Pendulum Pet

by Bori Praper

Pendulum Pet is a romp through the vicissitudes of a gregarious advanced culture with too much time, information and technology on its hands. Paranoia is placed and misplaced, the devious succeed through manipulations of those who gaze in wonder at the mundane like chimps on acid, or fail when the truly bizarre and unthinkable inadvertently stand in their way.

Civilizations clash, as they will, when Metaore, a transnational mining corporation headed by CEO Budd Dimples, purchases a field behind Boris and Beeba’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Tavern, a cult concert venue and meeting place of an eclectic collection of feckless artists, in order to undertake a remarkable experiment: drilling a geopunctural borehole to heal the Earth. Budd has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and taken a sudden turn toward esoteric wisdom, much encouraged by his healer and sex therapist Ashtara Wolf.

Bogomyr Yadvig, one of the more outré of the regulars, lives in a tent nearby with Rex the tavern hound – his idea of communing with Greek Cynics in preparation for an upcoming performance piece. He has cause to lose sleep and accumulate suspicion that the corporation has nefarious unstated ends in mind, particularly when he has his Roswell moment, if that is indeed what it is.

The corporate endeavour comes to a sudden halt when their drill runs into an impenetrable barrier, leading to mutually unfortunate and potentially combustible discoveries, along with stunning truths about parallel evolution and devolution. Yes, the world of the techno-information age has gone mad and survival may very well depend on the whims of a pendulum pet.

485 pages, Kindle Edition

About the author

Bori Praper is a Slovenian musician, writer and translator. Currently he focuses predominantly on his slightly belated literary efforts (Bori published his first novel in English at the tender age of 36) as well as on Cynicism Management (his alternative rock band); Ray Kosmick (his psychedelic rock / indietronica / soundtracks alter ego); and a few other projects.

Head to Bori's author homepage for more information or main music production site for a complete discography (most of it streamable).

Sign up here if you’d like to be the first to know about Bori’s new book and music releases.

Reviews

[Jan Kozel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hope Borut Praper gets the credit he deserves. I think he learned and improved quite a bit since his debut, which I also liked. I'm so glad I got to read this; it was more of a destiny thing for me, because Borut Praper is such an obscure writer. I see it as a literary version of B - rated movie, cartoon, underground comic or whatever, which shouldn't be ignored by inteligent people (like me, haha).

The classic stuff is awesome, all the Chekhovs and shit, but if you want to get a better sense of the future, you need variety!

[LionAroundWriting · Rating 5 out of 5]

Following on from Cynicism Management 1, I really enjoyed reconnecting with some of the familiar characters as well as the new ones like Budd, the classic all-American CEO of Metaore intent on drilling Slovenia for all its minerals and metals.
The change of direction gives this book a multi-dimensional feel, with elements of fantasy introduced to the series making for a fun reading experience.
If you like your fiction humorous, culturally aware with imagination to boot give it a read.

[Jenny_acc · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not really sure what to say about this book, except for ...thank god it's over. The first 120 pages were so slow that took me more than a week to get through. I would read 20 pages and feel like i had enough. After those 120 pages when things started happening it became interesting. I think this book was about 100 pages to many. I thought it had a lot of filler pages, that didn't have much to do with the story. I wanted to know more about the lizard people, and didn't care for the rock band.

[Cheryl Montgomery-Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I have to say it is the most unusual book I've ever read - and with my diverse tastes that's saying something! It is very inventive, amusing, disturbing and explicit.

[Petite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received from a Librarything book giveaway.

Interesting storyline, loss me at times but figured it out.