Book Review: Growing Up in Tier 3000 by Felix C. Gotschalk
Jonas Sum X 37A is five going on six, and has not yet fully committed to murdering his parents. The cute redheaded six year old from next door, Carol III Rex 246A, is getting impatient, as she’s already disposed of her parental figures and they can’t start their new life together until Jonas does. She’s also killed a clone of herself to be legally dead for tax purposes. Can Jonas’ folks Jason and Ellen outwit the children and murder them first?
This is the only full-length novel published by Mr. Gotschalk, psychologist and New Wave writer. Someone at Ace must have seen potential here, but hanged if I see how.
The word that immediately comes to mind is “hostile.” This book is actively hostile to being read, from the heavy use of future slang (“putmat” for “legal mother” and “surmat” for “nanny”), psychological jargon and ten dollar words all jumbled together, to deliberately trying to offend Twentieth Century American sensibilities in every way the author could cram in.
The setting is some five hundred years in the future, after the genocide wars and multiple other disasters warped human civilization into nearly unrecognizable shapes. (And yet pop culture froze somewhere in the 1960s; there’s a Lyndon Johnson joke.) Genetic engineering and bio-cybernetics are all the rage. While Jonas and Carol have all the emotional maturity and impulse control of the small children they are, they have the vocabulary and cultural knowledge of bored grad students.
Their civilization at first looks post-scarcity, with people able to “dial up” any object or creature they desire. But there’s actually a limited supply of energy, so children are programmed to kill their parents at a certain age. The parents are encouraged to defend themselves. I shouldn’t call it “murder”, as killing people is perfectly legal.
The first part of the book is Carol and Jonas killing off Jason and Ellen, with a couple of detours as Jason clumsily attempts to male-bond with his son. Once the parents are out of the way, Jonas and Carol are now considered an adult couple and start exploring their new life and jobs.
However, things take an abrupt term when the provobots (closest thing to cops) figure out that Carol killed her clone to avoid financial issues–turns out tax fraud is still very illegal. Carol and Jonas must flee, but where can they go?
Good: Yes, believe it or not. The author fully commits to the bizarreness of the future culture, and there are lots of little throwaway bits demonstrating the diversity and oddness of the world in Tier 3000. There’s some philosophical musings in the final chapters that make sense.
Less good: The writing style makes casual reading a struggle, slowing you down so you can savor just how much of a dumpster fire this book really is. And the author almost completely commits to being as offensive as possible. Suicide, rape, foul language, sexism, racism, underage sex, cannibalism, slavery, drugs and the list goes on. Same-sex sex is suggested, but the author chickens out on actually putting it on page. Surprisingly, no mention of birth control or abortion, given the whole “parent vs. child” motif.
Not recommended except to collectors who need it to fill out their checklist unread.
