Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Slick Six, Maggot Boy Johnson, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This sophomore effort from economics editor Slattery (Spaceman Blues) is a heavy-handed fable of a near-future America fallen into economic and social chaos. Marco Angelo Oliveira breaks out of prison, determined to rejoin the Slick Six, his family of supercriminals. He meets stiff opposition from the Aardvark, a mob boss who now runs New York City. Meanwhile, the nation has fragmented into squabbling regions, from the New Dominion of Virginia to the New Sioux of the plains; like Marco's gang, they see little reason to reunite. Complex secondary characters such as mob lawyer Jeannette Winderhoek and the less-feted members of the Slick Six somewhat balance the heavily stereotyped Marco and the Aardvark, adding vital color to this glacially slow, backstory-laden tale. (Oct.)
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From Booklist

Slattery presents a hallucinatory vision of the end of America caused not by the usual sf culprits—disease, war, aliens—but by an entirely plausible economic collapse. What happens, he posits, when you lose the “laws and regulations but leave the capitalism”? The past returns with a vengeance, that’s what. Land is for the grabbing again, slavery reemerges, and Indians rise to reclaim their heritage. Notorious criminal the Aardvark, recognizing the opportunities in the slave trade, invests early and builds an empire, ruling from his Manhattan tower. Opposing him are the Slick Six, international criminals led by Marco, who intends a revolution out of which America can be reborn. Marco’s odyssey through a wasted America is full of legendary characters and strange sights, from the murdering circus of Cyclone Cal to the traveling home of the hippie Americoids. Slattery’s story is like a vivid dream with startlingly lucid moments, and his prose has the cadence of a spoken-word poet. He affords a kind of revelation about how history informs us as individuals and as a country. --Krista Hutley

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (October 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765320460
• ISBN-13: 978-0765320469
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #70,109 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Liberation, November 8, 2008

By	Monkey "Monkey Moniker" (Seattle) - See all my reviews

If you love your future dystopian, then this is the book you want to get and read as this is one of the more interesting dystopian future books since Little Brother. While Brian Francis Slattery who wrote the book could not have foreseen what is happening on the stock market, housing bubble, manufacturing collapse that is happening now when he originally penned the book, it is strangely prophetic with ties deep into what is happening today. The premise of the book is that after a monumental collapse of the American economic system, the USA is divided and controlled by warlords, where everything that can happen happens, including slavery.

The hero of the story is Marco Angelo Oliveira who flees from a prison ship after he has been there five years. The goal of Marco is to return to his old gang and get it going again. When he gets back to New York he finds that members of his old gang have been sold into slavery. He is also surprised by people working for food, and the general economic collapse that has happened while he was in prison. The Warlord of New York though wants no one to interfere with his rule, meaning we are in for an exciting climax between anti-hero and warlord in a frenetic fast-paced conclusion to the story. The conclusion to the story though is amazingly satisfying, and leaves the reader thinking that the story is truly over until the next book comes out.

What is amazing about this story though is that the world is rich enough to provide a playground for other writers to work within. Much like Niven's Known Space, and Harry Turtledove's alternative histories, there is enough detail in Brian's book to provide a fertile playground for other writers and himself to explore the implications of a high technology society that has rushed back into disorder, chaos, and desperation. A bridge book between Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and Liberation would be an interesting story to read. There is much here to offer readers, and it is totally worth getting.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars swimming against the crowd, March 7, 2009

By	Justus Pendleton (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a relatively popular and well reviewed book. Several end-of-year lists put it at or near the top for all SF in 2008.

I appear to be one of the few that was less than enamoured by Liberation.

Every one of the characters were too shallowly drawn for my tastes. Each is supposed to be part of the Slick Six: a group of quasi-Robin Hood superhero-ish types that were so talented that they stole hundreds of millions of dollars. No real indication of their talents (other than Marco's ability to kill) is given through the course of the book, leaving the reader with no real understanding of why they were so feared/revered. They all have an aura of superheros -- especially Marco being the protege of "Red Kwon" and the weird Kung Fu type moves that The Assassin knows.

Combine that with the constant presence of The Vibe and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to take the book seriously or not. But the presence of Marco's extreme violence, cannibalism, and slavery harshes my vibe. It is hard to take a dystopian future as light reading but it feels like that's what Slattery was aiming for.

The plot is inconsequential and nonsensical. We are supposed to believe that the Aardvark is the lynchpin of the modern American anarchy -- though he didn't do anything but fill the void created by the collapse of the state -- and removing him will allow America to be "reborn". Or something.

The details of the plot don't make any sense: slavery is legal in the US but certainly not in Japan so why are Zeke et al still "slaves" of the pirate captain when they visit Kimura? Slavery started before the Aardvark got involved -- and it appears to be people entering into it to avoid a worse fate or starving -- so it isn't clear how killing the Aardvark is going to remove slavery from the US. Why do they need the New Sioux to overthrow the Aardvark?

The hippie anti-modernism views are mildly grating. A few sentences early on gloss over the millions dead from starvation. (What happened to the plague and disease from all those bodies?) But paragraph after paragraph waxes lyrical about how great life is (for those still living) now that they aren't Keeping Up With The Joneses or on the Corporate Treadmill. We see communes in LA but no scenes of the 25 million of diabetics suddenly having to do without insulin.

You're not supposed to take this book seriously, not supposed to look into its plots or its premises too clearly because they're a shambles. I guess I failed at that. But maybe if the flavor, the style, the characters of the book were better it would have carried me past those failings. It didn't deliver on that narrow promise either.

It wasn't a BAD book but I wouldn't recommend it to many people, either.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Economic Apocalypse in the Form of Liberation, January 1, 2009

By	Geoff Livingston "GL" (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews

A little too close to reality for comfort, Brian Francis Slattery's Liberation depicts events in a post economic meltdown caused by America's over-borrowing. As a result the dollar collapses as does the government. Unfortunately, this dystopian vision kind of makes you tap your fingers nervously as you think about the real crisis.

The ensuing riots and warmongering produce a hellacious world where slavery reappears and the ghosts of the past rise to walk the land. It's an amazing depiction of many cultural wrongs and excesses this country has engaged in.

And the story of the Slick Six is a compelling one that provides just enough to engage you, but not so much as to make you skip ahead. This story really is about America, not so much the Six, which other than Marco, seem to be vehicles for the larger story.

My one beef with the book was more stylistic. I'm not a big fan of long Faulkneresque paragraphs and this book had plenty of them. In addition the tangential movement between stories required an adjustment, but eventually started working for me. All in all, a great read that I highly recommend.