Archive for the ‘Jon Armstrong’ Category
The best of 2011
Posted on: December 13, 2011
The rules for my “best of” post were simple: I had to have read and reviewed the book in 2011, and it couldn’t be a reread (otherwise this list would taken over by Lynch, Powers, Brust, and others).
In no particular order (saving me the impossible task of choosing my utmost favorites), here are my top reads of the last 12 months. I’m surprised so many of them are new-ish books, as that wasn’t really part of the plan. Enjoy the little teaser then click on the title for the full review.
Grey by Jon Armstrong (2007) frantic, insane, completely over the top, hilarious, refreshing, and at times completely sick. This is dystopia like you’ve never read before. This is body modification and mortification, life imitating art to the nth degree, and performance art like you’ve never imagined. This is fashion punk.
The Third Section by Jasper Kent (2011) The third in Kent’s Danilov Quintet, one of the most brilliantly frightening books I have ever read, and brimming with betrayals and violence, seductions and patience, this is the series you’ve been waiting for if you prefer your vampire fiction to be more Bram Stoker than sparkly.
this Yarn will blow your mind
Posted on: April 15, 2011
Yarn, by Jon Armstrong
Published in 2010
Where I got it: borrowed from a friend
why I read it: I loved Armstrong’s Grey.
How to categorize this? scifi? dystopian? fashionpunk? craftpunk? socio-political satire? I think I’ll go with mindblowing. If you are looking for something unique and original and strangely wonderful, I highly recommend Jon Armstrong. His vision of a future America is as frightening as it is exotic.
Not a sequel to Grey, but taking place in the same world, in Yarn Armstrong brings us back to a futuristic west coast America where cities are vertical, GMO crop corporations are integrated down to the clothing their workers wear and the food they eat, and in the cities, fashion is life. Information and secrets can be embedded in a single thread, and competing fashion houses are known to bring guns to a knife fight. The city of Seattlehama teems with salesWarriors, tourists, sex workers and fashionistas.
In Yarn, Armstong again takes his knack for taking things to the nth degree to the next nth degree. Business is war, and fashion is life. For a salesWarrior, a day without a sale can quite literally mean death, and for the fashionable (and who isn’t?) bad fashion is akin to social suicide. SalesWarriors swarm through the tourists spewing their dramatic slogan filled warTalk, while violently keeping the competition at bay, and jobbers take whatever contracts they can. Conspicuous consumption is the name of the game, and if your jacket is a week old it’s already 6 days out of date. In a world like this, how far will people go to obtain power over business and fashion?
Grey, by Jon Armstrong
published in 2007
where I got it: bought
why I read it: been hearing good things about it.
Heir to the Rivergroup company, Michael Rivers is in love with the beautiful Nora. Every date and detail of their romance was organized, choreographed and directed by the PR departments of their companies, down to Michael’s hairstyle and Nora’s earrings. That they fell in love with each other was never part of the corporate plan. For the wealthy company families who run the world in this frantic future, everything is PR. Every moment is planned, directed, blocked and recorded just to be dissected and discussed ad nauseum later. And there is no such thing as bad PR.
This is a future where style is everything. The wealthy live it up with 24/7 parties, lethally thumping bass, and cosplay their favorite bands, while bands and hanger-ons battle for who can be stranger. Success means faster, louder, brighter, more over the top, and more more more of everything than your competition. Privacy is unheard of, and who would want it, when privacy would stop your every move from being broadcast and talked about all over the channels?
When every moment is garish, loud, brash and bright, the rebels crave quiet and monochromatic. Michael and Nora are two such people. They dress in muted tones, and have even gone so far to have the cones in one eye illegally destroyed, making them each color blind in one eye. Followers of the minimalist fashion and photography magazine Pure H, Michael and Nora send secret messages to each other by quoting partial lines from the magazine.
Grey is frantic, insane, completely over the top, hilarious, refreshing, and at times completely sick.
the Little Red Reviewer 
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