The Funco File

by Burt Cole

Vintage paperback

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in a used book store for a dollar and bought it because of the funky blacklight-esque cover. I was pleasantly surprised.

It is a satirical fairy tale published in 1970, and it has held up well. The book doesn't get bogged down in the sensibility of its time, but maintains an aloof attitude towards both idealism and nihilism. It is a bit "meta," but somehow never really breaks the fourth wall. There is no "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" to the reader from the author, but the characters are allowed to find the truth of their situations on their own.

The characters themselves are somewhat archetypal, but the author does not force the characters to wallow in their archetypiness. We see each character as he or she goes through struggles in the discovery of peculiar talents and through an escape from a society that cannot contain those talents. Some of these struggles are rather brutal, but the overall tone of the narrative maintains a thread of bizarre whimsey that buoys the underlying absurdity of each struggle.

The climactic scene is a little weak, though, and maybe I should knock off a half-star for the arguments made in the court scene. But since this is an obscure book that deserves more recognition than it has. It is a wild and phantasmagoric satire that has held up well, and it brings up many svalid points about the interactions of people with technology. These points are still salient and more important to attend to now than when The Funco Files was written.

[🐴 🍖]

p groovy late 60s x-mennish type yarn about four disparate types being hunted by the gov't, who want to haul them in front of univac's big bro for trial. its failings are what you'd expect from a novel of its time (the stuff about djeela-lal's fictional home country is orientalism.txt; it's treated as a big hoot that the super-soldier proposes raping her to override his being conditioned to kill); the strengths were more surprising, since it's the stuff peripheral to the narrative -- a couple appalachian folk doctors comparing notes on various poultices, an anecdote about the super-soldier and his childhood teddy bear, &c. -- that really shone. sets things up peeeeeerfectly for a sequel at the end. more's the pity that burt apparently never penned one

[Ben Haines]

I like a wacky characters goof em up but it wasn't as satisfying as it might have been.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 psionically talented individuals (a playboy who can call up poltergeists; a stunningly beautiful temple prostitute who performs enthusiastically, while levitating; a middle aged-accountant who writes indelible blue fire in the air with the tip of his nose; and an AWOL soldier, conditioned to kill by reflex action anyone who comes within four feet of him for any reason whatever) attempt an assault on The Machine that controls the lives of a whole nation of people. A Science Fiction Book Club selection.

[Nathan Shumate · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the one hand, the four almost completely separate stories of the four main characters are masterfully told in four different voices. Even though the first time two characters and their narratives overlapped was two-thirds into the book, the separate stories were entrancing.

On the other hand, the end of the book is wrapped around the idea that the situation which pulls the four stories together doesn't matter and didn't need to happen.

[Neven · Rating 4 out of 5]

A trippy, wackadoodle, swing-for-the-fences novel typical of the early 1970s. It has a fun structure where the four protagonists get prolonged chapters of their own, differing in tone, genre, and style; when they meet up in the end to wrap it all up, the book is a little less successful. But it’s still shaggily ambitious and goofy, and I can dig it.