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FKA USA

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"An epically concocted apocalyptic vision of America in all its faded glory." — Kirkus

"...a visionary head-trip of apocalyptic political satire; a kitchen sink quest story that reads like someone's high school RPG session gone full-on Technicolor bonkers." — NPR.org
Reed King's amazingly audacious audiobook is something of a cross between L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, Douglas Adams's A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and Ernest Cline's Ready Player One.
In Reed King's wildly imaginative and possibly prescient debut, the United States has dissolved in the wake of environmental disasters and the catastrophic policies of its final president.
It is 2085, and Truckee Wallace, a factory worker in Crunchtown 407 (formerly Little Rock, Arkansas, before the secessions), has no grand ambitions besides maybe, possibly, losing his virginity someday.
But when Truckee is thrust unexpectedly into the spotlight he is tapped by the President for a sensitive political mission: to deliver a talking goat across the continent. The fate of the world depends upon it.
The problem is—Truckee's not sure it's worth it.
Joined on the road by an android who wants to be human and a former convict lobotomized in Texas, Truckee will navigate an environmentally depleted and lawless continent with devastating—and hilarious—parallels to our own, dodging body pickers and Elvis-worshippers and logo girls, body subbers, and VR addicts.
Elvis-willing, he may even lose his virginity.
FKA USA is the epic audiobook we've all been waiting for about the American end of times, with its unavoidable sense of being on the wrong end of the roller coaster ride. It is a masterwork of ambition, humor, and satire with the power to make us cry, despair, and laugh out loud all at once. It is a tour de force unlike anything else you will listen to this year.

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Dan Bittner and Peter Ganim shepherd listeners through the apocalyptic world Formerly Known As the USA. Bittner narrates as Truckee Wallace, a 16-year-old orphan who finds himself in the middle of an international incident. Ganim chimes in as the future editor of Trukee's memoir. Bittner gets to shout and go wild as Truckee, in addition to voicing a talking goat, an android, and multiple characters from all walks of life. As the voice of reason, Ganim reads footnotes and makes corrections to Truckee's story. While Bittner clearly gets to do the heavy lifting, it is Ganim's deadpan delivery that brings the most laughs to this inventive retelling of THE WIZARD OF OZ. A.R.F. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 1, 2019
      Uneven worldbuilding makes this dull, sprawling postapocalyptic picaresque a bit of a mess; the blend of mayhem and farce never gels. In the 2080s the United States has been replaced by multiple political entities, but King relegates details of how this came to be to appendices, leaving readers to try to patch together scraps from the main text, a journal kept by Truckee Wallace. Truckee is an employee of a processing plant for artificial food in the northeastern region known as Crunch, United. The head of his company assigns Truckee to travel west, accompanied by a talking goat named Barnaby, and stop the inventor of a chip that links frontal lobes with electronic devices from becoming even more powerful. King throws out head-scratching references to a Second Civil War having been caused by the First Lady’s legs, and to Texas and California, which have seceded from the union, forming a political alliance. He also blithely uses mass disasters as fodder for jokes. This dreary slog isn’t worth the effort. Agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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