Murdered in 2009. Revived in 2373. When Hugh Toffle wins cryogenic head insurance on a night out, he's no idea that he might be making use of it sooner than he thought.
Some people who can afford the price of immortality have their bodies frozen in liquid nitrogen, hoping that they can be thawed out whenever medical science has a cure for whatever is killing them. If Lazarus has maxed out his credit, however, he might be able to overdraw enough to freeze only his head for the day when the rest of his body can be cloned from a whisker. Thus is the premise of Clive Warner's latest flight of funky fantasy into a dystopian future when death is not nearly so certain as taxes.
Excerpt
I’m crouched in a surveillance vehicle on Bornaga Boulevard, monitoring a rally. We’re parked about five blocks away, me and a team of chimps. The chimps operate the bugs, small airborne videodrones that provide us with 3-D images of the action over in Scheitzen Square, in the heart of the dog sireland.
One drone gives us a high-to-one-side panorama of the scene. There must be a good thousand dogs there.
In the center of the Square stands an impressive statue: A human forearm and hand point to the sky; around it, to a smaller scale, a dog’s foreleg, cat’s foreleg, ape forearm and hand, and a rather indeterminate-looking claw, also point upward. The tip of the highest finger, the human one, looks to be a good two hundred feet above the pavement. There’s a makeshift podium draped with the black and tan flag of this group, known as the ‘Rottweil Irregulars’. We’ve got a close-up drone on one massive Rottweiler/mod., who’s barking:
“Mongrals gat ta be yarfed. Respoofable for all dis mess. Not pure blood.”
Professional Reviews
Rebooty
Some people who can afford the price of immortality have their bodies frozen in liquid nitrogen, hoping that they can be thawed out whenever medical science has a cure for whatever is killing them. If Lazarus has maxed out his credit, however, he might be able to overdraw enough to freeze only his head for the day when the rest of his body can be cloned from a whisker. Thus is the premise of Clive Warner's latest flight of funky fantasy into a dystopian future when death is not nearly so certain as taxes.
Unable to pay taxes, either, the hapless protagonist's thawed head is made to earn his keep by being grafted into a housecleaning robot. If he works hard for the thrift shoppers who buy him, he hopes to save enough gratuities to purchase a new body cloned on the installment plan, eye by eye, tooth by tooth, finger by finger, and ball by ball.
The course of renewed life proves bumpier than a pavement of good intentions. The talking head's stash of cash is stolen, and when another cyborg helps him slay the determined thief, The Hugh-man becomes a fugitive in a city of intelligent animals enslaved for wages less than paid to chain gangs, Chicanos, illegal Orientals, or domesticated women, until rescued by an amourous orangutan who grafts his head onto the cloned body of her late husband --- to have her way with him; there are worse fates for men who get off on hairy females. Chaotic fantasy escalates to nightmare burdened by anomie relentless as the A L I E N, climaxing by interghetto war in sewers, among talking cats, rats, dogs, and apes armed with bazookas.
Critical readers will appreciate the writer's mature voice and the story's masterly construction, with flawless pacing accelerating steadily to a poetic, machine-gun staccato of the climactic battle scene. This comedy of bad manners is for fans who miss no sequel of RESIDENT EVIL on ELM STREET and can visualize Warner's description of the tempestuous, tempting Yolanda as a tawny, tasty Lolita.
Rebody
Clive demonstrates real imagination in his creation of human/machine creatures. His character development leads to easy entertaining reading. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Evil Seed: Mother Earth vs. the Human Race; Who Will Survive?
Launched onto a surreal odyssey by a desperate call for help, a heroine reluctant to save her own unworthy species, coupled with her closest friends and a band of otherworldly allies,
Modern Mythology is a collection of fifteen imaginative stories having mythological themes and also possessing interesting mythological allusions and characters.
