peteg's blog - noise - books - 2017 01 23 AdamJohnson Emporium

Adam Johnson: Emporium.

/noise/books | Link

Kindle. I was in the mood for some shorts, even sci-fi shorts, and figured Johnson is a safe pair of hands. Well, the style is a precursor to his later novel, but these are not as good. There are some very funny descriptions and dialogue. The Canadanaut takes some cheap shots at Canada, has a lot of fun crazy particle physics and sends Wolverine (?) to the dark side of the moon. The opening Teen Sniper made me think I was in for a Charles Yu tale but rougher, and I was a bit disappointed it didn't go that way. There's a lot of isolation and brokenness, and overall you can kind-of see why people voted Trump but not why they stay together or want to continue.

Michiko Kakutani, at the time.