Customer Reviews

Boneland

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Once again I find myself highly recommending a book that is a limited edition, but if you liked George R.R. Martin's 'Sandkings' for the bugs, you will love Thomas's 'Boneland'. For me, I do not regret one penny spent on this superb tale of morbid history, alien invasion, bug-like mechanisms, and pale humanity. I could not put it down.

Boneland is short, only 167 pages, but covers and amazing amount of ground as it follows the life of John Board, born in Chicago, which is soon to be renamed Coccyx.
In 1893, young Johnny's mother hangs herself, her last words being that there were bugs inside her head. Strange rains of insects had been occurring lately, but though Johnny was too young to make the connection, the history of America was forever changed from how we know it. The Guests are here.

In exchange for being able to observe our violent world, the Guests have provided us with organic, bug-like inventions such as cameras and radios and TVs. Jeffrey Thomas's vision of such inventions and such a world is so breathtaking and surreal that my only wish is that this was a longer novel.

You will follow John Board through his life as a camera man, skillfully manipulating the organic cameras from police work to prison to Hollywood, now known as Boneland. Board does not trust the Guests, but it is not wise to question them or their Mediums either.

Thomas made it easy to envision his world, and skillfully conducted the passage of time throughout John's life, a tale of a man still all too human in a skewered world. I absolutely loved Thomas's renaming of famous places and things into organic titles, like Mandible's Chinese Theater and Scapula Blvd. Don't miss out on Boneland, definitely a 10 Star book. Enjoy!