- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, Inc. (Aug 5 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1894063546
- ISBN-13: 978-1894063548
- Product Dimensions: 21.5 x 13.8 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 295 g
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#198,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #83 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers > Technothrillers
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
In the commodified future the consequences of a falling society are brought to bear upon one man's ambition and his attempt to escape his own socio-economic hell.
The world's ecosystems have been destroyed by genetic pollution and cities have evolved into mega malls. Budgie is a knife wielding, brass knuckled young man from the impoverished and brutal red section of Toronto's T-Dot Center. When his best friend is murdered and Budgie falls in love with the woman responsible, he learns that there's more to life than drugs, blood or money.
To escape his past he must give up everything and everyone he knows and sell his perceptions to an enigmatic and dangerous gang leader. Fighting for survival and unwittingly involved in a scheme that only he can stop, Budgie must ask himself: Does he want to?
Technicolor Ultra Mall is an ultra-violent science fiction dystopic novel about the value of being human in a completely commodified world.
About the Author
Ryan Oakley was raised in a small town and discovered at an early age that he was drawn to the bright lights, white noise and gaudy trappings of the big city. He works as a bartender, waiter and dishwasher, as needs be, and is fast becoming known as Toronto's most notorious dandy.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jacked Up Brave New World, Feb 3 2012
By Christina Paige - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Technicolor Ultra Mall (Paperback)
Speculative fiction is sometimes imagining a What if...; other times it is the exaggeration of what we have already made, like the Star Trek episode written during the 1960s with the last man of one race being hunted by the last man of another race, between whom is undying hatred because one is black-white and the other is white-black, left-side right-side. Technicolor Ultra Mall is Heath Ledger's Joker crossed with Fox News and Snow Crash; it is the ultimate exaggeration shot through with flashes and ribbons of what if....Malls are places we go to, but in TUC the underground mega-malls are where people live, and everything is for sale. Theme songs like leit-motifs twine through people's brains like just another drug, every utterance is an advertisement or product placement, corpses are commodities. Red level, and most of Technicolor Ultra Mall takes place on Red Level, is the debtor's prison-dumping ground-penal colony-urban ghetto that fuels the economy of all three. That's where body parts come from, where everyone is on drugs, where advertisements pay for themselves, and it's fuzzy whether life is a shopping spree or a danse macabre.
The characters, mainly Budgie, Griff, Harmony, Sitcom, and Bob Anger, live and destroy themselves and each other in this world of artifice and violent amusement. Some are trying to survive, some are trying to manipulate their world, others are trying to preserve a part of themselves that the world wants to eat alive.
The writing is hellish, brilliant, stellar and profane. It is dungheap, offal, and diamonds. Near the end, Sitcom explains what an apocalypse is, that it is a tearing away of the veil to reveal the heart of the matter. Oakley is definitely calling attention to the man behind the curtain, challenging readers to see themselves, and their secret hearts. Are you here? Or here? Or are you not here? WHERE DO YOU LIVE?!?
3.0 out of 5 stars
Competent and Relevant, Mar 11 2012
By Manuel R. - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
Technicolor Ultra Mall is competently written. It tackles the subjects of consumer culture and the increasing alienation of people from their emotional experience in a dystopian future. This future is ruined by genetically engineered crops and pollution. For those living in the lower levels of the Ultra Mall, the worlds cities, its a rough life of detachment and loyalty to the gang. In the suburban style middle levels it is a life of consumerism and trying to find some sort of real fulfillment. Personally I didn't get much out of it because the topics are so familiar to me and I have been exposed to similar stories. Recommended to those who can stomach the violence and sexuality and want to see American consumer culture taken to the extreme. It even has some not so distant future tech that adds to the plot.The kindle edition has many formatting problems. The text is often interrupted by line breaks mid-sentence. Like if someone hit return in the middle of the sentence. It breaks the flow of the reading and paragraphs. I caught one or two spelling errors. If these issues were fixed it would make for a flawless reading experience on the kindle.
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