Short and to the point: wildly entertaining and well worth the read. This may not be the future we want one day, but probably the one we’ll get.

This series of books is amazing. Can't wait for more. Juvenile humor layered upon dick jokes stewed in a deep melange of sarcasm and college humor. This does nothing tondispell the depth and intelligence of the writing and the ability of the author to spin a wild tale that you will give up trying to figure out 40 pages in and just.... settle in for the ride.

Also, this book would be more popular (and the sequel would be released faster) if the lizard people who run our child welfare programs would just stop endorsing rampant unlicensed sodomy and get behind the women's suffrage movement.

This is the future speaking and can confirm that our collective dick was punched by Zoey

Gonzo crossover cyberpunk/comic book/social commentary continuing story of Zoey Ashe, a twenty-something, trailer trash heiress to a pseudo-criminal empire confounding a conspiracy against her in a futuristic parody of Las Vegas. Second book in a continuing series.


Stench Machine Spider/Cat Mecha

My audio edition was about eleven and a half (11 ½) hours long. A dead tree copy would be 384 pages. The original US copyright was 2021.

David Wong is the nom de plume of Jason Pargin an American humor writer. He has 5-books published, in two series. This was the second book in the author’s Zoey Ashe series. Currently there are two books in the series. This was also the 4th book I’ve read by the author. The most recent being Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (Zoey Ashe, #1) (my review).

Its strongly recommended you read [b:Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits|20501606|Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (Zoey Ashe, #1)|David Wong|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429313468l/20501606._SX50_.jpg|34393786] before this book. It heavily leverages events and characters from that book.

Full disclosure, I’ve been reading David Wong since his Cracked.com early days. (That’s a sad commentary on my life, I know.) You have to understand his schtick to get it. Aside from the toilet humor, dick and titty jokes and other one-liners, his hyperbolist, satire of common TV tropes can be very funny.

The key theme to the Zoey Ashe series was the Unexpected Inheritance story. The protagonist Zoey Ashe a self-described “trailer troll” barista unexpectedly inherits her estranged, biological father’s quasi-criminal empire and vast fortune. This takes place in a cyberpunkish-near future where the Surveillance Society was a form of entertainment for the purpose of Bread and Circuses . The story’s main venue was a City Noir called Tabula Ra$a, Utah a Las Vegas-like, utopia for the super-rich and criminals. Zoey is a Reluctant Ruler of the The Chains of Commanding type. In this story, Malicious Slander and a rival believing in the Heir Club for Men entangle her. (I’ll stop now pointing out the tropes being satirized, of which there are many.) Zoey takes a firmer grasp of the reins of her late father’s organization (including his management team of men and a woman in “Fancy Suits”), overcomes her anxieties, saves herself, and along the way makes Tabula Ra$a a better place.

Wong's books are gonzo and laddish. They’re also very contemporary in language and chock-full of popular cultural references. This one, written recently was easier for me to get the references than the Zoey Ashe #1 book, written almost 10-years ago and read recently.

The plot lines were very much comic book-like. The descriptions were good. The badinage of the dialog was entertaining, but requires calibration to be amused by it. As written above the humor can be puerile. I did laugh-out-loud more than once, and found some of the descriptive writing used to create “sight gags” to be good. The action sequences were good, but of the comic book graphic novel , ‘on-steroids’ type. For example, characters took enormous beatings, but kept on ticking. Nobody went into shock due to trauma or blood loss.

As in the previous book, there was an odd 3rd person POV. Ashe was the protagonist. She’s ‘Plucky”, but a failed ‘Action Girl’. (That’s part of the running joke.) Some folks may find this satirisation of a stereotype to be objectionable. I was fine with Wong’s handling of the female character. Ashe also had a beloved cat (Stench Machine), who figures large in the story. I actually revile ‘Cat Stories’, but I see what he did there.

Some folks may be offended by the: violence against women and cats, gore, scatological references and 'dick' and ‘titty’ jokes. Despite the bawdy nature of the prose, there were no sweaty, naughty bits in the story, other than the “we did it once” type. There was talk of substance abuse; both hard and soft-core drugs, but no active consumption was described. Consumption of alcohol was immoderate. There was: physical, edged-weapons, firearms, and heavy weapons violence. Violence against women is mentioned. The descriptions of physical trauma was graphic. The body count in the story was near genocidal. Property damage was at the level of modern warfare.

This story was much like the previous book, although the Ashe character was more introspective. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." She’s isolated. She has no close friends, and the only regular social interaction she has is with her cat, Stench Machine. In this story she comes to grips with her power and prestige. She realizes the extent of her responsibilities and embraces them. She also accepts that she’ll have a lot more worries than other people, or she had while living in a trailer park.

This book was not a great work, but understanding Wong’s humor, it was amusing to me. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous book. The world building of Tabula Ra$a and the interesting character building of the Men (and woman) in Fancy Suits was now familiar. I also found the ‘cat plotline’ to have been beyond the pale, even for Wong. Having written that, not everyone appreciates gonzo humor or has my exposure to Wong. If you have no tolerance for the profane, hyperbole, or humor involving: class, technology, “double-think” and man’s inhumanity to man, woman, and cats-- you're not going to like this book. However, there was an entirely different level-of-humor lurking below them. Not everyone will like this, but I found it to be ‘listenable’.

I may shortly be reading the next unread book of Wong’s series John Dies at the End series: [b:What the Hell Did I Just Read|33574090|What the Hell Did I Just Read (John Dies at the End, #3)|David Wong|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1488489522l/33574090._SY75_.jpg|54380521].

Read this book if you, like me, believe that cannibalism should be not just legal, but COMPULSORY.

Read this book if you want a complex and relatable lead doing her best to navigate impossible circumstances. Read it if you want to know what happens when “John Dies at the End” meets “A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet” at a bar in Bladerunner and they have a coke-fueled one-night stand that spits out a baby named Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick. Read it if you’re looking for a weirdly satisfying found family narrative that includes a cat named Stench Machine.

Just read it. (But read the first one first.)