Heathern

Some months back, I learned about Jack Womack's Dryco/Terraplane series. The concept of an all-powerful corporation in a near-future failed United States intrigued me and upon learning that the books were not written in chronological order, I decided to read them as such, starting with Random Acts of Senseless Violence.

Random Acts is a near-masterpiece. Its view of a rapidly disintegrating family juxtaposed with a rapidly disintegrating USA was fascinating and the viewpoint was intriguing. Seeing Lola, a teenager who goes from ordinary, sweet schoolgirl to hardened killer was absorbing and disturbing, with her first-person narration changing with new slang throughout. By the end, her speech sounds like Alex from A Clockwork Orange and realizing just how much she has lost is crushing. After this strong start to the series, I had high hopes for Heathern.

The book fell short on almost every level. The plot is weak and tedious. The protagonist is Joanna, an employee at Dryco who is also a mistress of all-powerful CEO Thatcher Dryden. Dryden has effectively taken over the country and decides that he needs something to put over the masses-a new Messiah under his control. Schoolteacher Lester Macaffrey is discovered by the company and when they realize that he has special powers, he is hired. While Joanna befriends Lester and comes to terms with her life, Lester proves difficult to control. This makes the plot sound much more interesting than it really is.

The characters are underdelevoped and forgettable. Dryden is the only memorable persona. He embodies the "magnificent bastard" trope and is utterly amoral. Dryden simply has no regard for life except the few that he loves. Everyone else is not just expendable but meaningless. He kills a person as effortless and with as much regard as one would swat a fly.

The rich worldbuilding that Random Acts did so well only appears in fits and spurts here and is the only thing that kept my interest. The plot and characters, aside from Dryden, simply did not interest me. We are given no reason to care about Joanna or Lester and their plight.

I am wary of continuing the series, although I will probably read the third book, Terraplane, at some point. I cannot recommend this book. It fails as a sequel to a far superior book and it is not memorable enough to stand on its own.