Mall World

Somtow Sucharitkul is both entertaining and insightful...sorta reminds me of Rudy Rucker that way, though Sucharitkul is much darker and weirder than Rucker. His understanding of other cultures is also amazing. This book is very diverse in its references, probably his best book though I have yet to find and read the rest of his novels. I would recommend it to anyone with an open mind who wants to be entertained.

Anyone who really liked Kevin J. Anderson's STAR WARS "Tales from Jabba's Palace", Alan Dean Foster's "Glory Lane", Spider Robinson's "Callahan's Cross-Time Saloon", or any other collection of bizzare science fiction, aliens, and the fringes of humanity is the perfect audience of Mallworld. In an ever-more crowded solar system confined by alien overlords, the humans living in the rural Belt as well as urbanites all flock to Mallworld to find EVERYTHING and ANYTHING. Mallworld is the shopping mall the size of a planet, open 24/7/365, with hordes of spree-shoppers and tourists, aliens and freaks, stair-well kids, mall workers, etc. The characters and settings are as dark as the Twilight Zone, esoteric as William Gibson, innovative as Philip K Dick and utterly intense. I loved every story in the book and have read it several times, recommended it to many friends (I have to loan them my copy autographed by the author himself because it is SO hard to find!). It's a shame this book is out of print and largely unknown because it truly is a gem that needs fresh publicity.

So, you've survived the presidential elections. You know to "Just Don't Do It!" and that Bob Dole is a war hero from World War II. You've learned all about how bad "big government" is. And we've learned about how much we miss the '80s. Now, this Thai import--occasional avant-garde composer, horror film director, and mildly prolific science-fiction author (http://www.primenet.com/~somtow/)--is here to bring back everything we loved about the 1980s. Consumer culture. Conspicuous consumption. Noise, music, and decadence. The ultimate Big Government--hyperintelligent aliens watching over the solar system, locking humanity away from the stars, and providing incredible technology. The book describes the Mall of the Future: the size of a planet, and caters to every possible consumer of anything, human and alien alike. A series of smoothly-written, clever short stories, punctuated by advertisements for the wonderful products available in the mall. Feast your eyes on the Mallworld Vampire, reduced to a sideshow at the Way-Out Suicide Club. Check out the daring youth, who refuse be decently nude like their parents are, and instead wear shapeless, indecent potato sacks. Join the Cult-of-the-Month Club. Try a dose of Levitol, and bounce off the ceiling. Forget that useless literacy, and interact with salesdroids. Live at the very center of solar commerce. This book, published in 1984, is vaguely out of print. I found it in a used bookstore a few years ago and loved it; it seems that even this site is having some problems with it. The pages are well-leafed, passages are underlined to read to friends. (c) 1996 Danyel Fishe