Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    FKA USA: A Novel
    Unavailable
    FKA USA: A Novel
    Unavailable
    FKA USA: A Novel
    Ebook668 pages10 hours

    FKA USA: A Novel

    By Reed King

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Mr. King looks at all our upcoming problems, and imagines a local reaction to each one. The result is often funny, usually sardonic, and always imaginative, what with all the mole rats, flesh drones, dimeheads, and especially ‘The Grifter’s Guide to the Territories FKA USA,’ a notable addition to the line of imaginary authorities.”
    —The Wall Street Journal

    Indie Next Pick for July
    Best of June: io9, AV Club, Amazing Stories, The Verge

    Reed King’s amazingly audacious novel is something of a cross between L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, Douglas Adams’s A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One.

    In Reed King’s wildly imaginative and possibly prescient debut, the United States has dissolved in the wake of environmental disasters and the catastrophic policies of its final president.

    It is 2085, and Truckee Wallace, a factory worker in Crunchtown 407 (formerly Little Rock, Arkansas, before the secessions), has no grand ambitions besides maybe, possibly, losing his virginity someday.

    But when Truckee is thrust unexpectedly into the spotlight he is tapped by the President for a sensitive political mission: to deliver a talking goat across the continent. The fate of the world depends upon it.

    The problem is—Truckee’s not sure it’s worth it.

    Joined on the road by an android who wants to be human and a former convict lobotomized in Texas, Truckee will navigate an environmentally depleted and lawless continent with devastating—and hilarious—parallels to our own, dodging body pickers and Elvis-worshippers and logo girls, body subbers, and VR addicts.

    Elvis-willing, he may even lose his virginity.

    FKA USA is the epic novel we’ve all been waiting for about the American end of times, with its unavoidable sense of being on the wrong end of the roller coaster ride. It is a masterwork of ambition, humor, and satire with the power to make us cry, despair, and laugh out loud all at once. It is a tour de force unlike anything else you will read this year.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJun 18, 2019
    ISBN9781250108906
    Unavailable
    FKA USA: A Novel
    Author

    Reed King

    Reed King is the pseudonym of a New York Times bestselling author and TV writer.

    Related to FKA USA

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      'The Raven Tower' Rises From Shakespearean Foundations

      Feb 26, 2019

      Ann Leckie's new fantasy novel is packed with family intrigue, throne-room maneuvering and nods to Hamlet in its story of a son who comes home to find his father missing and his uncle in power.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Shards Of Earth

      May 19, 2021

      Shards Of Earth
      2 min read

    • Article

      Mutually Assured Destruction: Reading and Writing About Nuclear War

      Jan 24, 2018

      1. Imagine organizing a small get-together, a few friends and acquaintances at a neighborhood bar. It’s all very low-key. The day comes; friends arrive. You order cocktails. You chit-chat. In walks the President of the United States, with secret serv

      5 min read

    • Article

      Where Is Black Life Lived?

      Jul 21, 2020

      Where Is Black Life Lived?
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letter From The Founder

      Feb 11, 2021

      Letter From The Founder
      5 min read

    • Article

      When the Checkpoints Come

      Mar 19, 2020

      When the Checkpoints Come
      6 min read

    • Article

      Cheap Land Colorado

      Oct 28, 2022

      Cheap Land Colorado
      10 min read

    • Article

      Woman About Town

      May 26, 2022

      FOR THE PAST YEAR, I’ve been writing a book about women and fame in the noughties. It’s a compellingly strange decade to look back on. At the time, I was highly prone to paroting the utopianism of tech libertarians — the internet would make everythin

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Sticky Tar Pit of Time

      Sep 11, 2019

      The Sticky Tar Pit of Time
      6 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Courage To Be Happy

      Feb 1, 2023

      MARRIAGE and columns have this in common: you tend to repeat yourself. More than once in these pages, I have quoted the New Yorker’s legendary film critic Pauline Kael. After President Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972 she wrote: ‘I live in a rather

      3 min read

    • Article

      Letter Boks

      Feb 4, 2021

      I READ that Christopher Columbus was 41 years old when he went to America, and as a consequence everyone celebrates him to this day. I was 25 when I first landed on the East Coast of the USA, and yet not one book has been written about me despite the

      18 min read

    • Article

      On the Road

      Nov 16, 2020

      On the Road
      17 min read

    Reviews for FKA USA

    3.5/5

    35 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The United States has fallen apart into chaos and it is divided into conglomerates and colonies where electronic spying, computer virus and manipulation of humans to be more robotics than flesh and blood. Smart bands and visors take the place or education and memorization. Turkee and Barnaby, an intelligent talking goat, are chosen to made a trek across county to save the world from death. This is a tale of how far they will travel to save the human race from artificial intelligence. The undercurrent of a human’s need to belong is directly in opposition to freedom to act. A unique look at a future where government fails and silicon technology rules.
    • 4/5
      Mixed feelings. An ambitious exercise in world-building, but in the end (and especially at the end) the plotting was a bit too trite. Falls somewhere between Ready Player One and Walkaway, both of which I liked much better.
    • 3/5
      Truckee Wallace lives in our dystopian future - climate change has wreaked havoc on the world, the US has split into a bunch of different countries, robots are fighting for their rights, humans live on overly-processed foods that are laced with drugs to keep them happy, and people are trying to find the secret to immortality. Truckee is sent on a quest to stop one mad scientist from implanting her consciousness into everybody else. He meets a bunch of companions who help him on his journey, including a talking goat, a robot who loves him, and a stupid giant who knows how to make women happy.I've read enough dystopias that I didn't really find anything in here to be particularly novel. The world-building is very thorough, as evidenced by the copious footnotes, but pretty much all of the ideas about how this dystopia works are borrowed from Atwood, Gibson, Stevenson, and Cline.Given the unoriginal world-building, the book's saving grace could have been its humor, but I didn't think it was all that funny. It's certainly ridiculous, but not laugh-out-loud funny, and even the humor isn't terribly original.The other possible saving grace could have been a really heartwarming buddy tale of friendship and personal growth.... there are elements of this, but it all kind of misses the mark because none of it is original and all of the personal growth is 1000% predictable.I don't regret reading it, and I suppose if someone who doesn't read a lot of dystopian fiction asked me to recommend a dystopian book that isn't really depressing, I might recommend this one.
    • 2/5
      Not a good book. Consider yourself warned. Don't believe any of the hype. Comparisons to Hitchhiker's Guide are false. Yes, the main character does have a "guide" book of his own that is quoted at the beginning of every chapter, but the comparison ends there. HHGTG is light, fun, charming and overall hilarious. FKA USA is none of those things.Whoever this writer is (Reed King is a pseudonym for, supposedly, a famous writer of some sort) clearly wanted to create a fantastic(-al) nearly post-apocalyptic world, and for the most part succeeds in that. The world itself is the best part of the novel. But the story he tells is through characters that we don't really care about. That's where it falls flat.The Wizard of Oz motif that he carries throughout is mildly interesting. All the major characters are represented here. The main character Truckee is Dorothy and he travels through these lands (his version of Oz) with a a female robot looking for her humanity (i.e., her heart), a cowardly goat (not quite a lion), and a "scarecrow," a man called that because he'd been lobotomized and thus had lost part of his brain. They travel across this land to meet a genius (or a wizard?) who is (not really a spoiler to anybody who has read/seen The Wizard of Oz) not what he seems. Shocking!Unlike The Wizard of Oz, however, you don't really care about any of these characters. The rogue's gallery are likable enough but Truckee himself is not. And thus he's no Dorothy.To make matters worse, it seems obvious that the writer intended to set this up as the first in a series. Not exactly leaving a cliffhanger ending, but not really wrapping up the loose ends either.And then, finally, the straw that breaks the camel's back, is the blatant mis-use of the word "of" throughout this book. Characters from start to finish could have done something, or would have, or should have, or might have. And sometimes they do. But other times the actual words on the page are "could of" or "would of" or "should of" or "might of." I don't know what kind of well-known writer this Reed King seems to think he (she?) is, but I'm guessing, due to the lack of experience with how written English should appear on the page, he (or she) writes for television or movies. That explains the ending as well. Stay tuned folks for the next exciting adventure of Truckee Wallace and his bad of misfits!Pass.
    • 4/5
      America no longer as a country exists and becomes a patchwork of smaller states in this futuristic novel. Truckee Wallace travels cross country on a mission requested by his leader. With him are a talking goat and an android among others. This motley crew have all manner of adventures in this world powered in part by decomposing bodies.This novel is off the wall. Somewhat bothersome are the plethora of over sized footnotes which are too numerous in my opinion.
    • 4/5
      Very enjoyable apocalyptic Wizard of Oz story. Probably worth re-reading.
    • 4/5
      Good book. The style is similar of the late great Terry Pratchett's work with its footnote style world building. Also similar to Pratchett is its ability to tell a compelling story while maintaining a sense of silliness. If you've blown through Pratchetts work and are looking for something to scratch the itch then consider checking out this book. Paints an interesting and unique dystopian type world in which our hero launches his quest. Hope to see the author revisit and expand the universe with other installments.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Immerse yourself in a fully imagined American shitstorm taking place some time during or after the 2080s. Follow Truckee on a morbid journey with talking goat Barnaby, an android that is one of his 2.5 friends, and a lobotomized ex-con named Tiny Tim -- the crew charged with saving what is left of America. What a ride it is. Almost everything that could go wrong with America has, except for really excellent tech. The writer has a juvenile, raunchy way of writing at times, which could be attributed to Truckee since he is a sixteen year old... but the mostly body related humor is also apparent in the much quoted 'The Grifter's Guide to the Territories FKA USA' (at the beginning of most chapters). So I guess it's just the way Reed King writes? All of the similes and metaphors though -- egads, the subject matter is horrible enough without hardly a simile or metaphor that isn't body related. But if you can ignore all of those, there is some great writing and ideas here. The narrative is FULLY detailed and world built. Don't skip the footnotes - they are great. Small details like the rich being called the "uppercrust" and the workers called "crumbs" -- fantastic. There was only one sentence of a hint at what was happening outside of America and I would LOVE a worldly sequel. This book reminds me of Ready Player One, Douglas Adams, Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy, the Fallout games, Jasper Fforde, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', Jonathan Lethem's 'Amnesia Moon', 'Bats of the Republic' by Zachary Thomas Dodson, 'American War' by Omar El Akkad, 'The Heap' by Sean Adams, the TV show Z Nation, the film Brazil, Mad Max and very obviously the Wizard of Oz (BUT REALLY RETURN TO OZ WHICH IS BETTER). So many many things I love that I can see in this book. How could I not enjoy it?Honestly, this book is so dark, and part of it is even true already... I find it difficult for any writer to want to stamp this with their name. But I think whomever wrote it had a field day with the worldbuilding especially... all of the detail is striking and the best part of the book. So which writers are best at worldbuilding? Why is the writer a secret? WHO IS BEHIND THE PSEUDONYM?? (Really the most intriguing reason for me to read the book.) The only hints have been that they are a NYTimes bestselling author and they work in TV -- so not any movies? Only TV? Other than all those dreaded raunchy similes and metaphors, this is a solid book. The only reason it might be secret is because it doesn't really shine a very positive light on America (and understandably so in these times) but this book isn't saying anything that America might not actually be heading towards, as some evidence is already showing. OR the writer usually writes "literature" and not genre, and wouldn't want to be attributed to writing this future dystopian satire? Here are my guesses:+Before reading, I already suspected the book is written by George R.R. Martin because he knows he should be working instead on one of the most anticipated books in the world and people would be very angry with him if he isn't working on that. Then there is a Hobbit reference very early on? I know that is one of his favorite books. Also, the world building here is on par with GoT.+Another guess is Neil Gaiman. Not originally from America, he might be hesitant to add his name to a DARK American satire (so my first guess would be a writer that ISN'T from America.) There is also the huge amount of influences this book reminds me of, which might be why I like it so much, and many of those things seem to fall into what Mr. Gaiman might like.... especially The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy if you replace all the funny with darkness (but really no one can compare to Douglas Adams.)+My third guess might be Joe Hill. Because it just seems comparable to another book I read from him - NOS4A2, including a similar writing style. Possibly he figured he already wrote a dark road trip novel? And this can't really be classified as "horror" even though this future America is truly HORRIFYING. Maybe he is supposed to be mainly known for horror, like his dad. Also, he'd have a field day using a pseudonym using his dad's name!+ Other guesses: Lev Grossman, Jim Butcher, Kass Morgan (who did the 100 show), Noah Hawley (Legion-like crazy), Max Brooks (this book is much like World War Z and he also wrote for SNL, so there is the TV connection), Joss Whedon (he loves his apocalypses and dystopias... is he on the NYTimes Bestseller list though?).... I really hope it isn't James Patterson (well, the team of writers using his name could probably come up with much of this book anyway).... Is the book dripping with raunchiness to throw me off, so I'm not guessing more female writers? The list goes on... I'm just very intrigued to know! Who do YOU think wrote the book?