2030

Dick Hill is a talented narrator, beloved for his renditions of the classics and action novels by Lee Child and Michael Connelly. Hill has gravitas; the man knows how to impregnate a pause. Movies by Albert Brooks, such as LOST IN AMERICA and DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, show actors--himself prominent among them--in circumstances so humiliating that they're hilarious. Having chosen a futuristic setting for his first-ever novel, Brooks has upped the ante. The future is where many of us--all those unsaved--expect the worst. The combination of Hill's deep voice and Brooks's dark comic vision pushes hard at the line between what's funny and what's only sad. But hang on, because there's a happy ending, or happyish. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

March 28, 2011
Comedian and filmmaker Brooks welcomes the reader to the year 2030 in his smart and surprisingly serious debut. Cancer has been cured, global warming is an acknowledged reality, people have robot companions, and the president is a Jewâand oy vey does he have his hands full with an earthquake-leveled Los Angeles and a growing movement by the young to exterminate the elderly. And when the Chinese offer to rebuild L.A. in exchange for a half-ownership stake in Southern California, President Bernstein is faced with a decision that will alter the future of America. Brooks's sweeping narrative encompasses a diverse cast of characters, including an 80-year-old Angelino left homeless by the earthquake, a trust fund brat with a grudge against the elderly, and a teenage girl saddled with debt after her father's death, all of whom get brought together just in time for a climactic hostage crisis. Brooks's mordant vision encompasses the future of politics, medicine, entertainment, and daily living, resulting in a novel as entertaining as it is thought provoking, like something from the imagination of a borscht belt H.G. Wells