'The latest--and greatest--sci-fi thriler in the Zoey Ashe Series.
'Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements. An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move. Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes. A young woman suddenly in charge of the most decadent city in the world--and her very smelly cat.
'Zoey Ashe is like a fish so far out of water that it has achieved orbit. She finds herself struggling to establish rule over a sprawling empire while Tabula Ra$a's rogue's gallery of larger-than-life crime bosses and corrupt plutocrats smell weakness. Tensions brew across the city.
'A steamer trunk-sized box arrives at Zoey's door, and she and her bodyguard Wu are shocked to find that it contains a disembowelled corpse, and even more shocked when that corpse, controlled by an unknown party, rises from the box and goes on a rampage through the house. After being subdued, it speaks in an electronic voice, accusing Zoey of being its murderer. Soon, it makes the same claim to the public at large, along with the promise of a cash reward for proof that Zoey and the Suits are behind the crime.
'Now Zoey is having doubts of her own: Is she 100% sure that someone on her team didn't do this? She also doesn't even have a complete list of what businesses she owns, or what exact laws her organisation is still breaking. So what does she really know?'
Sometimes coming into a series after the first book can be something of a challenge, wither the book can be too dense with things left over from the previous entries that it becomes hard to know what's happening, or it can become so bogged down with trying to explain everything that it can alienate new readers under an info-dump. Zoey Punches The Future In The Dick could easily have faced these issues, it's set in a world where the fantastical is the norm, and society is pushed to the extreme, so suddenly being thrust into that with characters and a set-up that you don't know is a daunting prospect; however, I never once felt lost or overwhelmed reading this, which speaks volumes to how well Jason Pargin (writing under his pen-name David Wong) writes the book.
The book returns readers to the city of Tabuala Ra$a, a mostly lawless metropolis formed by gangsters and powerful businessmen in Ohio. It's here that were introduced (or reintroduced to returning fans) to Zoey Ashe, a young woman in her early twenties who grew up a regular poor, working class girl in a small town, but discovered her father was the billionaire founder of Tabula Ra$a when he died and she inherited everything he had. Now Zoey finds herself not only heading up a business empire, but also all of the shady and illegal dealings her father had, including his former enemies.
The story begins with Zoey having to respond to a hostage situation in one of the businesses she now owns when a cybernetically enhanced man smashes his way into the building and threatens to kill everyone inside unless Zoey gives herself over. Zoey manages to help bring the volatile situation to a peaceful conclusion, but is still hated by much of the city, who have taken to harassing and bullying her whenever they get the opportunity.
When the hostage taker turns up at her home, dead inside a trunk, a month later Zoey's problems get even worse. Stripped of organs, and made to attack her via his cybernetic implants, the victim blames Zoey for his death. Pretty soon rumours spread throughout the city that Zoey has had him killed so that she can eat his organs, and a million dollar bounty is put on her head to make her confess to these heinous crimes. Now Zoey not only has to try to get to the bottom of this mystery, but needs to keep herself alive as she is targeted by every bounty hunter and hate group in the city.
It's made pretty clear very early on during the book that you don't have to take things too seriously in the world Pargin has crafted here. There are some brutal and disturbing moments yes, but these tend to occur rarely, and the book instead relies on an almost satirical sense of silliness to keep things fun and entertaining. The stakes are big, but the characters always manage to keep things feeling light. There's a high speed vehicle chase where our heroes are under attack, but it features a human glider flying around, there's a brutal fistfight as Zoey tries to stay alive, but her opponent also has an electric crotch whip. The whimsy manages to make scenes that would otherwise be too intense manageable, and will have you laughing out loud more than once.
I liked this sense of humour the book had, and the way it was also used in the world as well as the characters. More than once Tabula Ra$a reminded me of Mega City One from Judge Dredd, in the sense that anything felt possible. Even though the book is set around Halloween Zoey makes it clear that much of the bizarre costumes and over the top people walking the streets wouldn't be out of place on any day of the year, and the constant social media monitoring and giant electronic billboards made it feel like a crazy future to live in.
Thanks to the brilliant world building, interesting cast of colourful characters, and a plot with more twists and turns in it than I was expecting, the book was a pure joy to read, and I blasted through it faster than I thought I would. I'm definitely going to be going back and checking out the first book because of this, and really look forward to seeing more from Zoey in the future. As long as she's done punching it in the dick.
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