CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

January 1, 1996
In this debut collection of seven dystopian fantasies, some of which have appeared in the New Yorker and Harper's, America in the near future is a toxic wasteland overrun by vicious thugs and venal opportunists who prey on the weak and misshapen. Saunders's feverish imagination conjures up images as horrific as any from a Hieronymus Bosch painting: a field full of braying mules toppled over from bone marrow disease; a tourist attraction featuring pickled stillborn babies; and cows with Plexiglas windows in their sides. The black humor and vision of American enterprise and evangelism gone haywire are reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut's early works. In the novella ``Bounty,'' for example, the clawed-foot narrator, who flees slavery under the ``Normals'' to find his sister, sees a McDonald's that is the headquarters of the Church of Appropriate Humility, aka ``the Guilters.'' ``In Guilter epistemology,'' he observes, ``the arches represent the twin human frailties of arrogance and mediocrity.'' Despite the richness of the vision and the occasionally heart-melting prose, however, there is little difference in voice to distinguish one story from another. Read in one sitting, they blur into a bleak and unsettling vision of the world to come.

January 1, 1996
This group of stories focuses on characters who work in a theme park called CivilWarLand in the future United States. Environmental pollution and genetic mutation have taken their toll, dividing the population into Normals and Flaweds. America's farmland lies fallow. All scramble to feed themselves and their families. Cars are hauled by horses, barges are hauled by humans, and technology continues its amazing feats, such as "off-loading" human memories, which are then sold as virtual-reality experiences. People continue to struggle for recognition, for wealth, and for the American Dream in the face of grinding poverty and limited opportunities. Saunders's surreal depiction of a bleak future for the country is both startling and believable. Here's hoping he is not a prophet. The author is a teacher and consultant for Raytheon. This is his first work of fiction. Recommended for public libraries.-Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Continuing Education Lib.

January 1, 1996
Saunders presents his unique vision of America in the near future in this debut collection of short stories. In a landscape littered by gutted Wal-Marts and condemned Arbys, Saunders' astoundingly naive characters encounter high-tech absurdity and savage cruelty. Throughout this collection, the author parades one stunning image after the next: see-through cows, a virtual-reality entrepreneur who off-loads and sells his own memories for $3,000 per decade, a cheesy theme park with a SafeOrgy Room and shrink-wrapped clients. These stories are all of a piece, all stamped with Saunders' hallucinatory, feverish images, so that there is no clear line of demarcation between his pieces. That seems a small quibble, though, in view of his uncanny ability to take readily recognizable elements from the present and warp them just enough to scare and dazzle his readers. These stories are inventive, hilarious, and terrifying. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)