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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
You'll laugh, you'll feel queasy, you'll get tired of the over-the-top scenarios., August 2, 2006
This review is from: The Futurist: A Novel (Hardcover)
This is a damned entertaining book. Very funny, very well-written characters, a believably-rendered world stageset of airports, boardrooms, hotel rooms, etc. But between out-loud laughs are stretches of air-sick realism that unsettle and disturb, and give the book a kind of chilling subtext that doesn't feel at all like summer fun. The book feels like sincere cultural criticism delivered by a manic, almost soul-less white-collar drudge, the twinges of whose remaining conscience are drowned-out by hysteric laughter.
I downgrade to 4 stars because I don't see why the author resorted to such drastic, almost slapstick juxtapositions: the main character consults Bible churches and the porn industry, for example. His cynicism is evident without such hamfisted hyperbole.
I noticed frequent similarities to David Foster Wallace's fiction, certainly a promising association, but Othmer kept needlessly augmenting an already forceful story, to the point I felt manipulated and disrespected as a reader. I am happy to forgive him these overindulgences, since the book is so fun, but I do feel that he missed the oportunity of writing something truly excellent. Describing a person and a culture that eschew constraint needn't require storytelling that eschews restraint.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Its sheer exuberance, its epigrammatic style, and its wit and irreverence are a hoot!, July 16, 2006
This review is from: The Futurist: A Novel (Hardcover)
While reading The Futurist, I used words such as clever, hilarious, and insightful to describe the experience of reading such a fun and intelligent novel. The truth is these words do this book little justice. Its set pieces alone are worth the price of admission. It is laugh out loud funny. And its many characters contain great depth, and even their own tales. (Perhaps in Othmer's second novel...)
"Oh, shit. I've given back tens of millions. Some of these guys, these billionaires, make me sick. They think that now they're rich, they can satisfy their egos, alleviate their guilt, by thinking their accidental windfall somehow means they are geniuses, cosmically ordained and therefore eminently qualified to solve the world's problems -- AIDS, loose nukes, illiteracy. They're delusional enough to think that they matter more than others in a larger sense. They think, Now that I've made billions on a search engine that can locate highly specialized subgenres of kiddy porn at thrice the speed of light, I'm going to teach the world to read. When in truth they're rewriting history to say that their original business models, the ones that made them obscenely rich, were driven not by greed and hubris but by some larger calling to transform the world."
William Faulkner once instructed that good fiction is "about the human heart in conflict with itself." Author James P Othmer seemingly knows especially well this writerly commandment. Othmer conflates the personal and professional conflicts that rage in the heart of his protagonist, Yates (the eponymous Futurist) with his, and our, attempt at understanding "why they hate us (Americans)."
It has been a long, long while since I devoured a novel as voraciously as I did The Futurist. Its sheer exuberance, its epigrammatic style, and its wit and irreverence are a hoot! More to the point, however: I believe you would enjoy this novel every bit as much as I did. And still do. Yes, it is that memorable.
Check it out!
David M Gordon
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sobering, hillarious., July 11, 2006
This review is from: The Futurist: A Novel (Hardcover)
While much of what I read about The Futurist seems to be aimed at jaded corporate players and expats, this book struck me as just as relevant to the dormroom Stewart/Colbert fans who, without knowing the specific machinations behind the world that Yates existes in, that has been shoved down their throats since infancy, clearly feel that something is amiss. The heart of this book, encapsulated by Yates' admission of being a "founding member of the Coalition of the Clueless" should resonate with anyone who not only seeks the truth in a world programmed to cloud it, but has enough humilty and respect for it to throw their hands up every once in a while and say "I don't know". Therein lies Yates' likeablilty. His selfish pragmatism, obnoxiousness, and warped moral compass fittingly push that likeability to the edge, in a way only the best written anti-heroes can, but ultimately couldn't squelch it. That conflictedness of Yates' character, along with Othmer's spot-on satire and just plain witty prose made this book for me, and I'd highly recommend it to just about anyone else who comes across this review. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "the future aint what it used to be," and there is no better or more entertaining example of that today than Yates and The Futurist.
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