Elvissey
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
A young Elvis Presley is kidnapped into the future to be the new messiah in this “jarringly potent” novel from the author of Ambient (William Gibson).
Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award
At once a biting satire and a taut sci-fi thriller, Elvissey is the story of Isabel and John, a troubled couple who are sent through a “window” from the year 2033 to a strangely altered 1954. They are on a desperate mission to kidnap a young Elvis Presley and bring him back to the present day to serve the powerful conglomerate Dryco as a ready-made cult leader. But when Elvis proves to be a reluctant messiah, things do not work out quite as planned.
With his distinctive prose, Womack has combined “serious sociological extrapolation, high and low comedy, pulp adventure, pop iconography” and more in this highly original novel (Omni).
“Nazi flying saucers over an alternate 1950s Memphis, your basic cross-time godhead abduction of Elvis Presley, and what must surely be one of the flat-out weirdest Fisher King inversions yet perpetrated in American literature. Achingly sad, downright alarmingly funny, and just about as serious as any of us can presently afford to be.” —William Gibson, author of Neuromancer
“Jack Womack is another of the heirs of cyberpunk, one of science fiction’s most interesting new writers” —Los Angeles Times
“Womack’s book is different in tone and content from anything you may have read.” —Financial Times
“Womack astounds and entertains. . . . Though the plot suggests the ridiculous, this is, in fact, a deep, often theological, reflection on love, betrayal and commercially inspired nihilism.” —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Womack ( Ambient ) astounds and entertains in this adventure featuring a young Elvis Presley kidnapped into a future in which he becomes a deity. Though the plot suggests the ridiculous, this is, in fact, a deep, often theological, reflection on love, betrayal and commercially inspired nihilism. The narrator is Isabel, a high-level operative for Dryco, a mind-manipulating multinational conglomerate in a parallel future. Seeing control of various Elvis-worshiping sects as important to its domination of the globe, Dryco sends Isabel and her husband through a ``Window'' to kidnap young Elvis from another parallel universe. They find the King-to-be of Rock 'n' Roll standing over the body of the mother he has just murdered, and he takes the couple on a bloody road trip through the South before they arrive in Dryco's world. Though Elvis is happy to have escaped murder charges, his gnostic philosophy makes him a reluctant messiah, and Dryco goes to extremes in convincing him to go public. From loony beginning to gripping climax, Womack has found a brilliant vehicle through which to examine relationships, race, popular culture and a host of other topics, and forces us to contemplate whether the dystopian worlds he evinces are not, in fact, merely heterotopian.
