Scrap

by Nicholas Mennuti, Howard Chaykin (Illustrator), Don Cameron (Illustrator)

When the mundane becomes mindbending… A visionary new SF novella from acclaimed author Nick Mennuti and legendary artist Howard Chaykin.Do you ever feel adrift, that your life lacks purpose and meaning? Do you ever feel unfulfilled at work, questioning how you've spent years at a job that was supposed to be a short-term solution?Do you ever feel that the social boundaries of your existence are shrinking, that you live through a series of interactions with aps and media?Do you ever worry that you've become completely irrelevant?You're not alone. And if you raised your hand to any of the above, you might be in danger. Don't think so?Meet Travis Schrader. He works a night job at a data center housing the most secret and sensitive information on the planet. Which might sound exciting on the surface. But in practice, Travis is just a glorified midnight watchman with an advanced degree in engineering plodding along on a temporary contract for fifteen dollars an hour. In short, Travis isn't exactly changing the world.But who knew that aimlessly wandering through life meant you can be purchased by the highest bidder in the year 2431?Travis is about to find out, when he's whisked from the data center to the future, where he is now the property of the world's most powerful corporation, and forced to do their bidding with no questions asked. Informed that he's unwittingly stepped outside of the core progression of the space time continuum just enough that his life can be manipulated without initiating a butterfly effect, Travis has been 'conscripted' as their literal property, sold like corporate scrap, and sent out on dangerous missions to protect the interests of an elite super-class warring for the few remaining unplundered spoils.If Travis has any hope of surviving, he must realize that playing it safe in the future is no longer an option, if he wants to stay alive in the present.About the AuthorNICHOLAS MENNUTI is the writer of the espionage thriller Weaponized (Mulholland Books/Little Brown), which had film rights purchased by Universal Pictures and Scott Stuber. Nicholas's short stories have appeared in AGNI and Conjunctions, and he has written about the intersection of technology and entertainment for the Huffington Post. He is also a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing program.About the IllustratorHOWARD VICTOR CHAYKIN is a longtime veteran of the comic book business. As a cartoonist—both writing and drawing—he has been a major influence on the direction of comics, referred to frequently as one of the primary architects of the modern comic book. His signature creation, AMERICAN FLAGG! introduced a new level of narrative complexity, depth of character, and point of view in its text, not to mention a previously unseen level of design and craft to the visual nature of an all too frequently staid and timid medium.Chaykin’s THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA enraged an entire new generation of the willfully ignorant who might have had a better case if they’d actually read the damned book.The second arc of HEY KIDS! COMICS!, a fictionalized history of the comic book business, a love letter written with just a frisson of acid in the ink to the field he’s called home for five decades is available now.Don’t miss it, if you can!

100 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 12, 2021

About the author

Author of "Weaponized" from Mulholland Books (a Little, Brown imprint).

Reviews

[Eamonn Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rather unheroic hero of this Science Fiction novella is Travis Schrader, a security guard with a degree in electronics which means he gets $15 an hour instead of $12 for his night shifts at the Gulch Group Data Centre, Jefferson County, Kansas in the year 2023. We join him on his journey to work as he ponders his life, big data and what might have been.
Travis has little contact with anyone else. His girlfriend left him. His best friend since age ten is Billy, a car-scrapper, but he doesn’t see him much. He works his night shifts half-drunk so that he can be alert in the day for his on-line fun, gaming, chatting and so on. In truth, hardly anyone would miss him if he vanished and that’s why he does.

An agent from ‘the Formalised Federation of the most honourable George Herbert Huxley-Wells’ kidnaps Travis, knocking him out. He wakes strapped to a table in the year 2431 where a nice doctor tells him about the future and his mission. Later, someone kindly explains to him that he can be plucked from time because he is so utterly insignificant that it won’t make any difference to history or anything. In between, he has an exciting adventure that I won’t reveal.

The science part of this Science Fiction novella is an extrapolation from present day social, economic and technological trends, including quantum computing, so it’s thoroughly up to date in that sense. On the other hand, after a slow start getting to know Travis, it read like a 1950s SF adventure novel, so I liked it. I didn’t like the fact that it’s clearly part one of an on-going story and not complete in itself but that’s publishing today. The series rules.

Part of the lure for me was illustrations by Howard Chaykin. However, much as I like Chaykin’s earlier comicbook work, the digital art pieces that accompany this text didn’t thrill me. They were okay but not a reason to get the book. However, the text provides reason enough. It’s not a five-star classic but it’s a quick, easy read and a solid yarn about an interesting dystopian future. Entertaining