Dead Boys

Warning: Spoilers ahead These three novels (Dead Girls, Dead Boys and Dead Things) can be viewed in two ways: as a traditional trilogy, chronicling the adventures of its protagonist in a reality gone mad, or as complementary narratives which, using the same premise as a springboard, veer off in wildly different directions. Either way, these novels, ambitious as they may be, constitute three moderately successful pieces of fiction which do not comprise a satisfying whole. Dead Girls, the first book in the cycle, lays the groundwork for the rest of the series. The book focuses on Ignatz Kwazh, an angst ridden, obsessive nebbish, and his exotic paramour Primavera. Upon entering puberty, Primavera, like many of her contemporaries, contracted a nanotech virus which transformed her into a white, plastic skinned lifeform, called a "Doll" or "Lilim" (after Adam's first wife Lilith) by a fearful human populace. Males are apparently immune to the virus, but can become carriers through contact with the sexually ravenous Lilim--their saliva carries agents that infect male gametes, insuring that any girl-children will be born dolls. The lovers, fugitives from a quarantined Britain, live in Bangkok, where Primavera earns a living as an assassin. Having crossed Madame Kito, the kingpin of Bangkok's underworld, the couple are hunted by her minions and by allied American intelligence agents. The duo eludes their pursuers, but Primavera is wounded, and dies at novel's end. Dead Boys begins with Ignatz mourning the loss of Primavera. He aimlessly wanders the streets of Bangkok, carrying Primavera's excised sex organs in a jar, occasionally chewing them for the high they provide. Ignatz's tenuous grip on reality is further loosened when he begins to receive messages from 1000 years in the future, from a Lilim named Vanity who claims to be his daughter. Vanity is being hunted by Lord Dagon, who may actually be Ignatz himself. Dead Boys also introduces the concept of Meta, the name for the virus behind the doll plague. The virus, which has moved into the male population (transforming its victims into fanged, sexless creatures called Elohim), is now affecting the very fabric of reality. Dead Things, the last book in the series, follows Lord Dagon, a ruthless doll killer who roams the solar system in search of his prey. Here, Calder reveals that Dagon is indeed a future incarnation of Ignatz, transformed into Elohim by the Meta virus. Discovering that he is the key to ending the Meta plague, Dagon/Ignatz travels back in time to prevent the Meta virus from infecting reality and changing the course of human history. The series' strongest features are Calder's dystopian vision and his frenetic prose. In Calder's decadent future, anything goes. Technology, in an attempt to cater to an amoral populace, has run amok, threatening humanity's existence. Calder conveys the desperation in feverish prose, effectively portraying a world where hope has va

This is a difficult, absorbing work reminescent of William Burroughs (with nods to early William Gibson). An intricate postlinear narrative makes the protagonist's morbidly erotic future world palpable and uncomfortably _real_. Calder is a gifted experimentalist and "Dead Boys" is like no other novel in its genre.