After Things Fell Apart

Fragmented America

by Ron Goulart, Alan Gutierrez (Illustrator)

The time is a few decades from now, the place what used to be the United States, now disrupted by internal factionalism as well as a short-lived foreign invasion.

Out of this chaotic background Ron Goulart has produced a swift-moving, witty and constantly delightful novel, a story of a future odyssey through:

*The Nixon Institute, where aging former rock stars reminisce about the days when they still had hair;

*the wide-open sin-town of San Rafael, run by the Amateur Mafia (no Italians allowed);

*Vienna West, a detailed replica of Sigmund Freud's 19th Century city where psychiatric patients live and abreact together;

*the Monterey Mechanical Jazz Festival, featuring the music of pinball machines, jack hammers and Laundromat washers...

All this plus a dozen or two of the oddest characters you're ever likely to meet.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy, Alternate History, Post Apocalyptic

189 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Pseudonyms: Howard Lee; Frank S Shawn; Kenneth Robeson; Con Steffanson; Josephine Kains; Joseph Silva; William Shatner.
Ron Goulart is a cultural historian and novelist. Besides writing extensively about pulp fiction—including the seminal Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of Pulp Magazines (1972)—Goulart has written for the pulps since 1952, when the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction published his first story, a sci-fi parody of letters to the editor. Since then he has written dozens of novels and countless short stories, spanning genres and using a variety of pennames, including Kenneth Robeson, Joseph Silva, and Con Steffanson. In the 1990s, he became the ghostwriter for William Shatner’s popular TekWar novels. Goulart’s After Things Fell Apart (1970) is the only science-fiction novel to ever win an Edgar Award.

In the 1970s Goulart wrote novels starring series characters like Flash Gordon and the Phantom, and in 1980 he published Hail Hibbler, a comic sci-fi novel that began the Odd Jobs, Inc. series. Goulart has also written several comic mystery series, including six books starring Groucho Marx. Having written for comic books, Goulart produced several histories of the art form, including the Comic Book Encyclopedia (2004).

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goulart’s "After Things Fell Apart" is the only science-fiction novel to ever win an Edgar Award.

The ghost writer for William Shatner’s popular TekWar novels, Goulart has also written several comic mystery series, including six books starring Groucho Marx.

Note: This is not a library copy.

[Lizz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t write reviews.

And I don’t understand why so many people didn’t enjoy this book. I mean you’re not gonna get a straight-laced science fiction story out of Goulart. He’s the guy who wrote the Tekwar series and the Groucho Marx mysteries. You will get silly situations, fun dialogue right out of old time radio, snarky computers on the edge of sentience and breakdown, stereotypical characters who never listen to reason, homages to the great writers of the last century and a dystopia which has a good sense of humour about itself. You will get a clever little adventure and a vacation from yourself. Like every other offering from this writer, you get a neat slice of Goulart with a side of ice cream.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A satire about America just before 2000--the USA has dissolved and fragmented into warring groups ....Some humorous moments here by Ron Goulart (1933-2022). It was written in 1970 and I first read it in the 70s. Then I thought it was really far-fetched. I don't think so anymore.

[Derek · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book contains a Science Fiction Book Club mail-in offer and two cigarette ads (Newport: 18 mg 'tar', 1.2 mg nicotine / True: 5 mg 'tar', 0.4 mg nicotine), which feels right because the whole thing really is the product of another generation. I don't know much about the San Francisco Bay Area of the 1970's, and kept wondering if the satirical elements would be more meaningful with that kernel of understanding. Does this represent the countercultural elements run amok, the inmates running the asylum? I couldn't figure any extrapolation that would derive this situation based on the culture at the time of writing, so most of it came off as a series of ridiculous events being hurled at the protagonist.

The story's sad heart is only visible at the end. Behind all the wackiness and hijinks is a troubled world with real social injuries, and I was left wondering if the splinter societies were the inhabitants' way of coping with the collapsed, broken country. The leftover fragments have turned inward, strange, and combative.

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some good books were written in the 70s. This isn't one of them.

Some good does come from reading a lump of poo as poor as this; it makes you appreciate all the good books you have read previously - just that much more. I shall ceremoniously place this paperback in our council recycle bin, where, after a while, it will be transformed into something much more entertaining. A cardboard box maybe?

Abandoned at 35%.

[Tina · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not what I was expecting. I was hoping for a post-apocalyptic wasteland tale of strange bands of survivors. This book is not post-apocalyptic. The future is a little run-down and strange, but it is hardly post-apoc. Also, it was terribly written. Normally I'm not one for description and exposition, but I could barely tell what was going on, because there was no real explanation of anything! The book was only 180 pages; would it have killed the author to bump that to maybe 250 and actually provide some background for his world/characters? I don't understand how Philip K. Dick and Joanna Russ can call this novel "a sheer delight" and "very funny and very sad." First of all, it's not a delight at all. It's bizarre and aiming to be satirical, ok, but I should have read it as a bathroom book for the quality the writing is. I mean, Amnesia Moon is confusing and bizarre, but it actually makes sense in the end because it is well-written. After Things Fell Apart is just a convoluted mess that reads so quickly you feel while reading it as if you were on that Superman roller coaster at Cedar Point - everything goes so fast you barely know what happened. And as per the latter, how is it sad? Because it's so stupid? Or because of all the racist and homophobic language? Ok, I get that it was written in 1970 where the terms the author used were probably just part of the vernacular, but that's the only sad part I see.
The ending was completely ridiculous. The big climax happened in about 7 pages (and these pages have like 14 point font on them), and the reason for the Lady Day mission was barely fleshed out and almost insulting to women in its simplicity.
HARD PASS.

[John Defrog: global citizen, local gadfly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another Ron Goulart novel that I read maybe 30 years ago and decided to re-read, and it’s one of his more acclaimed novels. The setting is a fragmented future America which, following a failed invasion by China, has devolved into packs of subcultures fighting for dominance – at least in California where the story takes place. This being Goulart, though, all of that is just a comic backdrop for a detective story in which Private Inquiry Office agent Jack Haley searches for Lady Day, a militant feminist outfit killing prominent officials in broad daylight. This book may be difficult for many people to like. It’s not serious, realistic speculative fiction, but rather the kind of oddball bare-bones 2D comic-book adventure that Goulart typically writes. Also, the story’s inclusion of casual racism, sexism and homophobia is going to put some people off, though it may help to know the book was published in 1970 when all three were prominent at a time when minorities, women and LGBTs were fighting for their civil liberties – Goulart’s America is a reflection of the social tensions at the time. Anyway, it’s a little different from Goulart’s usual stories in terms of setting, but otherwise for me it’s a typical Goulart romp – lightweight, but entertainingly madcap.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Things Fell Apart is one of Goulart's first novels. It's a science fiction satire that was published in 1970, and was somehow, strangely, nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel by the Mystery Writers Association. It has some of the sexist/racist attitudes that one would expect from a novel from fifty years ago, but I'd say they're rather mild. It's something of a travelogue of future-California through the eyes of a private detective who encounters such curiosities as the Nixon Institute, where old rockers remember the good old days when they had hair, and the Monterey Mechanical Jazz Festival, which features the music of pinball machines, jack hammers, and laundromat washing machines. Though obviously dated, it's still a wild and funny romp, with witty and ironic dialog. My edition has a nifty Leo & Diane Dillon cover, and a blurb from Philip K. Dick on the back cover saying, in part, "I savored every word of it."

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this in a second hand bookshop because I thought it looked hilariously terrible. I was half right - it's funny and bad. Intentionally funny, and not as bad as I thought if would be (but still bad).

If you can overlook the racist, sexist, and homophobic language (I struggled), what you've got is a pulp-fiction detective novel set in a well-realised crumbling dystopian 'future'. The plot isn't much to write home about, but the action pops from every page (I lost track of how many times Jim Haley, the 'hero' got knocked out). There are some genuinely funny sections of observational humour, and the constantly malfunctioning androids are a definite highlight.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

"Ron Goulart (1933-2022) passed away on January 14th earlier this year. His science fiction publishing career lasted a whopping 67 years — his first story appeared in 1950 and his last in 2017.

I have long known that Goulart’s brand of science fiction tends not to be to my liking–the vibe is that of witty banter while simultaneously conducting a high-speed chase through a manic carnival of all of animated [...]"

[Jlawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wacky, satirical view of a splintered post-dissolution post-United States made up of sparring cultural and political enclaves, wrapped around a slim, pulpy-noiry detective story. Written in 1970 and set a few years before the turn of 2000, it is still heavily stamped with the slang of its time (Goulart sometimes lampshades this as characters faddishly reviving 'ancient' lingo), the plot is weak and the satire is too scattered to have much bite, but there are a good number of amusing moments - I was especially fond of the multiple talkative, unhelpful/overly-helpful computers and androids which would not be out of place in Douglas Adam's worlds - and as a Bay Area resident, the fact that it hops around many places in northern California makes various skewed references fun. And it's a very brisk read.

I'm a bit sad that my copy has a grim psychedelic-arty cover instead of the Mad Max-ish lust portrayed on the cover that Goodreads displays.

[Booksofdoom · Rating 1 out of 5]

Funny funny book.

It is certainly written in it's time. There are a lot of words from the time, that are not very correct to use any more, however, the characters are just as open-minded as they should be, even today. Or tomorrow.

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, a lot to unpack here...
Ron Goulart was an American author of mystery, fantasy and science fiction. Though it is interesting that when you Google him, he comes up first as a historian of pop culture; an interest that certainly is obvious in this book where a humongous number of pop references are thrown in. He wrote under many, many pseudonyms, he wrote for comics and movie adaptations and comics and that smooth professionalism in writing does come through in this book.

AFTER THINGS FELL APART is a book about an alternative world America which is no longer united, the various parts of the country ruptured due internal factionalism and now operate spasmodically and semi-independently. we hear that Washington fell apart and that there was a short-lived Chinese invasion of California, where part of this book is also set. We start however in San Francisco where our main protagonist John Haley, is a Private Inquiry Officer and has been called upon by the San Francisco Police to chase the 'Lady Day' gang.

We learn there are dozens of different levels of fragmented policing and that Lady Day is operating to kill key important men. They are women who dress up in black (kind of gym enthusiasts crossed with Dominatrix) and Haley has to pursue them across the different parts of America taking us with him through a fast paced tour of all the weird and wonderful scenes Goulart dreamt up for us Including:

*The Nixon Institute, where aging former rock stars, authors and politicians record their memories and someone tries to kill Haley for no apparent reason.

*the weird town of San Rafael, run by the Amateur Mafia (no Italians allowed), where a couple of different people try and kill Haley.

*Vienna West, a detailed replica of Sigmund Freud's 19th Century city where psychiatric patients live and abreact together; and, yes, someone or two people try to kill Haley.

Various odd characters are thrown at you often and tell Haley and the reader all about themselves before being thrown under the bus and vanishing forever a paragraph or two later. The dialogue is almost universally silly, the situations are ludicrous and the characters are not even meant to be remotely believable and you will either love it or... not.

That, in short is the superficial outline of what this book is allegedly about.

Now, reading this I remembered why I stopped reading Goulart in my teens, even though he wrote SF and it was everywhere and I liked sci-fi and did not mind Goulart. It seemed to me as if once you have read one book you have essentially read them all. The plot is extremely secondary to what his books are actually like from the reading perspective, or at least they were for me.

Goulart was very much part of the SFF writing scene admired and acclaimed, and generally celebrated as a smooth writer of dialogue driven stories, with his work having characteristically stylised satire and anarchic humor. Goulart was nominated twice for the Edgar Award, once for this book in 1970. This is also the first novel in his loosely associated “Fragmented America” world.

I found this work very zany and quirky. I don't mind some quirk, but this was very deep quirk, so deep one kind of drowns in it. Satire, it may be but I never understood what he was satirising, never really got the majority of the humour and I usually had the strong feeling that I was missing %90 of the points he was making. Maybe I have insufficient familiarity with his targets, so it just falls rather flat for me. Consequently I do not it that funny and often enough tedious even.

Now, what I did always like about Goulart was how random, creative and off the cuff his 'future science' concepts were. In the opening scene for example, an earthquake knocks the coffee machine off the bench and the soy beans go everywhere. The data storage units (kind of like large, boxy mobile and verbal computers) are affected by the quake and all malfunction and start barking. We get these fascinating tidbits...

He has equally quirky yet interesting scene setting: a motel run by escaped FBI agents who address each other by number. A soup kitchen and a pharmacy where you need to get past automated systems to enter: Complete SF for the 70's though pretty prescient in a way, reading it today.

Sadly, for me, the good bits were never quite enough to glue together the fragmented meaningless plot. And like all Goulart that I remember, the huge and very interesting social commentary element , while it exists, is so deeply hidden in the Zany and Quirk, that uncovering it is a days work and I am unsure how often I can be bothered to work that hard for so little return.
Two and a half stars rounded up by the GR algorithim.

[Eric Reyes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd read 'Gadget Man' and raved over it, enjoying the zany, post-collapse world and all its nuts cultural movements and parodies, the (at the time) technologically imaginative dystopias and nostalgia for a time not so ancient and not so good, etc.

This novel felt weaker, somehow. The climax is very unsatisfying, very... meh. It falls flat, kind of like it remembered its central conflict and wanted to resolve it in about 5 pages. The world is just as weird and full of equally weird people (complete with contemporary language that is now cringe-inducing for reasons beyond the political).

One of a series of novels set in a post-collapse California, we follow Haley of the 'Frisco Enclave' Private Investigations department as he tries to track down the members and leadership of a high-profile all female assassination squad wreaking havoc across the disjointed, zany, anarchistic remnants of Northern California and the Bay Area. Following a lead early in the novel, he meets and falls in love with a possible lead, a girl named Penny. And after that it kind of gets weak, unfocused, more about brief setpieces and rambling one-shot characters.

Overall... it was fun, I enjoyed it, but it definitely felt unsatisfying.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing, to say the least. Goulart uses a McGuffin in the form of a terrorist organisation to lead the protagonist on a chase through numerous communities each of which is populated by a blatant stereotype of a different type of "alternative lifestyle". Presumably intended primarily as a satire of the cosmopolitan and diverse cultures of Southern California at the beginning of the 1970s, it comes across as heavy handed and too thin a device to hang a novel on. Add to that the dubious sexual attitudes (even for 1970), the ubiquitous damsel in distress, and a denouement that is too short to even consider as perfunctory, and you end up with a bit of a mess. The writing flows smoothly, and there is occasional surreal humour (hence the second star), but that's not enough to make up for the book's other shortcomings.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is now the recent past in an alternate world, seen from 1971, with a satirical spin, in other words, typical Goulart of the period. And speaking of the period, there are several racial epithets uttered in the writing, all by jerks to show they are jerks, that fall into the forbidden to use category these days, so be warned, it is a book with 70s sensibilities, having been writing in the 70s.

It is a fun romp through an alternate world Northern California after the US has broken up into a variety of smaller nations, each of which is further divided into cultural enclaves, giving Goulart many targets to skewer with satire.

If you like Goulart's style of off-beat SF comedy, you will like this book, if not, probably not.

[Andrew Kline · Rating 2 out of 5]

This may be the most accurate depiction of a dystopian America, and it ain't pretty. Played for laughs, a private investigator tracks down a radical feminist group looking to make a violent statement. Due to whatever breakdown of society, gangs rule most territories, very little is off-limits for sale or trade, and everyone uses derogatory, racist, and insulting slang. I got the sense that it was all done tongue-in-cheek (i.e. I don't think the author was racist or a misogynist), but it is still jarring to read today. A very simple detective story used to justify exploring this alternative world.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ron Goulart writes absurdist satire and lampoons everything from detective stories to spy novels to science fiction and romance novels. You read his books when you want some mind-candy to laugh at because you're burned out from much more serious reading.

He's always good for a laugh and taking things beyond their logical conclusion. One of the best!

In this book the one thing I got the most laughs out of were the former rock stars in The Nixon Institute who reminisce about the days "when they had hair."

[Spectral.Crescent · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m not sure if it’s that I just don’t know my history and pop culture from late 60s California, but I hated this book.

If it wasn’t spouting racial slurs, it was degrading gay people or objectifying women. So needless to say this book has not aged well…

And to make things even worse, the story was uninteresting and rather poorly written.

It was allegedly some kind of satire, but very little of that was apparent outside of some ridiculous circumstances and characters.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute beach read. Funny to see the difference in life and ideas between the late 1960s and now. The swearing in this book sounds like something Ned Flanders would say. The computers are like an beefed up Alexa...
Fun action movie like story for the rest of it.

[Christopher Heckman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few funny situations, but it wanders.

I have an old copy, and coincidentally, it fell apart while I read it.

[Raf Verbeke · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wat een kutboek wow
Natte self-insert droom van een incel zo'n beetje

[Kris]

No idea how this ended up on my reading list but I'm not feeling it at all.

[Two Envelopes And A Phone · Rating 1 out of 5]

A terrible reading experience. It’s amazing to think this book won an award, and got an appreciative blurb from Joanna Russ of all people, author of The Female Man.

The author hands out women to most of the male characters, so that everyone can have sex any time. The racist and sexist slurs seem like they came out of a jar for sprinkling, and the lid came off. A dystopia with some potential dies slowly, through chapter after chapter of the problems I mentioned already, spit-glued to repetitive skirmishes with sort-of characters, minus any suspense. I guess, on that note, I should think of the blurbs that suggested this is some kind of satire. If this was satire, it is now something that would be satirized. Probably has been. This book gave me the double shivers - is it now time to back off completely from 1970s Edgar Award Winners (that’s a Crime novel award, and I have had a few gross encounters), but also any 1970s SF that conspicuously disappeared not long after it got published.

I have been reading a lot of Radium Age Science Fiction - 1904-1933 - plus a bit earlier and later, and it’s actually my opinion right now that the situation isn’t quite as bad in that era, in terms of women characters, than what came later. I mean, there are problems…but when the women are right in the thick of things along with the men - discovering a dinosaur realm; on Mars or Venus where the air is breathable but the indigents are hostile; dealing with plague and pandemic - the women often arm themselves and join the fray, take men to task for chauvinistic comments, and sometimes even get free of bonds before the guy shows up to save them. Even some ladies rescuing men. I’m not saying every SF book from the 1920s has offered this up - but when the content gets objectionable in SF from 1880-1930something, it has more to do with damsel in distress tropes, and “go make coffee, woman I worship and would die for” stuff. But, at least in the earlier era of proto-Sf and “Scientific Romance”, it’s not about misogyny, it’s not about “five women are dying for sex with this total jerk”, it’s not “slut and Madonna” options only, it’s not “uppity women and their silly feminism notions need to be taken down a peg”…and it’s not about casual violence shown as normal and acceptable.

Ron Goulart, and his publishers, were a drop in the bucket, I know - but attaching these observations to this particular 1970 novel, an award winner with a Joanna Russ blurb attached to it (I’m still wrestling with that), seems like the right thing to do.

[Jim Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Things Fell Apart is set in a future America (future at the time of its writing, but now a few decades past), when America has fragmented. Northern California is now a jumble of strange communities, living with different lifestyles and different sets of laws. A group of women led by someone calling herself Lady Day is assassinating prominent men.

Sound like a grim dystopia? It's not. While the plot involves a PI looking for Lady Day, it's really an at times humorous, always entertaining trek across the fragments of Northern California. It's full of clever touches and some amusing, some bizarre, characters.

Note that some aspects, particularly the homophobia expressed by several of the characters, dates the book and my put some readers off. But taking into account it's of its time, I mostly ignored that and enjoyed the ride.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent read, but too much satire for me. I liked some of the vignettes from dystopoian California, but the story had too much satire for me, and not enough meat on the bone dystopia. A quick read, too.

[Otto]

A fragmented America of the future. A melancholy adventure story with skillfully deployed humor. Not quite thought provoking, but enjoyable enough.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ron Goulart is a prolific pulp writer. The 28 books that I've read by him so far can be described in similar terms. See my review of "Wildsmith".

[T. Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat amusing satire on a fractured California divided into tiny fiefdoms. The more California you know, the funnier it probably is.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Utterly forgettable.