Notes from the Internet Apocalypse--A Novel

January 1, 2014
Cracked.com contributor Gladstone offers up an outlandishly specific takedown of online culture via the popular apocalypse comedy genre. Readers who don't dabble regularly on the Web won't get it, but fans of sites like Reddit, Instagram or Facebook (or streaming pornography, come to think of it) should find themselves howling at this profane, very funny comedy about our worldwide addiction to the Internet. In fact, this satiric adventure already has fans worldwide, having first appeared in a different version on Cracked.com as short, serialized entries, supposedly from a journal found in a Dumpster in Bayside, N.Y. Basically, one day, the Internet just stops, and things quickly get weird. Activists from Anonymous and Occupy pretty much escape unscathed, but much of the population shuts down, becoming zombies with no Web-based stimuli. Other subcultures struggle to reproduce themselves in their unplugged versions, leading to the hilarious image of Reddit addicts screaming at each other in circles on the street. "Gladstone," our narrator, begins investigating the Internet's disappearance with Tobey, formerly only an online chat buddy, and Oz--short for Ozzygrrl69--a smoking hot Australian girl whose income dried up when she could no longer shower in front of perverts via webcam. In Central Park, a former librarian dubs himself "Jeeves," answering questions for $5 each, and quickly goes viral. When Jeeves dubs Gladstone the "Internet Messiah," all hell breaks loose, and Gladstone finds himself on a mad dash through 4Chan meetups, epic bar crawls, the "Rule 34 Club" (you'll have to Google it if that doesn't ring a bell) and the narrator's own frighteningly unstable psyche to get to the bottom of things. Strikingly similar to fellow Cracked.com contributor David Wong's (Jason Pargin's) John Dies at the End, there's a surprising amount of pathological drama at the book's denouement that shows there's a lot of brains behind all those dirty jokes. An acid cultural satire that skewers what we would miss most about the online world.

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March 1, 2014
Gladstone, an emotionally detached thirtysomething with a dead-end job, wakes up to find the entire Internet has suddenly and inexplicably ceased to function. In this parody of an apocalypse, the first things missed are the humorous memes, flame wars, and pornography. Without YouTube, zombie-like fun-seekers force cats to do tricks. Craigslist becomes a plywood bulletin board full of ads on index cards. People fax in their search queries for librarians to answer for a fee. When a know-it-all psychic proclaims Gladstone the Internet messiah, he makes him a target for all those who either hope for or fear the technology's return. Gladstone reluctantly assembles a highly likable cohort of disenfranchised online friends to join him in his search for answers, but since he is burdened by depression, his quest is just as much about finding himself as it is about finding the World Wide Web. Some dialogue here is obviously contrived as a vehicle for quips and sarcasm, but the punch lines are pitch-perfect. Anyone who spends time sharing jokes in web communities will find this satire irresistible.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2013

It's the end of the world as we know it, and only a veteran Cracked.com columnist could dream it up. The Internet has stopped working, and a character named Gladstone, who's already lost his wife, is deep in mourning. But he's provoked out of his lethargy--and out of his house--when he hears rumors that someone in New York is still online. Geeky literary first novel thrills.

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