MY FAVORITE BAND DOES NOT EXIST

When I first read the description for Robert T. Jeschonek's print novel My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, I was fairly certain that the author wrote the book specifically to get a good review from me and me alone. The story deals with rock bands, metafiction, and the internet, and as anyone who has ever met me can attest, these are three things about which I am quite passionate. But as it turns out, Jeschonek (can I just call you "Rob?" Is that cool?) has actually written a fairly accessible urban fantasy novel for young adults — one that just-so-happens to feature some wacky high concepts that help it along the way.

Synposis(es?)

My Favorite Band Does Not Exist actually consists of several different stories that are ultimately the same. We're first introduced to teenage boy named Idea Deity, who has created a fictional band on the internet called Youforia. This includes tour dates, band member bios, song lyrics, etc. — to the point that the "band" starts developing a rabid cult following, thanks to all the hype and mystery that surrounds them. In addition to this wildly clever Internet start-up, Idea also suffers from a chronic illness known as Deity Syndrome, a psychological condition that has him convinced that he is actually a character in a novel, and that he's going to die in Chapter 64. Along the way, Idea meets a girl with a face tattooed on the back of her head who helps him on his journey.

Meanwhile, Reacher Mirage is the lead singer and genius behind a band called...Youforia. Reacher is mildly obsessive-compulsive, and chronically unsure of himself, so much so that he will not allow the band to release music, or play any concerts, until he himself is "certain" they are ready. Needless to say, he is none too pleased to find out that there is an "official" Youforia website that includes actual song lyrics and biographical information about the members of the band. Reacher — with the help of his girlfriend, who also a tattoo of a face on the back of her head — is determined to find the creator of his band's website.

Reacher and Idea have other things in common besides female accompaniment with tattoos of faces on the backs of their heads. They have both been reading a fantasy novel called Fireskull's Revenant — and since our dual protagonists are reading the book, that means we get to read the book as well. While the inclusion of chapters from Fireskull's Revenant — presented like old, worn pages of an actual different book, complete with a different font and byline — was interesting, it often felt intrusive, as it continued to pull me away from the stories of Reacher and Idea. (or so I thought...[!]) In the end, once I fully understood its role in the story, I was pleased with it; it served its purpose well, even if the leap from rock-and-roll/internet/metafiction to Lord of the Rings-esque battle scenes was jarring.

Admittedly, some readers may have difficulty getting into the weird world of the book. Others might find themselves feeling apprehensive towards characters with names "Idea Deity," or his parents, "Vengeful Deity" and "Loving Deity." This naming convention actually helps to establishes the mood of the story — there's depth, yes, but at the same time, it maintains a tongue-and-cheek quality. Jeschonek is clearly channeling Thomas Pynchon with the naming of his characters, and as a Pynchon fan, I appreciate this.

This tongue-in-cheek quality should add to the appeal of readers who might find metafictional conceits and story-within-a-story fiction to be somewhat daunting. While it gives you as a reader a great deal to think about, it's not necessarily challenging. Jeschonek approaches these high concepts in a simple, comprehensible manner (a skill that one assumes he developed writing licensed novels for Star Trek and Doctor Who) I think this makes the book especially valuable for its target young adult audience, as it could serve as a gateway for readers into Vonnegut, Pynchon, Dick, Ballard, etc. In fact, one of my only complaints about the book is that Jeschonek occasionally allows himself to get too didactic, pointing out things to the reader that should be fairly obvious, especially when characters notice the parallels between their stories. It's a prime example of "Show, Don't Tell," but it might be useful for some readers who are not as accustomed to this kind of storytelling.

Rating

Story/ies — 6.4

While I did enjoy the overall story immensely, as well as the strange tales of Reacher and Idea, I didn't expect the LOTR magical medieval fantasy sequences to take up quite as much of the book as they did. Although it is billed as "Young Adult Urban Fantasy," the plot synopsis on the jacket led me to assume that the metafiction/reality-bending aspects were what made it "fantasy" (in the same way that Kurt Vonnegut is "science fiction"), rather than, ya know, guys with flaming skulls and leathery wings battling amorphous knights.

Style - 8.5

Robert T. Jeschonek is clearly a writer with a lot of big ideas and talent, and the way that this novel is told is especially commendable. It shifts across multiple narratives, and ultimately weaves them all together in a wild and original amalgamation. Even though the fantasy chapters of Fireskull's Revenant weren't my favorite, I truly enjoyed the way that the "novel" was presented within the greater context of the actual novel, and was impressed by the way it tied Reacher's and Idea's stories together.

General - 7

Overall, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist is a wacky and enjoyable trip (if not a little esoteric), full of intriguing, imaginative concepts that keep a reader hooked. I read the first hundred pages in a few short sittings, but as the ominous Chapter 64 approached, I couldn't stop reading, and ended up blowing through the 2/3 of the book in one night while I waited for my apple-mango-black-bean chili to cook down (it was delicious). While some of the fantasy/genre tropes of the story seemed out-of-place against the rock-and-roll/internet/metafictional world established at the beginning, I can't fault Jeschonek for his ambition in bringing it all together.

Overall - 7.3

My Favorite Band Does Not Exist is available in hardcover on July 11, 2011.

TIMEQUAKE: A Guest Post

*With our head Genoshan off wandering the streets of San Diego (probably dressed like Rocket Raccoon), he's handed the reins of the kingdom over to me for the week, so here goes...something, anyway.

You're sick, now you're better, there's work to be done — Kilgore Trout

The final novel published by acclaimed Absurdist/Sci-Fi author Kurt Vonnegut (followed only by a collection of essays and short stories), Timequake is inherently a failure. Don't get the wrong idea here; Timequake was actually the first Vonnegut I ever read (when I was about 12 — boy, did that go over my head! Why did you buy this for me as an Easter present, Dad?), and I enjoyed it even more the second time around (when I could actually comprehend and appreciate it), but the book Timequake is constructed entirely around Vonnegut's inability to complete the novel Timequake to a satisfactory degree.

Confused? Don't worry about it. Vonnegut's metafictional conceits have metafictional conceits, which in turn have more metafictional conceits, but not in that hurts-your-head kind of way; no, Vonnegut is clearly having fun with this, in that quirky, self-conscious way he does so well. And fortunately, he lays it all out on the line for the reader right up front, to avoid any unnecessary confusion: Timequake was (originally) a novel in which the universe suffers from a crisis in self-confidence—should it go on expanding? What's the point?—and forces everyone within it to re-live the last 10 years of their lives. Everyone would retain their memories of the first 10 year go-round, but would still be forced to go through them again on autopilot, reliving every moment precisely as it happened the first time, unable to change a thing.

Eventually, Vonnegut mostly gave up on this idea, and the Timequake that was ultimately published transformed into a different creature. The book consists of part salvaged sections from the original novel—presented as such, and usually concerning Vonnegut's fictional literary alter ego, Kilgore Trout—and part personal memoir. Taking the notion of a Timequake and applying it to his own personal experiences, as well as to the personal experiences of those close to him, Vonnegut explores ideas of fatalism, determinism, and human nature in the modern world through this fascinating (and often quite comic) lens. These anecdotes range from tragic (a woman who accidentally paralyzes her husband, and must relive it through the quake) to triumphant (a man wrongly imprisoned but eventually released and exonerated who must relive his entire redemption arc to become a hero again) and everything in between, narrated with that delightfully sardonic wit for which Vonnegut has become so renowned.

That being said, Timequake tends to eschew most of the traditional conventions regarding plot and linear cohesion, and this might turn some people off from it. Vonnegut does eventually return to many of his (and Trout's) briefly touched upon anecdotes and stories, often giving us small, almost stream-of-consciousness bursts of information before moving on to something only tangentially related and eventually working his way back several chapters later, but one gets the feeling that it never really goes anywhere. Each anecdote or story has a beginning, middle, and end, and the thematic connections are typically clear, but the story as a whole lacks an arc. As a reader, you are drawn in not by the ongoing meta-adventures of Kilgore Trout, but by the sheer enjoyment of each story as conveyed by Vonnegut (or Trout); there is very little beyond that, however, to compel you to turn the page and continue.

But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The end of the novel is surprisingly uplifting, and Vonnegut does flirt a bit with the massive destructive forces of Ennui and Apathy (the true antagonists of the story) that overcome the human race once they are free from the grasps of the Timequake (this would have been the action-packed, heroic climax of the original Timequake, in which Kilgore Trout must wake the people up and urge them to continue living, etc., etc.), which all kind of resembles a plot. Surprisingly enough, the apparent lack of cohesion almost makes it easier to read, as most of the anecdotes are both brief and enjoyable. As a reader, you never quite know where it's going to take you next, and a large part of the enjoyment is seeing where all of these seemingly non-sequitur characters and concepts lead and intersect. For those of you entirely unfamiliar with the works of Kurt Vonnegut, a large part of his appeal lies in his ability to speak simply about the most profound things, and this book is certainly no exception. There are times when his language and sentence structure feel almost childlike, but the concepts and ideas contained within are enough to blow your mind all the way to Tralfamadore, to Dresden, or to somewhere else entirely.

I give Timequake 3 and a half out of 5 Vonnegut self portraits:



So it goes.