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Set of Wheels
A Science fiction of the last hot car on the last open road
Lee Kestner didn’t want one of the new low pollution‚ low performance cars. He wanted a muscle machine. He found a ’67 Mustang‚ a blast from the past, from Earth’s glorious vanished Golden Age. The cops would be out to crack him for illegal drivng But they’d have to catch him first.
It was time to take that wreck of a Mustang and teach her to roll. Put the pedal to the metal. Earth can be like Heaven again if you’ve got Wheels...
Lee Kestner didn’t want one of the new low pollution‚ low performance cars. He wanted a muscle machine. He found a ’67 Mustang‚ a blast from the past, from Earth’s glorious vanished Golden Age. The cops would be out to crack him for illegal drivng But they’d have to catch him first.
It was time to take that wreck of a Mustang and teach her to roll. Put the pedal to the metal. Earth can be like Heaven again if you’ve got Wheels...
281 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1983
17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 23, 2024
Thurston's bildungsroman Set of Wheels takes place in a near future America and features Lee Kestner, who really, really wants his own set of wheels. It seems America stopped producing cars a while back and now you need a special permit to own one, and that takes connections Lee does not have. Lee finally contacts his black market buddy and scores a '67 Mustang! Problems soon emerge. First, he has no place to put it, and second, it is a real piece of shit. So, Lee does the only thing he thinks he can-- heads out on the open road!
While Thurston never details what exactly happened to the old USA, most people live either in segregated ghettos or gated subdivisions around cities. The 'outlaws', however, live in old rest stops and the like along the near abandoned expressways. To earn their daily bread (and gas!), they run all kinds of 'errands', like moving drugs, knocking off stores, etc. Lee falls into the group, meets gal, gets estranged from her and decides the only way forward is to head West...
Fun brain candy by Thurston. For some reason Thurston eschews punctuation, such as quotations for speaking, which gives it an odd feel. You never feel like you know what is going on as the world only appears from Lee's truncated gaze, and he is pretty clueless. He does start to discover something about himself along the way, however, but do not expect anything deep here. 3 revved up stars! PS: disregard the cover art-- Lee's Mustang starts off battered an just gets worse...
While Thurston never details what exactly happened to the old USA, most people live either in segregated ghettos or gated subdivisions around cities. The 'outlaws', however, live in old rest stops and the like along the near abandoned expressways. To earn their daily bread (and gas!), they run all kinds of 'errands', like moving drugs, knocking off stores, etc. Lee falls into the group, meets gal, gets estranged from her and decides the only way forward is to head West...
Fun brain candy by Thurston. For some reason Thurston eschews punctuation, such as quotations for speaking, which gives it an odd feel. You never feel like you know what is going on as the world only appears from Lee's truncated gaze, and he is pretty clueless. He does start to discover something about himself along the way, however, but do not expect anything deep here. 3 revved up stars! PS: disregard the cover art-- Lee's Mustang starts off battered an just gets worse...
February 8, 2022
Really surprised by this, was expecting a trashy Mad Max style dystopian effort, but it's much more character driven than that. Stands up pretty well, some on-the-money predictions and sticks the ending nicely.
February 19, 2016
An average post holocaust story centered around the cars that are left for kids to drive around the new world. Recommended
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews