Radio Ga Ga: A Mixtape for the End of Humanity

by Stefani Bulsara

Come follow a mysterious, glitchy narrator who races through the universe, tasked with warning any sentient species about humanity’s cautionary fail. Our narrator attempts to answer humanity’s greatest philosophical questions to create a history of what led to their extinction. But our narrator can never surpass our radio waves, those careless whispers Earth has leaked into the universe, tickling any alien listeners with the absurdity of humanity. (♪ Saxophone Solo ♪)

Who did let the dogs out? What does the fox say?

Is Disney really liable for large-scale child exploitation & abuse in its pop star puppy mills?

Can Tone Def Records create an automated pop star & trick the masses?

What happens when AI takes over humanity’s emotional language & manipulates them with it?

Can the Wondaland hackers hijack pop culture to drive attention to their impending extinction?

Will a spoonful of sugary pop music help this meditation on our existential threats go down?

Confused?

You won't be after you read this Gitchie, Gitchie, Ya-Ya Dadaist, tour de farce masterpiece!

Genres: Science Fiction

500 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

I am the bags of fat burned off during liposuction. I am the clumps of hair that fall out when bleached and straightened with chemicals. I am the excess cartilage ripped out during nose jobs. I am the puss-filled infections that grow around butt injections. I am the raw nerves that are scraped by veneers. I am the gnarled toes and bunions brought on by years of wearing high-heels. When you see a meteor shoot across the sky, I am the chunks of rock that plummet to earth.

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the outskirts of my mind
She beckons to me
She defies space and time
When she reckons with me

She's shining a light brighter than a million suns
I can't sleep tonight knowing she's the only one
—from "Baby Goes to 11," by Superdrag

Okay. First off, you've got to just ignore any rumors you may have heard about Stefani Bulsara being the illegitimate love-child of Gwen Stefani from No Doubt and Queen's Farrokh "Freddie Mercury" Bulsara. That's simply unpossible. However, it is true that very little information is openly available about the mysterious individual who assembled Radio Ga Ga: A Mixtape for the End of Humanity. The author's name is (almost certainly) a pseudonym; the biography which appears both online and near the end of this novel is singularly uninformative; and that snapshot is... questionable, at best.

In the absence of any verified provenance, we are thrown back to the text itself, forced to analyze it on its own, a glittering artifact beamed back from beyond the extinction of humanity.

I don't think Bulsara is really Norman Spinrad, for example, but Radio Ga Ga's style feels a lot like, say, Spinrad's Little Heroes and The Void Captain's Tale all mashed together. This is at best a mixed compliment, but if you liked those books then this one might push on a few of the same buttons.

I did like a lot about Radio Ga Ga. Bulsara cheerfully appropriates any number of celebrities' names and likenesses, to delightfully scurrilous effect, and quotes or at least mentions hundreds of song lyrics, often out of context (something I like to do too), which makes spot-the-reference a fun game. Along the way, Bulsara sticks it to some rich(ly-deserving) icons, including the Mouse that everyone is (one way or another) Mad About. I also noticed and enjoyed some clever coinages, like "edutage" and "remedial luxury colleges" (from pp. 246-247).

Unfortunately, the book itself is... kinda terrible—a hot mess, chaotic and choppy and uneven in tone (yes, even more so than this review!), and badly copy-edited to boot, with numerous homophone errors, like "in the throws" (instead of "throes"); "sewed the seeds" (instead of "sowed"); and "arm waddles" (rather than "wattles"). But Radio Ga Ga's greatest flaw is that it's mercilessly, unrelentingly didactic. Bulsara must have had trouble lifting those heavy, heavy hands up to the keyboard at all sometimes. Which is a shame—I really wanted to like this book more, both for trivial reasons (I have Queen's LP The Works, the one that leads off with "Radio Ga Ga," in my record cabinet right now) and more serious ones (because after all Bulsara's not wrong, about capitalism, classism, racism, sexism and other such -isms; about predatory automation; about our willing addictions to screens and the celebrities who appear on them; about climate change; about the stupidity of building walls on a ball; even about ancient diseases rising up from melting permafrost—these are all things we should be worrying about)!

But with friends like these... well, if Emperor Nero gets reviled for fiddling while Rome burned—what do you do with the SF writer who stood by and slow-clapped during Nero's performance?


Back in 1985, the late Neil Postman wrote a serious book called Amusing Ourselves to Death, whose main thesis, as I recall (and pace Marshall McLuhan) was that the medium both limits and shapes the message. Postman was talking about plain old-fashioned broadcast TV, mostly, and how the form itself made the news dumber, but his title seems ever more apt these days.

Bulsara isn't Postman in disguise, either, but this cautionary tale could be Postman's fictional counterpart... because in Radio Ga Ga, the most significant threat to humanity—worse than anything above—the weakness that makes us the weakest, is our seemingly hardwired vulnerability to superstimulus. For that's what Cyndi Mayweather is, when you get right down to it—a carefully engineered and recursively optimized Pied Piper whose tunes we can't possibly resist following, our very own baby who goes to 11.

So...

While I can't be as enthusiastic as I'd like to be about Radio Ga Ga (and a quick scan of other reviews shows that I'm in the minority, anyway, so don't worry about that), this mixtape does have a lot to say—and a lot of it even rhymes. And if you can overlook the book's many flaws, you may even find yourself singing along with Stefani Bulsara.

[Alanaherro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic plot lines with several new twists on a dystopian future. Loved the fun pop-culture references that made all the complex ideas more approachable. A great read for anyone who wants a fun read with intellectual oomph - really makes you think!

[Pothik Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a really special work of art. Stefani Bulsara makes you gasp with her original, breathtaking, provocative and deeply humane take on our current world and where we are heading (spoiler: it's not looking good for us, fellow humans). This book will make you look at our world of technology, automation, climate change, social tension and pop culture with fresh new eyes. She has a sharp sense of humor combined with a brilliant, almost encyclopedic knowledge and deep wisdom.

I found it truly impressive how Bulsara went from making me laugh out loud with pop diva references (Britney, Beyonce, the Disney pop star machine) and amusing and unexpected connections between cultural and socio-political chapters in recent US history, to making me cry with the tragedy of the Bangladeshi textile factories that collapsed, killing thousands of Bengali textile workers. Her characters feel real and well developed - she is a deeply compassionate and humanitarian writer.

Bulsara's work is a sweeping and staggering epic that marries together many seemingly disparate themes (immigration, xenophobia, income inequality, global warming, elitism, artificial intelligence, globalization) into a gripping narrative that carries you through the book with an alarming urgency and plea to pay attention. It is hard to put the book down - a wholly original and moving work.

Bulsara's eye is sharp and she clearly isn't afraid to show the human race's many flaws and the (self-created) risks that our civilization may soon encounter. There is a of darkness and pain to grapple with. However, the conclusion provides a glimpse of hope and light. The last chapter in particular was like poetry. Bulsara's writing felt like a deep and contemplative meditation. She somehow captured how I feel during meditation and shavasana after yoga class - reflective, peaceful and waves of wisdom...wow! So beautiful about how we as human beings contain multitudes and universes within us and infinite love and kindness.

If you enjoy reading about our human race (from prehistory to modern day and a near dystopia), philosophy, culture, gender, politics and socio-economic theory, with plenty of humor and sass, and a deep heart underneath it all - you must add this book to your 2019 reading list.

[Marla M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, lyrical, and dazzling…Radio Gaga is a journey through a dystopian world that outlines a critical perspective of the current state of humanity, and how society’s willful ignorance of the forces that threaten its existence lead to the end of the human race.

What makes this work of art truly unique is Bulsara’s execution of the narrative, which is rich with historical facts and science, yet employs pop culture, pop music, and science fiction to make the reading quirky, light and entertaining. Radio Gaga is full of vibrant characters and is as highly educational as it is fun. Accessible to a wide variety of readers, it is a deeply contemplating call to action, with the hope of avoiding a nihilistic future that is as absurd as it is frightening.

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Radio GaGa explores some expected topics in new, emotionally, and intellectually complicated ways. It may also inspire you to reflect on life choices and societal norms you take for granted. A perfect fusion of substantive and playful. When it's derivative, it's well placed and brings the levity that makes this book such a page-turner.

Most unique for this genre: you'll find no veiled religious dogma in Stefani's story. If you read D Listed, watch Ru Paul's Drag Race, or swoon for Neil Degrasse Tyson interviews, you will enjoy this book.

[Travis Kriplean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I'm a friend of the author, and that definitely colors my review. Mainly because this book is like premium distilled essence of the author, a pop-culture apocalyptic sci-fi romp engaging themes of human cultural history and evolution, climate change, celebrity, and automation.

There are amazingly rich, textured, often hilarious scenes throughout the book. Stefani weaves a slapstick melancholy that resonates with me in these uncertain times of political and ecological turmoil. I don't think I've ever read a book so rich with the ridiculous juxtapositions that being human at this moment in time presents to us. The overall effect reminded me of Vonnegut without being derivative.

There were a couple plot holes, a doldrums 25%-50% through the book, and, as another reviewer discusses, plenty of editing that could be done, yet I still found this to 5-star worthy.

[Joel Gilbert]

My favorite read during pandemic - coincidentally, it is about a pandemic that went a LOT worse than COVID. The characters are wonderful, the story flows beautiful among several disparate settings (that eventually come together). Language is a bit naughty, and some of the humor a bit too scatological for my preference - but don't let that deter you from this brilliant satirical extrapolation of our crazy world.