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Psittacide
The 2172 election is soon approaching. The incumbent, authoritarian President Silas Blackwolf, has had his vice president arrested in order to prevent her from invoking the 25th amendment and removing him from office. Now with the election coming up, he has to choose a running mate. His conspiring cabinet steers him toward selecting moderate Senator and former presidential grandson Jim Liu. Through Byzantine constitutional logic, the only way Jim can defeat Blackwolf is by helping him win the race.
The plan gets more complicated when a deadly plague begins to spread among the nation's genetically enhanced, super-intelligent parrots. The only cure is a plant that grows on Centos Island, which currently lies in the middle of an international war zone. Jim finds himself increasingly compromised, as he makes one ethical concession after another in his struggle to protect the country from Blackwolf.
The plan gets more complicated when a deadly plague begins to spread among the nation's genetically enhanced, super-intelligent parrots. The only cure is a plant that grows on Centos Island, which currently lies in the middle of an international war zone. Jim finds himself increasingly compromised, as he makes one ethical concession after another in his struggle to protect the country from Blackwolf.
403 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 10, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 22, 2024
With most of the worldbuilding already set in the first book, the sequel feels more focused. Eight years have passed and Jim has found success—first as a TV host, then as a Senator. He has two girlfriends (one on each coast), he lives in a bubble, and he owns a genetically modified parrot. Everything is great until he’s asked to be vice president.
Like the first book, this one follows a presidential campaign—only this time it’s the general election instead of the primaries, and there’s no Empathy Party. Jim’s a Dem, and the loudest dissenter within his party against the incumbent president, Silas Blackwolf (who’s a turd). Jim knows he’s being set up by the Blackwolf campaign somehow, but also he thinks he can outmaneuver them, and what follows is a compelling political thriller with a tragic parrot subplot, a fun Centolese storyline, and a desert vision quest. Five stars.
Like the first book, this one follows a presidential campaign—only this time it’s the general election instead of the primaries, and there’s no Empathy Party. Jim’s a Dem, and the loudest dissenter within his party against the incumbent president, Silas Blackwolf (who’s a turd). Jim knows he’s being set up by the Blackwolf campaign somehow, but also he thinks he can outmaneuver them, and what follows is a compelling political thriller with a tragic parrot subplot, a fun Centolese storyline, and a desert vision quest. Five stars.
October 25, 2024
Psittacide is set 150 years in the future, when former stand-up comedian Jim Liu navigates the world of American politics in which authenticity and any real values or integrity are forgotten relics of the past. And if you think that sounds pretty much like 2024, with all potential leaders resorting to blatant lying and any desperate tricks they can to discredit the opposition, you wait until you meet Silas Blackwolf and Oliver O'Shea.
The shifting of political stances means that the Democrats have become conservatives and the Republicans the liberals, which made me think of the main UK parties, whose lines have blurring for many years now; who knows what their agenda(s) will be in 2172?
In the future world between these pages, most of the bad stuff predicted by the cynics/realists of the current day has happened - drug dependency and sex clubs are the norms (Jim and his girlfriend keep a sex robot under the bed), the attention span of the masses has shortened to the extent that a writer of Blankpage books can win a prize for literature - Karl's process is to think up a concept, brief outline and title, let his terminal design a cover, and publish. That's it. 'Other than the summary of the plot on the back cover and by Karl on the front, all pages would be blank'. Fake has become real: actors don't need to be present to act in films, politicians don't have to attend vote-winning activities, whole civilisations can be artificially created for the screen - anything can be rendered to look as if it actually happened. Populations live in virtual reality without knowing it.
Sometimes it seems as though this novel is a comment on/lampoon of events and people in the present world, other times just the product of Mr Haradon's entertaining thought processes. The title refers to the strange diseases affecting parrots everywhere. Those genetically modified parrots, that is, who play such an important part in the new world. I loved the observations of one character who predicts the worrying rise of the parrots, now that racism is a thing of the past (as everyone is, in 2172, a mixture of ethnicities).
I liked it more than the first book in the series, which I found a bit scattered. I look forward to Book 3, Bubblequake - which refers to the bigger inside than outside residences (like the Tardis): the bubbles.
It's great - and may make you glad you were born in the 20th century.
The shifting of political stances means that the Democrats have become conservatives and the Republicans the liberals, which made me think of the main UK parties, whose lines have blurring for many years now; who knows what their agenda(s) will be in 2172?
In the future world between these pages, most of the bad stuff predicted by the cynics/realists of the current day has happened - drug dependency and sex clubs are the norms (Jim and his girlfriend keep a sex robot under the bed), the attention span of the masses has shortened to the extent that a writer of Blankpage books can win a prize for literature - Karl's process is to think up a concept, brief outline and title, let his terminal design a cover, and publish. That's it. 'Other than the summary of the plot on the back cover and by Karl on the front, all pages would be blank'. Fake has become real: actors don't need to be present to act in films, politicians don't have to attend vote-winning activities, whole civilisations can be artificially created for the screen - anything can be rendered to look as if it actually happened. Populations live in virtual reality without knowing it.
Sometimes it seems as though this novel is a comment on/lampoon of events and people in the present world, other times just the product of Mr Haradon's entertaining thought processes. The title refers to the strange diseases affecting parrots everywhere. Those genetically modified parrots, that is, who play such an important part in the new world. I loved the observations of one character who predicts the worrying rise of the parrots, now that racism is a thing of the past (as everyone is, in 2172, a mixture of ethnicities).
I liked it more than the first book in the series, which I found a bit scattered. I look forward to Book 3, Bubblequake - which refers to the bigger inside than outside residences (like the Tardis): the bubbles.
It's great - and may make you glad you were born in the 20th century.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews