus, the oldest one, is a white kid who aspires to be a sumo wrestler. His girlfriend Maude is a black teenager who is the mother figure of the family the kids form. The youngest, Gladys, is an electronics whiz, cracking phone cards. They meet up with Walter, a cross-dressing enigma. Their initial goal is to get to the home of Carlos, a family man who used to pay Gus for sex. And they would also like to escape Colorado, and hope they could be resettled in Eastern Europe (a nice reversal.) Even the simulation of the nuclear family turns out to be inherently rotten, and its symbols must ultimately be destroyed.

Comparisons to Samuel R. Delany's "Dhalgren," another story of alternate family structures set in a post-apocalyptic city, are inevitable. This book even has a somewhat similar circular structure, with parallel events in the first and last chapter. But while Delany's autumnal city is in a sense a utopia, this one is not.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine a world where Nancy Reagan is First-Lady-For-Life, a large chunk of the midwestern United States is sold off and turned into a giant pig farm, and Colorado is ruled over by a theocratic Christian cult who kill off thousands of unbelievers in the "Surgical Jesus Mind Project" until the UN finally (sort of) intervenes to stop the bloodshed, at which point a civil war breaks out. Meanwhile, what remains of Team Jesus - the religious militia responsible for carrying out the "Surgical Jesus Mind Project" - roam around indiscriminately beating people to death with metal crosses; other cults cut off their own ears and head to Texas for the (second) second coming of Christ.

The protagonists are three teenage sumo wrestling fans who try to navigate their way out of that hell, reflecting on pederasty and such as they go. And oh yeah, there's a little cross-dressing boy who might be the Messiah.

Pretty good book.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

All-too-credible chaos in uncomfortably familiar
geography and urban settings, set to insidiously
effective chapter headings--Mantovani, Arthur
Fiedler, Bert Kaempfert?? Kids in improvised
families holding out the hope that the rumors
are true and Japan is really sending some loads
of food for Christmas. The pivot point of the
axis of evil has settled close to home.

[Mike Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book. Both of Deran's book's are good.