Notes from the Internet Apocalypse

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.

Humorist Wayne Gladstone takes on the American obsession with the internet in Notes from the Internet Apocalypse, an amusing but thoughtful look at what might happen to our culture if the world wide web went down for good.

Gladstone himself is the protagonist of his story. Since both his job and his free time activities depend on the internet, he has no idea what to do now that it???s gone. So he begins keeping a journal about how the world is handling the crisis. Accompanied by a guy he???d previously met online and an Australian girl who earns her living selling online access to her in-shower webcam, Gladstone sets out on the streets of New York City to try to find out what happened to the internet. Is it a government conspiracy? Right-wingers? Muslim terrorists?

Many of the people Gladstone meets are trying to find low-tech ways to replace what they loved about the internet. Girls in bars try to present themselves as they do in their Facebook profiles (posing in ways that emphasize their best features), Craigslist users tack notices on community bulletin boards, Ask Jeeves sets up shop in Central Park, and people try to get cats to entertain them... Read the rest: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/notes-from-the-internet-apocalypse/

Hoo boy. Somehow I accidentally read past the drop out point on this one and had to struggle to finish it. I will admit, I liked the idea of Jeeves and got excited at the idea of a visit to the NYC public library scene but was sadly disappointed on all accounts. Clearly, the internet does not mean the same thing for Mr. Gladstone that it does to me. At first, I thought the audience for this book may be 13 year old boys. Then I realized that it is for grown men with 13 year old boy mentalities. And those readers would be in better hands with John Dies at The End. NFIA is not bizarro enough to be bizarro, and it's not mainstream enough to appeal to the masses. Not sure, but I should have listened to those who warned me away from it.

Satirical, full of geeky jokes, and heart-wrenching. I smiled or flat out laughed through most of the book. Then questioned my life at the end. Yet still I raced to GoodReads to throw out some random comments about what I thought, to an invisible audience.

Well played Mr Gladstone, well played.