The Kingdoms of This World: a book review
All right, so I read Gabe Posey's 'The Kingdoms of This World.' I was just shamed into reviewing it by a cartoon on the Internet. I'm supposed to be reviewing books for a website (to be revealed later when I actually start to do this), and as Gabe is a low budget Internet guy, I took his original request for reviews seriously. Now I see that the site that I'm supposed to be reviewing books for already 'has' a review of Kingdoms, and he's involved in the site (small world) so you're stuck with it here.
I don't know why I downloaded it, probably some God-like Internet Blogger recommended it and I slavishly followed (must. show. more. self. control.). But it was totally fun. I thought I was reading one kind of book, and the point of view of the drifter/narrator was pretty interesting. I was getting into his head as he was poking around other people's lives. I've spent some time on the road and met some real interesting people, and it seemed credible.
Then it got weird. Not in the "I've given you a ride and how about doing something for me" kind of weird, but in an X-Files kind of way. I liked the X-Files. Mostly. Then the story took a left turn that threw me. After the initial shock of 'what the hell is this?' it got real fun.
Like so… you've got a totally normal drifter wandering around Texas (or, Takes-Us further on down the road) looking for work. Born into the life he has an interesting worldview going on inside his head. The sun is brutal, the day is turning him inside out, and he finally gets a ride. The guy looks him over, seems to see a little of himself in the wanderer, and offers him work on the ranch. Stories are told of old strange happenings, and of course the X-Files kicker is, 'they are happening again.' And so they do.
The town, Drycreek (alloneword) was formed literally, as these things go, around a dry creek. At the founding, after the first rain when everybody was celebrating, somebody went and broke his neck diving into the shallow water. They left him there, poor Henry Shanks, in the creek, or what was left of it, for a hundred years. Then he moved, and it went all downhill.
Along comes Tommy Woodbine, our unlikely hero, to get caught up in the mess, which is half Twilight Zone, half Animal Planet and half Stranger in a Strange World. I know that adds up to more than it should, I took math (maybe I should subtract the X-Files thing to even it out); but we are talking about different worlds here, which is where Tommy eventually winds up. Um, in a different world.
As Woodbine makes the jump he dons an anthropomorphic animal guise with hooves and fur and a taste for salt, and Posey has fun imagining what it would be like to have a rational mind in a body that still has all its feral senses. You know, kind of like how dogs sniff each other to say hello and find out what the other is up to? Not to mention the rutting.
But it's all not fun and games; there's war afoot, politics, intrigue, deception, loss, reunion, people (animals?) suspended in boxes and all the other stuff that you'll find in the Sunday Edition of the NY Times. I still can't make it through three quarters of the stories in the NYT but I read this right through. It's available in a dead tree edition to spill your coffee on, or as a download here for a couple of bucks. This is the third book I've read via download in as many months, and my Amazon bill has dropped appreciably, though I'm tempted to pick up a hard copy for the collection. What more of a recommendation could you ask for?
