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Rules of Order
Rules of Order tells the story of Harvey Crowe, a community activist, who lives in what could be the last remaining high-rise building in a wrecked city. Cracks in the ground-floor apartments are appearing exponentially. The building’s structural strength can’t possibly hold the load it bears. Crowe works to inform tenants on the upper floors that the weight of their possessions could bring the entire building down. Working with the Anti-Collapse Trust, Crowe encounters obstacles to his message, including indifferent tenants, his self-doubt, hostile security guards, and a co-op board headed by the corrupt Chairman Burke. Even as Crowe makes meaningful alliances with other influential tenants, he can feel the way they are working against a ticking clock. With time running out, Crowe and his militant colleague Dagmar carry out a desperate plan to save what might be the city’s last habitable space.
“Vande Zande creates a world that is tangible, bizarre, and too close for comfort. With a rich, clear voice, he leads us through a place that is at once a home and a constant source of conflict, showing us the different ways its inhabitants contribute to its destruction. Rules of Order is a haunting metaphor for our current times, where we are perched precariously on the precipice of complete devastation.”
— Jesi Bender, author of Dangerous Women and Kinderkrankenhaus
In this excellent novel of speculative fiction, Jeff Vande Zande reveals a clarity and depth of understanding of our current world and the world to come that one seldom sees but always seeks. He writes with grace and brilliance and a sense of dark humor that suggests he has the gift that Don Delillo and J G Ballard and all of the great writers of speculative fiction have.
— John Guzlowski, author of Echoes of Tattered Tongues and the winner of the Eric Hoffer/Montaigne Award
Rules of Order is a fresh and welcome take on the dystopian novel. Within one story, one building, Vande Zande manages to go beyond what is expected, bringing together elements of mystery, romance, action, environmental awareness, and political intrigue, all told with a clean and effortless prose that keeps the pages turning. This book is a call to action, with a protagonist worth cheering for, and readers who want to be shook from their slumber would be well advised to take the ride.
— Pete Stevens, author of Tomorrow Music
“Vande Zande creates a world that is tangible, bizarre, and too close for comfort. With a rich, clear voice, he leads us through a place that is at once a home and a constant source of conflict, showing us the different ways its inhabitants contribute to its destruction. Rules of Order is a haunting metaphor for our current times, where we are perched precariously on the precipice of complete devastation.”
— Jesi Bender, author of Dangerous Women and Kinderkrankenhaus
In this excellent novel of speculative fiction, Jeff Vande Zande reveals a clarity and depth of understanding of our current world and the world to come that one seldom sees but always seeks. He writes with grace and brilliance and a sense of dark humor that suggests he has the gift that Don Delillo and J G Ballard and all of the great writers of speculative fiction have.
— John Guzlowski, author of Echoes of Tattered Tongues and the winner of the Eric Hoffer/Montaigne Award
Rules of Order is a fresh and welcome take on the dystopian novel. Within one story, one building, Vande Zande manages to go beyond what is expected, bringing together elements of mystery, romance, action, environmental awareness, and political intrigue, all told with a clean and effortless prose that keeps the pages turning. This book is a call to action, with a protagonist worth cheering for, and readers who want to be shook from their slumber would be well advised to take the ride.
— Pete Stevens, author of Tomorrow Music
204 pages, Paperback
Published August 16, 2022
6 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Vande Zande
18 books16 followersJeff Vande Zande teaches fiction and screenwriting at Delta College. His books include the novel Into the Desperate Country (March Street Press), the novel Landscape with Fragmented Figures (Bottom Dog Press) and Threatened Species and Other Stories (Whistling Shade Press). His novel American Poet won a Michigan Notable Book Award from the Library of Michigan. In May of 2016, Whistling Shade Press released his most recent novel, Detroit Muscle, which was influenced by Vande Zande’s screenwriting knowledge. He maintains a website at authorjeffvandezande.blogspot.com.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 19, 2024
It was a fun summer read!
September 19, 2022
A nightmare reality sculpted with great skill – and it is possible….
Michigan Jeff Vande Zande is an instructor in English at Delta College and is an astonishingly fine writer. He writes screenplays – B.F.A., SPECIAL DELIVERY, CELLAR DWELLERS, poetry – TRANSIENT and THE BRIDGE, novels INTO THE DESPERATE COUNTRY, LANDSCAPE WITH FRAGMENTED FIGURES, PARABLE OF WEEDS, and AMERICAN POET – and short stories - EMERGENCY STOPPING & OTHER STORIES, THREATENED SPECIES AND OTHER STORIES, THE NEIGHBORHOOD DIVISION: STORIES – and now RULES OF ORDER. He is equally gifted in all four genres.
Vande Zande tackles a subject immediately in the news and all media – environmental fragility - and focuses on an aspect we are all growing to see: inadequate attempts to correct flawed structures. He gets right to the point as he opens this engrossing novel – ‘Harvey Crowe blinked his eyes open into the dim light of his bedroom. More often than not, it was nightmares that woke him lately – prophetic hallucinations of the impending collapse. Black and white visions from his subconscious haunted his deepest sleep. They were images he fought to keep at bay during his waking hours. If he didn’t, they could leave him nearly paralyzed for hours. In the dreams, the towering building he lived in – they all lived in – stood momentarily but then, as if pressed from above by a giant, invisible hand, it began to disintegrate.’ Or as the plot outline offers, ‘Harvey Crowe is a community activist who lives in what could be the last remaining high-rise building in a wrecked city. Cracks in the ground-floor apartments are appearing exponentially. The building’s structural strength can’t possibly hold the load it bears. Crowe works to inform tenants on the upper floors that the weight of their possessions could bring the entire building down. Working with the Anti-Collapse Trust, Crowe encounters obstacles to his message, including indifferent tenants, his self-doubt, hostile security guards, and a co-op board headed by the corrupt Chairman Burke. Even as Crowe makes meaningful alliances with other influential tenants, he can feel the way they are working against a ticking clock. With time running out, Crowe and his militant colleague Dagmar carry out a desperate plan to save what might be the city’s last habitable space.’
Having said it before in reviews of his other books, this reader maintains that again Jeff Vande Zande's place among the great writers of today - and yesterday - is secure. This story is so poignant and powerful that it pleads transition to cinematic form – and who better to create that than this gifted author! Very highly recommended
Michigan Jeff Vande Zande is an instructor in English at Delta College and is an astonishingly fine writer. He writes screenplays – B.F.A., SPECIAL DELIVERY, CELLAR DWELLERS, poetry – TRANSIENT and THE BRIDGE, novels INTO THE DESPERATE COUNTRY, LANDSCAPE WITH FRAGMENTED FIGURES, PARABLE OF WEEDS, and AMERICAN POET – and short stories - EMERGENCY STOPPING & OTHER STORIES, THREATENED SPECIES AND OTHER STORIES, THE NEIGHBORHOOD DIVISION: STORIES – and now RULES OF ORDER. He is equally gifted in all four genres.
Vande Zande tackles a subject immediately in the news and all media – environmental fragility - and focuses on an aspect we are all growing to see: inadequate attempts to correct flawed structures. He gets right to the point as he opens this engrossing novel – ‘Harvey Crowe blinked his eyes open into the dim light of his bedroom. More often than not, it was nightmares that woke him lately – prophetic hallucinations of the impending collapse. Black and white visions from his subconscious haunted his deepest sleep. They were images he fought to keep at bay during his waking hours. If he didn’t, they could leave him nearly paralyzed for hours. In the dreams, the towering building he lived in – they all lived in – stood momentarily but then, as if pressed from above by a giant, invisible hand, it began to disintegrate.’ Or as the plot outline offers, ‘Harvey Crowe is a community activist who lives in what could be the last remaining high-rise building in a wrecked city. Cracks in the ground-floor apartments are appearing exponentially. The building’s structural strength can’t possibly hold the load it bears. Crowe works to inform tenants on the upper floors that the weight of their possessions could bring the entire building down. Working with the Anti-Collapse Trust, Crowe encounters obstacles to his message, including indifferent tenants, his self-doubt, hostile security guards, and a co-op board headed by the corrupt Chairman Burke. Even as Crowe makes meaningful alliances with other influential tenants, he can feel the way they are working against a ticking clock. With time running out, Crowe and his militant colleague Dagmar carry out a desperate plan to save what might be the city’s last habitable space.’
Having said it before in reviews of his other books, this reader maintains that again Jeff Vande Zande's place among the great writers of today - and yesterday - is secure. This story is so poignant and powerful that it pleads transition to cinematic form – and who better to create that than this gifted author! Very highly recommended
October 5, 2022
Brilliantly written, hauntingly atmospheric, and highly entertaining: this is top-notch dystopian fiction that is both reverential of the classics and also fresh and inventive.
Rules of Order is the near-future story of Harvey Crowe, a man who lives within a massive life-sustaining high-rise that, through generations of gross incompetence and exploitative greed, has been pushed well beyond its limits. Outside the tower is an uninhabitable wasteland where nobody can survive. But inside is a toxic class system that has allowed the wealthy elite to lord over the desperately poor. A complete structural collapse is inevitable, but getting both the rich and poor to believe in the severity of the looming danger, let alone agree on solutions, is proving impossible.
Crowe is a member of a group of activists desperate to do something to save the building, but as their peaceful efforts to educate and inform the public are met with cold, arrogant indifference, a more militant faction threatens outright violence in the face of the impending collapse. Crowe finds himself the only one who can bridge the literal fissures tearing the building apart. On the one hand, he can influence the group’s de facto leader, keeping her level-headed and calm. And on the other, he has the ability to convince a handful of wealthy socialites on the upper floors to become allies of their cause. But with the building set to fall at any moment, can he find the inner conviction to pull things together before it’s too late?
If you couldn’t guess, this is an allegory about climate change. And Vande Zande absolutely nails it. I’ve been a fan of this author for a while now, and I especially enjoyed Parable of Weeds, his previous foray into dystopian fiction (which I highly recommend reading as well.)
A self-contained setting like this is a classic trope of the genre — we’ve seen it before in J. G. Ballard’s High-Rise and most recently in Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer. But it’s cool to see Vande Zande craft such a perfect stage to play out this story; it’s the ideal pressure cooker to explore these themes and highlight just how interconnected our society really is, whether we want to accept that or not.
So all in all, you should absolutely check this out. It’s a fast read, full of vivid descriptions, memorable characters, rich dialogue, and strong world-building.
Rules of Order is the near-future story of Harvey Crowe, a man who lives within a massive life-sustaining high-rise that, through generations of gross incompetence and exploitative greed, has been pushed well beyond its limits. Outside the tower is an uninhabitable wasteland where nobody can survive. But inside is a toxic class system that has allowed the wealthy elite to lord over the desperately poor. A complete structural collapse is inevitable, but getting both the rich and poor to believe in the severity of the looming danger, let alone agree on solutions, is proving impossible.
Crowe is a member of a group of activists desperate to do something to save the building, but as their peaceful efforts to educate and inform the public are met with cold, arrogant indifference, a more militant faction threatens outright violence in the face of the impending collapse. Crowe finds himself the only one who can bridge the literal fissures tearing the building apart. On the one hand, he can influence the group’s de facto leader, keeping her level-headed and calm. And on the other, he has the ability to convince a handful of wealthy socialites on the upper floors to become allies of their cause. But with the building set to fall at any moment, can he find the inner conviction to pull things together before it’s too late?
If you couldn’t guess, this is an allegory about climate change. And Vande Zande absolutely nails it. I’ve been a fan of this author for a while now, and I especially enjoyed Parable of Weeds, his previous foray into dystopian fiction (which I highly recommend reading as well.)
A self-contained setting like this is a classic trope of the genre — we’ve seen it before in J. G. Ballard’s High-Rise and most recently in Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer. But it’s cool to see Vande Zande craft such a perfect stage to play out this story; it’s the ideal pressure cooker to explore these themes and highlight just how interconnected our society really is, whether we want to accept that or not.
So all in all, you should absolutely check this out. It’s a fast read, full of vivid descriptions, memorable characters, rich dialogue, and strong world-building.
September 26, 2022
I knew before starting to read “Rules of Order” that the book was based on a short story from Jeff Vande Zande’s collection “The Neighborhood Division”. At the time, the story had struck me as complex and ambitious. Here, the characters, in particular the main protagonist Harvey, and the rich plot themes get room to expand. If anything, the book could even be a little longer! The fate of the skyscraper at the center of the narrative and the fate of its residents are relentlessly gripping. Will the building collapse under its sinful weight, will Harvey and his allies manage to save it, will the greedy and irresponsible Board members running the place be punished? This is a dystopian tale and a fable. J.G. Ballard’s “High-Rise” isn’t far away, maybe just over the horizon. As is Hugh Howley’s silo in “Wool” where the outside world is similarly unknown and feared. John D. MacDonald’s “Condominium”, in a different genre, also comes to mind. Cracks abound and not only in the walls. Vande Zande has a fine ear for satire, and I suspect, personal experience with dictatorial property managers. A bracing read!
February 25, 2023
This is exactly the kind of book I love: a great story on top of allegory and deeper meaning. In this case the world is compressed into a skyscraper, and the attendant stratification of society is visually manifested. Even though I’m pretty sure the author’s politics are quite different than mine, I appreciated that you could read a variety of societal ills into the allegory. That is, it could be about climate change, or just as easily about the secularization of the west. The characters were a lot of fun, particularly the MC, who had a tragic demeanor but also an almost comic “Candide” aura. I have a few minor quibbles but they’re not worth mentioning. A fast read, and well worth the time.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews