In a post-apocalyptic America, a factory worker is tasked with delivering a talking goat across the continent on a mission that could save the world. Joined by an android and a lobotomized ex-convict, they navigate a lawless and environmentally depleted landscape filled with dark humor and satirical commentary.
In "FKA USA", Reed King delivers a wildly imaginative, darkly humorous, and brilliantly satirical dystopian adventure that pays homage to classics like "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" while carving its own unique path. Set in a fragmented future America ravaged by climate change, idiotic policies, and corporate greed, the novel follows 16-year-old factory worker Truckee Wallace who embarks on an unlikely cross-country quest to deliver a talking goat in order to save the world.
King constructs a vivid, fully-realized post-apocalyptic world packed with creative and entertaining details. The former USA has splintered into warring territories like the oppressive Crunch colonies, android-friendly areas, the anti-tech Confederacy, regions paying citizens in social media likes, and dangerous lawless zones. Clever neologisms, products, and societal elements flesh out the setting, from "crumb" working class citizens and "uppercrust" elites to Shiver and Jump drugs. The book brims with imagination in its worldbuilding.
The hapless hero's journey unfolds with a colorful cast drawn from Oz - Truckee as a sci-fi Dorothy joined by his Tin Man-esque android friend, a lobotomized gentle giant Scarecrow, and a hyper-intelligent, anxiety-prone "Cowardly Lion" goat. Their madcap, danger-filled adventures across the continent's transformed landscapes make for a compulsively readable page-turner mixing action, laughs, and some unexpectedly moving and thought-provoking moments. King balances the often-juvenile humor and grim situations with incisive social commentary on corporate dominance, environmental destruction, tribalism, and technology's effect on connection.
While some may find the raunchy jokes and meandering plot a bit much at times, King keeps things engaging with his quick wit, genre-savviness and the occasional poignant observation cutting through the craziness. The large cast of oddball characters and factions bring the world to life. Metafictional touches like the framing of Truckee's memoir with footnotes from a far-future editor, along with quotes from the "Grifter's Guide" Truckee uses to navigate the perilous territories, add to the fun.
Genre fans will appreciate the knowing winks to influences while still telling a fresh story. The book's ambition, humor and heart shine through the most in its moving, thematically resonant final act. Like the best speculative fiction, King extrapolates issues like climate change, culture wars and corporatism to farcical and dire ends while never losing the human thread.
In all, "FKA USA" is an epic, entertaining dystopian quest brimming with imagination, laughs and surprising emotional weight. Reed King has crafted an audacious, touching, darkly comic journey across a wildly transformed future America that should appeal to fans of grand adventures, satire, and post-apocalyptic spec fic. While not without some flaws, it's an ambitious, memorable genre-bender with the power to both tickle the funny bone and make you ponder our possible fate. Hop in the passenger seat and join Truckee on an unforgettable road trip into humanity's potential future.