#16 of favorite books. An uncannily relevant vision of a post-pandemic future with sasquatch, sock monkeys, ancient aliens and a pirate queen.
Dystopias are the bread and butter of speculative fiction, with a plethora of classics going back over a century. But given many of the grim realities we’re dealing with now, I need a little sunshine and optimism. Out of dystopia fatigue came solarpunk, a movement focused on envisioning a sustainable future. By far the best I’ve read so far is The Redwood Revenger, a trilogy published in 2018-21, but works as a chonky 1,000 page single volume, much like Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Murakami’s 1Q84. This book gives reason to hope human civilization can bounce back from a global pandemic (a paleomegavirus reduced the planet’s population by 70%), the Great Warming, an Arctic War, even a tyrannical AI surveillance state with murderous slot-toasters that’s come and gone.
By 2043, the West Coast has seceded and become a Cascadian Federation, a thriving, sun-powered agriculturally innovative empire, a post-dystopia you’d actually want to live in. In the vibrantly colorful, lush surroundings, 16 year-old Olivia Ermine has returned to her family home in town of Redwood with her uncle Ernie, a globetrotting artist who took over her care when her parents were killed in so-called balloon accident. It’s a deeply weird world with floating Cheshire pigs and surf-rock Sasquatches. It’s not all paradise, as there are still pockets of ultra-right ring fundamentalist/truther militia groups based in the Mad Max style wasteland of Montanastan, but with more good guy gay nuns. Huge flaming golden crosses float around the land at random gifting locals with party buckets of guns, ammo, VanDirks Merry Meals, bags of “prayer-powder,” and VDs-branded merch. The golden crosses talk: ”JEBUS IS PURITY, THE GUN IS LIFE. GO FORTH AND KILL THE UNBELIEVERS AND MULTIPLY, FOR BLESSED ARE THE BEEFMEATS.” Olivia is also stalked by a baleful sock monkey, and discovers a rivalry with the VanDirks family that goes back all the way to the 1600s, with VanDirks involved in the slave trade and hunted by a the vengeful Sephardi abolitionist pirate queen.
The Redwood Revenger handles themes both epic (good vs. evil, e.g. pig vs. monkey) and personal (love, friendship, queer identity, sex and rivalry) with sly satirical subtlety and humor. It’s a wildly entertaining ride that also includes a galactic conquest storyline, an ancient alien possession of a little girl with hilarious results, and even a Jacobean revenge tragedy. The second book, Red Bush, is introduced with the quote, “Has not heaven an ear? Is all the lightening wasted?” from Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy, “as groused by Vindice (in a comical aside).” Olivia’s right-hand man Byron Rosebeetle, who himself unpacks some remarkable abilities tied to his ancient bloodline, stars in The Redwood Revenger, an entire play ingeniously embedded within the book.
Can Olivia and her friends solve a conspiracy that threatens not only their families and town, but the entire planet? I think there’s a vast audience who would want to know, and have hopes that this will eventually spawn a Netflix series, a Rosebeetle Cafe cookbook, and pig/monkey plushies. A single volume bind-up will hopefully be coming soon.
RIYL: Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens, Thomas Pynchon, Jonathan Swift, Alexandre Dumas, Neil Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, William Gibson’s Jackpot trilogy.
The Redwood Revenger Book One (2018) | Red Bush: The Redwood Revenger Book Two (2019) | Red Root: The Redwood Revenger Book Three (2021)
16. Johannes Johns – The Redwood Revenger (2021)
17. Neil Gaiman – Neverwhere (1996)
18. Haruki Murakami – 1Q84 (2011)
19. Thomas Pynchon – Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)
20. William S. Burroughs – Naked Lunch (1959)
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