Customer Reviews

Grey

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

You've already read the plot summaries. You get the general idea.

Armstrong presents a very clever concept but one not new to those who grew up with "The Medium is the Message." Its realization in this book is uneven--sometimes, as in the opening, wry and engaging, other times tedious and predictable. The language is sometimes so uneven that I wondered whether two different people had shared the writing. I got very, very tired of Father's obscenities and his one-note metaphors; the over/misuse of "like" and "fathom" jarred increasingly. The ending just *happened*, as if the writer had grown tired of his creation. Armstrong certainly has caught the flavor, however, of today's fashion poseurs and the affected dark pseudo-sophistication of their favorite style magazines.

This is not a science-fiction book, it's just fiction, about a dystopia of the post-apocalyptic world. It's also a sendup of Ultra aesthetes, one that Oscar Wilde might appreciate.

A word of warning: The production of this novella is so dreadful that it seriously interferes with the reader's ability to enter the story. On nearly every page (I do not exaggerate) occur missteps that a decent editor would have caught--grammar errors, spelling mistakes, poor punctuation, errors of continuity (exactly WHICH eye is the gray one?), incorrect usage, confusion of vocabulary (e.g., "epithets" for "epaulettes", "sign" for "sine", "wave" for "waive"). It reminded me of long nights spent correcting student essays. It is curious that an author so adept at parodying Conde Nast publications could be guilty of such clumsiness and pratfalls of speech. Standards in this area have certainly fallen throughout the industry, but never have I seen so unprofessional an edition.

Think "Romeo and Juliet" meet "Snow Crash". The plot is summarized quite well above, so I won't repeat. This book is, at its heart, a love story set within the context of social parody. Anyone who loves fashion, food, spirits, and all things upper-crusty will find themselves skewered in some way in this book. There are one or two outstanding moments in the book, but otherwise it's fairly predictable and somewhat shallow. The universe created by Armstrong has the opportunity to be compelling and interesting but the opportunity to enrich the world has been missed by this short work.

Not as satisfying as other genre novels, such as Patricia Sullivan's _Maul_, yet still an excellent breakout performance. Hope to see more from this author in the future.

I work in the marketing communications world and reading this book made me hate myself. Armstrong's vision of the future and PR's effect on it is scarily dead-on. His is a distopian world where everything is part of the branding process and all conversations have messaging.

A recent book caught my eyes in the bookstore the other day: Jon Armstrong's second novel, Yarn, with a gorgeous cover and an interesting looking storyline. In the midst of deciding which book to get, two others won out, and it was returned to the shelf. Followup research showed that I should have gone for it, and further searches in nearby stores came up empty.

Over the course of reading up on Yarn, I discovered that the author's first book, Grey, was set in the same universe, setting up Armstrong's particular brand of fiction, labeled `Fiction-Punk'. Better still, the publisher, Nightshade Books, had an advance reader's copy of the book up on their website, for a free download. (You can get it here.)

Grey is a quick, funny read, with a couple of caveats and assumptions to go along with that. Set in a near future dystopia, Michael Rivers is the son of a family member, part of the elite, in a world where pop culture and consumerism has run amok, in the most ridiculous fashion possible. While reading the book, I'm operating on the assumption that this book shifted more towards the satirical than rational. Rivers is a celebrity, and where reality television runs every day, with talk show hosts and talking heads talking nonstop to his own egotistical father who has a documentary filmed of his life as he's living it, reediting it as he goes.

Fashion takes a front seat in this book, and Armstrong's descriptions of the fashion of this world is a fun one. Despite the book's title, there's multiple colors everywhere, with people wearing some of the strangest things throughout, at least in the expensive and livable areas. It's not an area where one will think about science fiction, but it's clear that there's a lot of inspiration taken from the costuming of numerous films here, and if anything, this film breaks the reader out of the mold that this book is merely a continuation of suburban America.

Despite the label `fashionpunk', this book isn't really about fashion: it's a fairly acute look at the direction of a consumerist culture. Once the absurdity is stripped away from the book (mainly in the language of most of the characters), it's a downright scary look at how things could be several decades from now. Some things remain very much the same: an obsession with celebrity and instant gratification, where companies live and die by their ratings and public perception, rather than their actual internal workings.

This is an entertaining book - one that was a bit of fun to read, although I do hope that Yarn (which I now have) turns out to be a bit better. The plot for this story was rather loose at times, and there are some elements (Michael's origins - cobbled together from parts from his numerous sibblings comes to mind) where I thought there should have been more emphasis, and there's a bit of wandering here and there as the book progresses.

But, Grey is an entertaining, with some very dark undercurrents to it, and some very fun parts (Who wouldn't enjoy professional ironing championships in a fashion-oriented world?) as well. I'm even more excited about Yarn after finishing it.

Originally published to my blog.

Okay, the plot lacks development. Okay, the concept becomes repetitive. Okay, Armstrong uses the same satire again and again and again. But it's a quick read, with enough clever, compelling ideas to make it fun and frantic.

Please, folks. The man is an excellent writer in need of a collaborator/editor/plot muse. I'm eager to read his next work.

Satire suit.


If you took C. M. Kornbluth's snarky satire and changed the language to be far more Ellisonesque in its euphemism then you might get some idea of the tone of this book, which can border on the hysterical.

Our protagonist is a naif scion of one of the filthy richest corporates in a not particularly nice at all dystopian media overloaded you get the picture society. All is good for these really rich people, apart from the habit that people, particularly the off the grid and untraceable freeboot society have of inserting bullets into their bodies at high velocity, or occasionally blowing them up.

Such an happening interrupts a planned corporate-marriage-merger, and our not so with it main character starts to get his eyes opened.

His father--imagine J. Jonah Jameson with an extremely high daily quota of f-bombs and tarts to get through, and you will have some idea of his personality--is not overly pleased, as when invulnerable super corporate families get penetrated, ratings plummet.

If you'd like an example of some of his father's eloquence:-
"'Anyway, I feel for you, son! I do. I was watching that date--and holy fracking sheeit was it boring--but whatever! I was there with my girls, my snacks, and we were all cheering and going on, and then I couldn't fracking believe a freeboot! They should all be rounded up and fried in oil! Motherfrackers.''

"'They're off the system,' said Joelene, with surprising annoyance. 'That's why they can't be located and rounded up, as you say.'

Father leaned far forward and squinted. 'You're here, too? Jesus frackercakes, Michael! Can't you fart without her anymore?' He smacked his face with one of his thick hands. 'God, son, what do you have in your ball sack? Muffins?'"

The rest of it continues as the bad son finds out what his father (and mother) have really been up to, and more about anti-corporate activities.

Grey surprised me - I wouldn't have thought I would've liked a novel about future fashions peopled by shallow, unlikable characters, but this was a fun, promising first novel that made me laugh and keep turning the pages.

True, the story is familiar, but this future was one that I've never read before - a terrifying one for someone like me who doesn't pay much attention to fashion trends, celebrity, or pop music. It's all too easy to imagine a world that idolizes dancers, models, and musicians while everything falls apart around them.

Armstrong's catalog descriptions of the outrageous clothes, pretentious magazine advertisements, and violent musical performances let us know, sometimes like a slap in the face, that we're not in any familiar, comfortable future anymore. And isn't taking us somewhere we've never been what good science fiction is supposed to do?

And I loved the competitive ironing.

I'm eagerly looking forward to his second book.

This one is a real page-turner, marvelous execution. Can't wait to see Armstrong's next novel.

I found this book to be endlessly readable and a total page turner. I hope to see much more from this promising new writer. It could have been longer, though...

This book is something like those movies made from Saturday Night Live sketches: it's half of a clever idea stretched far beyond what could possibly be interesting. The characters are one-dimensional, the dialogue is inane and repetitive, and the plot is both simple-minded and entirely arbitrary in it's development. And! there are numerous instances where fingers are chopped off or heads smashed with sledgehammers (or really loud music!). What worth there is comes from the descriptions of this dystopian future's fashion magazines, which sound perhaps 10% more interesting than those of our own day. Why two stars instead of one? Well, like SNL there's something good way down there somewhere, and you have to credit the author with thinking up the world behind the book. Too bad he didn't write a good story about it.