Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg
If I had to describe this book in two words I’d have to say… Absolutely brilliant!!
Fortunately, I’m not bound nor inclined to short descriptions.
Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg is a uniquely engrossing and entertaining read from the first page to the very last word. In the opening scene we meet our hero, the reincarnated, polymath infant Gordon, who guides us through a fantastic journey of mysticism, intrigue, and conspiracy as he strives toward manhood.
With an incredibly intelligent plot, elegant and gripping phrasing, versant nostalgia and a sprinkling of comedy Swannson proves that he has a unique and distinctive voice. This odd but entertaining novel contains familiar elements of Shea and Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy, Kerouac’s On the Road, Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and the entire catalog of Hunter S. Thompson. I was wholly entertained by every one of the six-hundred plus pages of this epic coming of age story. Swannson allows us to be our almost forgotten adolescent selves again while we tag along with Gordon and friends on their strange journey into adulthood.
If you like smart, literate, and humorous Conspiracy Theories about secret societies, alien manipulation, Freemasonry, narcolepsy, Templars and the occasional psychedelic acid trip (and who doesn’t?) then this book is for you! In my estimation, Derek Swannson has created a true masterpiece that will stand the test of time. He weaves intricately patterned characters and scenes with great skill and while the novel is a trifle lengthy there is not a single wasted or misplaced word.
Being of a certain age I identified completely with the pop-culture, drug-related, Rock ‘n Roll references, socio-political movements, and historical moments identified in the book. I have to admit that I couldn’t help but laugh at the adolescent banter, insults and jokes between Crash and his friends. And the nostalgia… ah… Farrell’s Ice Cream Shop and the infamous Pig Trough, Speedos, Quadraphonic stereos, camping, and hellgrammites for fishing. Swannson may have channeled every teenage boy I ever knew.
I’m told that the sequel, Crash Gordon and the Revelations From Big Sur is forthcoming. I, for one, can’t wait! Do your self a favor and purchase Swannson’s Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg and his other previously published novel Nitt-Witt Ridge. You certainly won’t be disappointed.
Rating: (The very rare) Six out of Five Stars
–by The Alternativeposted on Amazon, June 18th, 2009
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Crashing Into Babylon Was Never This Much Fun
I am very happy to be writing this review of Derek Swannson’s Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg, a situation unusual enough that I should probably explain my happiness before I go any further. I read something like 150-200 books a year for what I like to call research (although that number does not include the many hundreds more I read with my first-grader, but those are her books, as wonderful as some of them are.) I also write a great deal: essays, polemics, commentaries, etc. The one thing I don’t do is book reviews, despite the use I make of what I read.
I’ve decided to make an exception with Crash because it was just so enormously enjoyable, which is really saying something, since I read whatever I want–almost all of those books are very, very good. I am somewhat daunted, however, by the task of describing just what exactly this book is all about. It doesn’t help any to bandy about the typical clichés of the literary review–the seriocomic, madcap adventures of an adolescent narcoleptic, the shocking revelations of the truth behind the late 20th century American Dream, etc.–because Crash doesn’t fit very neatly into any of these narrow categories and worn out phrases. And yet… it’s all these things and more: smart, funny, ominous and uplifting… either by turn or even simultaneously.
In fact, if we want to get all technical about it, this book is actually a fine example of the old tradition of the Bildungsroman, because it is very much the story of a young man coming of age and learning important lessons about the world and himself along the way. That said, don’t expect some sort of Death in Venice experience here, unless you expand your classical definition to include death in Venice, California as the result of a bizarre, loosely secret CIA operation designed to turn the youth of America into an army of zombie assassins.
But seriously, folks….
Another way to talk about Crash is in terms of fearsome symmetries and the transcendence of the mundane; the problem with this description is that things get turned around quite a bit. It’s the reader who is so rudely thrown into the roller coaster without a seat belt and who must somehow make sense of what young Crash Gordon is experiencing. Crash is a lifelike character–what his creator has done, however, is to force us to take on his hero’s frail flesh & bones because the poor kid, hyper-intelligent though he is, is always just figuring out why he fell down all those steps last time as he’s about to walk straight off the cliff again. Our author is very clever about this; the trick of great fiction is to make the story real enough to suspend our disbelief and yet different enough from life as we know it to coax us into that fateful journey knowing that we might never be the same afterward.
It does seem somewhat strange to be discussing a novel as quirky and even shocking as Crash Gordon in terms of old-fashioned literary conventions–this is no Pride & Prejudice after all. When we learn that life is not even remotely as it’s been presented in popular culture and history books, we’re not meant to resume our old perspective the minute the trip is over. And yet, the alternative is not the usual desperate nihilism that most such revelations leave us with; Crash’s world is very much a moral universe, a pseudo-Taoist/Judeo-Christian construct that even manages to include karmic ledgers and the possibility of redemption and transcendence. Angels on both sides of the fence. We are rewarded with a cosmology that even makes sense, despite the frightening truths to which we’re exposed.
I don’t mean to suggest that no other living writer has achieved this sort of synergy–the gods of highly speculative fiction produce such gems with snail-like regularity. Writers like Tom Robbins and Thomas Pynchon and the late & very great Mr. Vonnegut. Some of the more manic maniacs, like Terry Pratchett and that silly Welshman who’s giving him a run for his money (Jasper Fforde) even manage to kick one out every year or so, right on schedule, but if you consider the bland, formulaic product that the book industry manufactures these days in comparison to these hand-crafted labors of love, well, you can see where these untamed visionaries stray from the beaten track.
Some readers might be leery of a story which shreds the veils of maya and conventional wisdom by way of conspiracy theory-driven plot devices, and yet these elements are not really crucial to the experience at all. At times we’re made to feel that the “machinations of dark powers” are even delivered tongue in cheek, that the fascist high school assistant principal might not even know he’s sporting the ubiquitous, usually invisible armband of The Dark Brotherhood. But aren’t all those power mad authoritarians fascists at heart, anyway, whether they realize it or not? Knowing that the assistant principal at your local high school is a kind-hearted soul only provides the exception to a rule that most of us never even bother to consider. Even if you don’t normally hang out at Jeff Well’s Rigorous Intuition, you can still learn something valuable from taking the occasional peek behind Life’s curtains, unless of course you’re perfectly comfortable believing everything you’ve been told.
But as I said, Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg isn’t really about secret operations and the revelations and connections thereof–it’s about a voyage of discovery and the life-affirming decision of our scrawny hero to blunder on even after he’s seen the sweaty backside of reality up close and way too personally. And that’s the magic and the artistry of this book. It’s a great, great read that draws you in and doesn’t let you go… ever. Or at least until someone talks Mr. Swannson into writing the sequel. I know I’ll be waiting in line.
–by iridescent cuttlefish, posted on Amazon.com, October 2, 2007
• • • • • • • • •
When I read the back-of-book blurb I thought, “Bunnies and plane crashes–what is this, Donnie Darko: The Book?” Well, if Donnie Darko, Fringe, and X-Files had a literary love child with all of their humorous genes dominant in the DNA, it would read like Crash Gordon. I mean this as a compliment.
What I’m saying is, if you like a good conspiracy theory, or a good story of teen angst, you’ll like this book. (And that would be any and all conspiracy theories–I’m pretty sure all of them are hit upon at one time or another in this book, in somewhat more detail than I cared for, but I still enjoyed myself immensely.) Actually, so much attention is paid to explicating the various conspiracies that it’s a wonder the characters don’t get short shrift; for the most part, they don’t, but sometimes I wished for less explanation and more story.
I was afraid I’d feel cheated when I realized that the final 125 or so pages of the book would be dedicated to such theory-expounding–what would happen to our hero and his friends? Surprisingly, the emotional pay-off was worthwhile, and didn’t seem hideously tacked-on just to satisfy whiners like myself. Whenever a book is over 600 pages, though, I always feel like it’s scrimping to just end things so suddenly and unsatisfyingly–what, after that long, you think we won’t stay with you? You can’t give us, you’re faithful readers, a little more time?
I heartily recommend Crash Gordon–it’s quite fun, totally absorbing, and probably even better if you’ve ever been an adolescent boy. Having read it, I can now channel a paranoid adolescent boyhood ca. early-1980s suburbia. Oh, wait…I knew some of those kids… ( 
)
Posted by hairball on LibraryThing | Jun 16, 2009 |
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