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The Failed Cities
[From the publisher]: Bursting through the veil of the digital for the first time ever, Matt Wallace's Parsec Award nominated novel – based on the 2006 podcast series that garnered nearly one million downloads – will finally hit the printed page on May 17th, 2013. The House of Murky Depths is proud to announce it will be producing a special limited hardcover edition of the underground sci-fi noir classic that New York Times best-selling author Scott Sigler calls, “... an examination of the human spirit, a darkened mirror that reflects the true nature of the struggle, not only for survival, but for civilization.”
Told through the revolving voices of eight characters – a street preacher, a back alley negotiator, a hot-rodding master of edged weapons, brother and sister assassins, a pit fighting pulp writer, a reluctant detective, and a Machiavellian femme fatale – THE FAILED CITIES is the story of a divided dystopian metropolis, the humanistic struggles of its citizens, and how their lives intersect over several weeks of intrigue, greed, struggle, revenge, and love that threaten to unravel both halves of a flawed and beautiful whole.
Read more: http://www.murkydepths.com/fc.php
Told through the revolving voices of eight characters – a street preacher, a back alley negotiator, a hot-rodding master of edged weapons, brother and sister assassins, a pit fighting pulp writer, a reluctant detective, and a Machiavellian femme fatale – THE FAILED CITIES is the story of a divided dystopian metropolis, the humanistic struggles of its citizens, and how their lives intersect over several weeks of intrigue, greed, struggle, revenge, and love that threaten to unravel both halves of a flawed and beautiful whole.
Read more: http://www.murkydepths.com/fc.php
- GenresUrban Fantasy
260 pages, Hardcover
First published November 13, 2012
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32 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 25, 2013
It can be easy to forget when reading this newly published hardcover collection of what once was a serialized podcast novel/anthology called "The Failed Cities Monologues" that it was originally penned in 2006 -- before the current financial crisis, before cities like Stockton and San Bernadino, CA and Detroit, MI went bankrupt. We were still riding relatively high, in 2006. Which is to say that Matt Wallace was maybe a little bit prescient.
The Failed Cities really concerns what was a single city bifurcated by a river -- which made it all the easier to let half of it go to crap when circumstances made its leadership give up on the poorer side of the river, withdrawing the police rather than utilities support after a rigged vote and thus letting the cheap side fall into lawlessness, a shanty town with seven story apartment buildings. The rich side, meanwhile, has its own problems, hosting, for instance, a giant crap crater that was originally a building site for what was going to be the most luxurious arcology build in the history of ever, until the financing fell through. Oops.
Within this world, eight point of view characters are living their lives: a street preacher (member of a sect of these, who have more or less taken on the role of the police in a wholly informal way), a pulp fiction writer (who makes ends meet by fighting in an arena and getting beaten to a pulp), a hot-rodder (who has a side business in acting as a one-man underground railroad for abused sex workers), a pair of brother and sister assassins (one of whom has had weird bone grafting surgery so all of her joints are essentially deadly edged weapons and the other of whom is Just. Huge.), a freelance moderator/negotiator (who got his start by talking his way out of a bar fight he kind of started), a Ukrainian immigrant escaping his family's legacy of heroism (who winds up backing into a heroic role as the Detective Who Will Catch The Serial Killer and immediately regretting it) and a black widow femme fatale (who sees through everyone else's schemes and plots to turn all those schemes on their heads). Each takes a turn at forwarding the overall narrative as their stories are intercut and overlap with one another to portray a world of lawlessness, struggle and occasional hope.
And yes, I'm going to mention the Godbody standard here, for The Failed Cities comes closest to meeting it of any book I've read, closer even than The Book of Skulls did. Which is to say that each character voice is distinct and believable, including those of the women, and I'm fairly certain a person familiar with the book could guess who was speaking from a randomly chosen passage read a loud, within a paragraph or two, if not a sentence or two. That takes talent.
So, top notch world building, top notch characterization, an interesting and intricate plot -- does this book have any flaws? Perhaps only the spidery typography, the font so thin it looks faint and was thus a little hard to read for these middle-aged eyes. But the contents thus displayed were so good -- and the hardcover containing them so gorgeous -- that I soldiered on with it. And hey, it's not like this was my first time visiting the Failed Cities; I listened to the podcast back in the day, which is why I knew I had to have this luxe edition. Go listen to the free original podcast version and see if it doesn't make you want one, too.
The Failed Cities really concerns what was a single city bifurcated by a river -- which made it all the easier to let half of it go to crap when circumstances made its leadership give up on the poorer side of the river, withdrawing the police rather than utilities support after a rigged vote and thus letting the cheap side fall into lawlessness, a shanty town with seven story apartment buildings. The rich side, meanwhile, has its own problems, hosting, for instance, a giant crap crater that was originally a building site for what was going to be the most luxurious arcology build in the history of ever, until the financing fell through. Oops.
Within this world, eight point of view characters are living their lives: a street preacher (member of a sect of these, who have more or less taken on the role of the police in a wholly informal way), a pulp fiction writer (who makes ends meet by fighting in an arena and getting beaten to a pulp), a hot-rodder (who has a side business in acting as a one-man underground railroad for abused sex workers), a pair of brother and sister assassins (one of whom has had weird bone grafting surgery so all of her joints are essentially deadly edged weapons and the other of whom is Just. Huge.), a freelance moderator/negotiator (who got his start by talking his way out of a bar fight he kind of started), a Ukrainian immigrant escaping his family's legacy of heroism (who winds up backing into a heroic role as the Detective Who Will Catch The Serial Killer and immediately regretting it) and a black widow femme fatale (who sees through everyone else's schemes and plots to turn all those schemes on their heads). Each takes a turn at forwarding the overall narrative as their stories are intercut and overlap with one another to portray a world of lawlessness, struggle and occasional hope.
And yes, I'm going to mention the Godbody standard here, for The Failed Cities comes closest to meeting it of any book I've read, closer even than The Book of Skulls did. Which is to say that each character voice is distinct and believable, including those of the women, and I'm fairly certain a person familiar with the book could guess who was speaking from a randomly chosen passage read a loud, within a paragraph or two, if not a sentence or two. That takes talent.
So, top notch world building, top notch characterization, an interesting and intricate plot -- does this book have any flaws? Perhaps only the spidery typography, the font so thin it looks faint and was thus a little hard to read for these middle-aged eyes. But the contents thus displayed were so good -- and the hardcover containing them so gorgeous -- that I soldiered on with it. And hey, it's not like this was my first time visiting the Failed Cities; I listened to the podcast back in the day, which is why I knew I had to have this luxe edition. Go listen to the free original podcast version and see if it doesn't make you want one, too.
December 12, 2016
Four star first half, three star second
Honestly while I love Matt Wallace, as a first timer to the failed cities, I found the book disjointed and alienating and disorienting at times. It's clearly an adaptation, and more of a companion than anything else. But it's solid and makes me curious for the actual podcast.
Honestly while I love Matt Wallace, as a first timer to the failed cities, I found the book disjointed and alienating and disorienting at times. It's clearly an adaptation, and more of a companion than anything else. But it's solid and makes me curious for the actual podcast.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews