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Anthropocene Rag Kindle Edition

3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 93 ratings

Anthropocene Rag is "a rare distillation of nanotech, apocalypse, and mythic Americana into a heady psychedelic brew."—Nebula and World Fantasy award-winning author Jeffrey Ford

In the future United States, our own history has faded into myth and traveling across the country means navigating wastelands and ever-changing landscapes.

The country teems with monsters and artificial intelligences try to unpack their own becoming by recreating myths and legends of their human creators. Prospector Ed, an emergent AI who wants to understand the people who made him, assembles a ragtag team to reach the mythical Monument City.

In this nanotech Western, Alex Irvine infuses American mythmaking with terrifying questions about the future and who we will become.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alex Irvine is the author of A Scattering of Jades, One King, One Soldier, The Narrows, Buyout, and Anthropocene Rag, as well as The Comic Book Story of Baseball and numerous licensed comics and novels in the universes of (among others) Marvel, DC, Dungeons & Dragons, Halo, Transformers, and Supernatural. His short fiction has been collected in Rossetti Song, Unintended Consequences, and Pictures from an Expedition. He has written or worked on about twenty games for Blizzard, Amazon, Marvel, and other studios, including the Peabody Award-winning Alternate Reality Game known as The Beast. All the work for Marvel got him thinking about “Form 8774-D” one day, and here we are. Learn more at alex-irvine.com.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07VY6NXBR
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tordotcom (March 31, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 31, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1014 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 164 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 93 ratings

About the author

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Alexander Irvine
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Alex Irvine has written more than thirty books, both his own original fiction (Buyout, The Narrows, Mystery Hill, A Scattering of Jades) and licensed work for Marvel, Hasbro, Warner Brothers, Fox, Blizzard, Legendary, and other international entertainment companies. He has also written comics (Daredevil Noir, Iron Man: Rapture, Hellstorm, Son of Satan: Equinox), games, and animation. The three games he's currently writing -- Marvel Avengers Alliance, Marvel War of Heroes, and Marvel PuzzleQuest -- together have totaled more than 75 million players. Before leaving to write full time, he spent six years as an English professor at the University of Maine. A native of Ypsilanti, Michigan, he lives in South Portland, Maine, with his wife and three children...and two dogs, a bird, a snake and a fish. You can find him on Twitter or Facebook.

Favorite writers, in no particular order: Cervantes, Borges, Murakami, Dick, Pynchon, Herriman, Chaucer, Kelly. Ask me again tomorrow, the list would be slightly different.

Some favorite books, not written by people on the previous list (but all written by people who might have been on the list on a different day), and again in no particular order: Sarah Canary, Gould's Book of Fish, Geek Love, Midnight's Children, Song of Solomon...

More at Twitter (@alexirvine) and Facebook.

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
93 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the characters well-developed and relatable. They describe the story as interesting and imaginative, a masterwork of dystopian science fiction mixed with Americana elements.

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3 customers mention "Pacing"3 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's pacing. They find the characters engaging and well-drawn. The author makes them seem realistic without overdoing it.

"...has done a wonderful job with this book, it is engaging, the characters are great - and though short, well developed - and the story is interesting...." Read more

"...And it is in spots. Irvine does a pretty good job of drawing characters, but doesn't give them equal time...." Read more

"...such as the Boom, never really explain them directly, yet make them so real that you don’t think twice as you read about them." Read more

3 customers mention "Story quality"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the story engaging and well-developed. They describe it as a masterwork of mind-bending dystopian sci-fi, Americana, and imaginative prose.

"...are great - and though short, well developed - and the story is interesting...." Read more

"This book is a masterpiece of mind bending dystopian sci-fi, Americana, and imaginative prose...." Read more

"Interesting but not much payoff..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2020
    I liked this book. I used to it to wash away the bitter aftertaste of the classic dystopian speculative fiction I've been re-reading, more in preparation for what horrors the near future may bring and the comfort of familiar pastures than for entertainment. Not like the world of "Anthropocene Rag" is a happy place by any means, but there's a degree of whimsy in Irvine's dystopia that makes it curiously refreshing. He does not explain the rise of artificial intelligence or the catastrophe ("the Boom") that shape his version of North America except by invoking their aftermath. Constructs, AI avatars hardly distinguishable from human beings, wander the landscape in the form of famous historical figures. Playgrounds and major league ballparks are fused with the memories and thoughts of the people swept up in the Boom and forever lost. The role of nanotechnology likewise goes unexplained but not unevidenced ("plicks" circulate as tools and as currency despite their vulnerability to Boom effects). 'Tis a silly (but also deadly and devastated) place. His characters reckon with this world entertainingly as they accept mysterious invitations to Monument City and undertake cross-country journeys to reach it. By "entertainingly" I mean that I was mad that the story ended and would have paid money to find out what happened next.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2020
    Alex Irvine has done a wonderful job with this book, it is engaging, the characters are great - and though short, well developed - and the story is interesting. The world Irvine creates in this work of fantastical futurism holds slivers of possible reality, making it both entertaining and occasionally unsettling.
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2020
    I thought this might be my cup of tea - a hard take off singularity with humans gathered together by one of the AIs. And it is in spots. Irvine does a pretty good job of drawing characters, but doesn't give them equal time. Some are more like spear carriers than actual characters.
    And then there's Irvine's favorite characters - Life-7 and Prospector Ed, the AIs that seems to be in charge of this Odyssey. Those more pages than anything else.
    And then there is the ending... it literally just STOPS. An extra chapter would have gotten it 4 stars. I don't know if Irvine was trying for literary status, just had to finish the thing or his editor had ideas, but it just stops.
    All in all, it was entertaining but not what I was hoping it would be.
    Not to my taste and I can't recommend it.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2020
    Thanks to NetGalley for a providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

    This book, that in all honesty I thought was going to turn out to be pretty dumb, had me hooked from the first page in a bizarre adventure that I could not put down. This odd little novel manages to be equal parts Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Westworld, and Welcome to Night Vale while at the same time being a very distinct work.

    The thing I was most concerned with while reading this was the question of “how can strange this story possibly end?” Some may be dissatisfied with how it does, but I felt that it fit perfectly with both the writing style and the overall narrative.

    And that is all I will say on any of that, as I feel to go into any detail about the book would harm someone’s enjoyment of it. I recommend if for anyone who enjoys post-apocalyptic SF as it is definitely one of the more unique entries into the genre.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2020
    This book is a masterpiece of mind bending dystopian sci-fi, Americana, and imaginative prose. Beautifully written and accessible, putting literary perfection in a package that could be appreciated by anyone. I can’t possibly recommend it enough, buy it, read it, try to wrap your head around it, then go back and do it again because you’ll notice things you missed the first time.

    What are you waiting for?
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2021
    An interesting landscape of a post America after a sentient AI releases programmable nanoites that can change reality. At least I...think so....and thats the problem with the book. I was dropped into it "midstream" without much context. It describes a quest by six individuals starting at different locales in order to reach avcommon destination - but thats it. Unfortunately, for a story that has no context at its beginning - it also has no closure at its ending. So I was left frustrated with many questions unanswered. 3 stars for imagery - but the truth is imagery is all it has to offer but no real plot
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2020
    This reads like a first draft produced for the write a novel in a month club. Without giving too much away, it's a roadtrip in nanotech gone crazy land, or rather a series of roadtrips of a set of characters, selected in a "Charlie and Chocolate Factory" kind of lottery to journey to a mystical city. Unfortunately, the different concepts, elements and characters are all just kind of thrown out there, and don't ever come together. In particular, the final couple of chapters just sort of flail into adolescent "what ifness." A good editor and a couple more drafts might have pulled something interesting out this.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2020
    From north, east, south and west the 6 oops 7 invitees make their way across a strange transformed America. The author manages to invent strange new concepts such as the Boom, never really explain them directly, yet make them so real that you don’t think twice as you read about them.

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