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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, posthumous novel by Baker, April 18, 2002
This review is from: Anarchy: A Novel (Paperback)
I REALLY like JRB's work. Never subtle, often over the top - but certainly exciting. This book was reworked from a manuscript discovered after his death. Like Brassart mentions in the afterward, one can see the lack of orientation/tightness to the story and that is AFTER it has been edited and reworked. This one has a plot that travels all over the world, hits the media and celebrity between the eyes and never, ever stops. A little too cartoonish and over the top. The bodycount is absolutely amazing. Sadly, there is no real depth here to any of the characters and it's outlandishness, finally, does it in. All that said, it's worth checking out if you are a fan of his work.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious Black Humor in James Robert Baker's Final Novel, July 13, 2011
This review is from: Anarchy: A Novel (Paperback)
At the time of James Robert Baker's death, he left behind the completed manuscript of Testosterone, as well as the bloated, rambling draft of a novel not ready for publication. Editor and writer Scott Brassart deserves a great deal of credit for streamlining, editing, re-plotting this work, and making Baker's inspired lunacy absolutely shine. I think Baker himself would have been pleased with the results.
Jim Baker makes himself the hero, from rescuing the cast and extras of a Baywatch-type show from a hostage situation, to solving the mystery of a forged tape of the O.J. Simpson murders, to escaping from the Russian Mafia, to infiltrating a secret enclave of Tennessee fundamentalist computer geeks, to securing for a famous actress Eva Braun's diet pills, which includes a shootout at Hitler's renovated bunker and a trip to Russia to find the bloodied settee where Hitler blew his brains out, to aiding a Pamela Anderson-type actress whose fake boobs have been turned into bombs by a love-crazed plastic surgeon, and, finally, to having a surreal rendezvous in heaven with a celestial guide who appears to be Catherine Deneuve herself.
Jim Baker's covert mission is to infiltrate the lair of the Tennessee fundies, who with a special computer program are able to make phony sex tapes of liberals that look completely authentic. The fundie geeks are currently working on two such videos. The first shows Hillary Clinton having sex with Vince Foster before killing him. The second involves a straight, hairy-chested, and outspoken liberal actor (think Alec Baldwin) having hot gay sex with another famous star. This computer program is known as "Revelations." (I have a minor quibble with this since it should be "Revelation" - singular - after The Book of Revelation.) Jim's mission is to steal the program, destroy the phony materials, and escape with his life.
As the book progresses, just about every group is trying to kill Jim, from mad Russians to neo-Nazis, to outraged Fundies, to a famous right-wing action star. Also in this book, "getting a little head" refers to the number of people who lose theirs literally. If anyone was disturbed by that head-in-the-box in Testosterone, Anarchy will really have them distraught. But for those who enjoy non-stop black humor, this final Baker book is one of his sickest and funniest works.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
absurdist fiction at its best, July 8, 2004
This review is from: Anarchy: A Novel (Paperback)
If Anarchy wasn't written by James Robert Baker and if it wasn't so compulsively readable it would be absolutely absurd. The plot is all over the board. James Robert Baker is the protangist of the story and after thwarting a hostage situation of the Sea Crew cast (a thinly veiled reference to Baywatch whose buxom star Patti Grant bears a remarkable likeness to Pamela what's-her-name), James is recruited by a police officer to retreive a videotape that may actually depict OJ murdering Nicole. Suddenly James finds himself in possession of the questionable tape, pursued by a bloodthirsty Russian named Vlad, in search of Eva Braun's elusive diet pills, infiltrating a right wing religious fundamentalist nudist colony and attempting to save Patti Grant from her obsessed plastic surgeon who has placed bombs in her implants. That's not the half of it. There are shootouts, an ever-increasing body count (some without heads) and an afterlife experience involving Catherine Deneuve and a plot to kill God. Posthumously condensed, edited and published from a hugely unfocused manuscript after Baker's unfortunate and untimely suicide, Anarchy doesn't read the same as other Baker novels. Although it is well edited, it still has an unfinished feel to it. Baker's trademark wry sense of humor that skewers celebrity culture and right wing fundamentalism is still evident yet there's a greater emphasis on action driven plot instead of descriptive narrative and a huge lack of the blatant in-your-face (homo)sexuality for which Baker is well known. One can't help but wonder what Baker really had in mind with Anarchy. This is a must read for any Baker fan or for someone willing to suspend all belief for a couple of hours to go on an action packed, over-the-top wild goose chase of a ride.
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