Prince of Christler-Coke (Hardcover)

by Neal Barrett Jr. (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Set in a post-apocalyptic downsized America, a high-tech land of fabulous wealth as well as dirt-poverty and primitive survivalism, this wacky, occasionally profound novel from Barrett (The Hereafter Gang) rings oddly true in our era of Enron and Paris Hilton. East and West Coast empires are ruled by ruthless titled families with an anti-work ethic so extreme they don't even feed or clothe themselves. On achieving his majority, Asel Iacola, Prince of Christler-Coke and heir to America East, immediately loses his vast fiefdom to an alliance of the Lord of SEC, Ducky Du Pontiac-Heinz and Jackie Cee of the Disney-Dow rulers of Califoggy State. Asel is shipped off to the National Executive Rehabilitation Facility (NERF) in bleak Oklahomer. For all his ignorance and absurdity, Asel has a noble spirit and an ability to learn. Asel and Sylvan Lee McCree, former High Earl of Dixie-Datadog, escape from NERF in a stolen truck. After an encounter with the TechsMechs Rangers, the pair are enslaved by the beauteous Nones of Our Lady of Reluctant Desire (O.L.O.R.D.), rescued by rebel acolytes and attacked by Califoggian aero-machines. And that's just for starters. Asel's picaresque adventures, as told by this modern-day Mark Twain, should provoke plenty of guffaws.
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Product Description
Set in a future where the power of big corporations has reached unbelievable heights, this sardonic and humorous story traces the adventures of Asel Iacola, former head of the Christler-Coke corporation, who has been banished to a corporate prison after a hostile takeover. Undaunted, and with the help of fellow deposed corporate noble Sylvan Lee-McCree, Asel escapes with hopes of confronting his rival, Jackie-Cee of the Disney-Dow corporation. During his escape he learns to rely on himself as he is almost hung by the TechsMechs Rangers of Oklahomer, sold by the hustlers of Two-kum-curry to the Nones of Our Lady of Reluctant Desire, and befriended by a mechanical bear. Making his way across a nation ruled by big business, Asel is confronted by the country's forgotten poor, and discovers the enormous gulf between the haves and have-nots created by companies like Christler-Coke.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930846282
• ISBN-13: 978-1930846289
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,506,450 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Trip through Trash, March 14, 2007

By	Dar Scott (Albuquerque) - See all my reviews

Prince Asel loses his position in this future of corporations turned tiny states.

This novel takes some seeds of interesting ideas and then...I don't know what it does. It is plain awful.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What the.....?, July 25, 2005

By	Mark Towler (Boston, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The writing flows well enough, but that's just about the only good thing I can say about this ridiculous mess. I have no idea what Barrett was aiming at, but he certainly misses the mark with this book. What on earth is supposed to be the point of this?

We begin with the well-used meme of the overpriviledged scion of a wealthy family being brought down by his enemies and cast into poverty. Except it's not really poverty, just som sort of horribly idealized middle-class lifestyle where he must fend for himself and (gasp!) WORK instead of being waited on hand and foot. This is mildly amusing for a page or two, but once you realize that no explanations are forthcoming the fish-out-of-water stuff rapidly loses what little allure it ever had. Why is our protagonist here? Is this what the rest of the world is like? Is his world of wealthy indolence an aberration? Is his incredible ignorance curable by harsh experience? Don't expect any answers because there simply aren't any in this book.

Asel wanders through the book like the whining, hapless idiot that he is. He encounters other characters at various times, but they all seem to be bizarre exceptions to the rules, just as he is. In fact, there's no one who could be called normal ANYWHERE in the entire book! ARe we supposed to accept the waitress/whore-with-the-heart-of-gold character as normal? Who knows? At no point do we ever get a context in which to place our characters. This is our world, but what happened? Why are certain areas completely desolated? Why do the Asians flock here to buy crappy souvenirs? How does the economy work? The government? Who's responsible for anything? No one can tell you, because no one knows.

There's a prison break, a road trip, a number of captures and escapes and finally a dramatic climax in the sequoia forest of Northern California, but you won't care. The characters are thin to begin with and, despite being smacked in the face with their own ignorance repeatedly, never show any signs of change or development. After whining incessantly about how he needs to reclaim his former glory, Asel suddenly does a 180 and decides to live humbly in a mountain hut at the end of the book. Why? We're never told. We're given a hint of character growth when one of his companions swings by years later and tells him it's 'time' to bear arms again, but we never learn why, or against whom these arms are to be born. But at this point we simply want the book to end.

So what point is Barrett trying to make? The world is over-commercialized and headed for doom? People are stupid? Rich folks are pampered? None of this is new, original or even particularly interesting. So why read this book?

Good question.