crowcaller's review
5.0
I stumbled on this in a second hand book store and bought it for two dollars. My life will never be the same.
Mallworld is a collection of seven short stories all taking place in the same universe, a place far in the future where everyone lives in space, and there's a shopping mall the size of a planet.
The whole book is excellent. That's basically going to be the rest of my review: EXCELLENT. Would recommend. Ten out of ten. I picked up a paperback book from the 80s that no one had ever heard of and was not expecting it to be of this quality.
My only qualm is the front cover text, which advertises the book as being the next funniest thing to the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. First off, that is a really high expectation to place on your book. Second of all, it's totally not true. This book is not much of a comedy book. The locations and events are odd, and humorous, but not very funny. Most of the stories are dark and weird. Enjoyable, and light-hearted, but not very funny.
I'm going to break it down by story to the best of my memory.
#1-
Throughout each story, there's a small side narrative of these alien overlords who have kept Earth in a bubble and away from the rest of the galaxy, discussing if Earth is ready to be freed. The frame for each story is that they are looking into human minds from various points in the last number of years and evaluating them.
The first tale is about a girl from the bible belt, a chain of astroids that is fairly backward in that they still teach kids to read. They believe in this odd mix of about five real world religions. The narrator for this one- all the stories are in first person- is one of my favorites. She runs away to mallworld, a place that is described in fairly similar ways each chapter, so much so that I wonder if the chapters were published stand alone at some point.
There, she generally wanders and we see a lot of awesome exposition. I love mallworld. It's so ridiculous, between suicide parlors and automatic shopping bags, and all the other hundred of so things this book introduces you to. I don't want to give full plot for each of my summaries, but this is a cute first story.
#2-
Our second tale is a man reflecting on his youth. He's introduced as Julian barJulian, part of the richest family in the human universe. He owns mallworld. His whole family is a bit of a running theme in the book, showing up and playing parts or at least getting mentioned. Julian barJulian is my absolute favorite name, by the way, and I will treasure it forever.
Julian talks about strange people he used to see in mallworld, homeless kids who lived there. And he gets caught up with one of them, tracking her and trying to find out who she is. Compared to the previous, light-hearted tale, this one is seriously pretty dark. There's a nice resolution, but still- bad things exist, and they are not changed. Also, he plays a musical instrument that puts on laser light shows.
#3-
This is probably my favorite. A reporter, and his robot camera, try to investigate the stories of a vampire living in mallworld. The whole story is a mystery, with them running around and trying to solve it. It's fun, the mystery is fun, and again it's very high in drama and darkness.
This is also the first time we see the theme of stars show up. The rest of the stories usually have a bit to talk about them- when the humans were bubbled from the rest of the universe, all the stars were blocked out.
#4-
This one is the story of how stars were brought back to mallworld in one specific restaurant. The milky galaxy (or something like that) was a high end restaurant that serves alien cuisine and has windows that display fake stars. The main character is a waitress working there when an alien dish turns out to be alive and escapes into mallworld. Whatever it bites becomes rabid and attacks others. She and her boyfriend try and catch it.
This story brought out a very sudden reaction from me towards the end, where I sort of exclaimed out loud 'no'. Because, no. Wow. There was a twist that actually gathered a real reaction from me. That's a pretty good sign!
#5-
Moving back to the theme of the barJulian family, this is the life story of an artist who is tasked to create an icy tomb for one of the barJulians. Essentially, he has sex with her when he's a teen, and she challenges him to build a giant, ice stature of her on the outskirts of jupiter to serve as her tomb.
This one is a lot more of a life story, as said. He talks about trying for a few years, but never getting farther than her lips. And then he goes off and marries someone in mallworld and has twelve children, and is severely depressed with his life- until dimensions cross and he meets an alternate version of himself and visits that other universe.
This one was actually super great. The vampire one is my favorite, and this is probably right behind it. I love any family of insane rich people, and the barJulians are pretty great in that aspect. The actual story here is sweet too.
#6-
This one is.... weird. The next one is even weirder. A woman works as a boogeyman for the child genetics lab. Essentially, if you don't pay your bills for your child, a boogeyman picks the kid up and puts them on a used child lot and up for sale. That part of the story is not the odd part.
Our hero is tasked to collect from a sect of the barJulians, essentially the disliked cousins. They haven't been paying for their expensive, custom designed daughter who has eyes that honestly show Jupiter. They collect ugly art and the father has custom-limbed himself until he looks like a human centipede of limbs.
The girl travels with the boogeyman, and tries to convince her to take her to mallworld, where a gang called the 'mallkyries' have been contacting her.
This story isn't terrible, but it's weird as hell. Everything that happens, really. Also, a weird but semi-expected thing is that the age of consent is like 8 in this world, and the young girl casually asks the bogeyman if she'd like to have sex. I don't know. It can get uncomfortable. But the ending is still cute?
#7-
Wait, did I say the last one was weird? This is weirder. The main fact there is a place called 'copuland' should cue you in.
The main dude practices anti-grav surfing, and is interrupted by a barJulian and old friend who wants him to convince his family to open Copuland, a sexual themepark. Evidently, the council of mallworld thinks the place is too crass.
At one point, he tours Copuland and views all the odd sexual things. There's even a creature called a porcupine who- god. It's weird, okay? This chapter has a lot of sexual things in it, and it's very weird. My high praises for this book were not lies, and there's some great stuff going on. It's interesting. But god, it's weird as hell.
Porcupines are people covered in various sexual orifices, allowing for some weird orgies (you have to pay extra for a private session). Our main hero falls accidentally in love with one. Then Copuland starts flooding, and a giant shark is involved, and-
Okay. Let's end it there.
End notes:
Just read this book.
Mallworld is a collection of seven short stories all taking place in the same universe, a place far in the future where everyone lives in space, and there's a shopping mall the size of a planet.
The whole book is excellent. That's basically going to be the rest of my review: EXCELLENT. Would recommend. Ten out of ten. I picked up a paperback book from the 80s that no one had ever heard of and was not expecting it to be of this quality.
My only qualm is the front cover text, which advertises the book as being the next funniest thing to the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. First off, that is a really high expectation to place on your book. Second of all, it's totally not true. This book is not much of a comedy book. The locations and events are odd, and humorous, but not very funny. Most of the stories are dark and weird. Enjoyable, and light-hearted, but not very funny.
I'm going to break it down by story to the best of my memory.
#1-
Throughout each story, there's a small side narrative of these alien overlords who have kept Earth in a bubble and away from the rest of the galaxy, discussing if Earth is ready to be freed. The frame for each story is that they are looking into human minds from various points in the last number of years and evaluating them.
The first tale is about a girl from the bible belt, a chain of astroids that is fairly backward in that they still teach kids to read. They believe in this odd mix of about five real world religions. The narrator for this one- all the stories are in first person- is one of my favorites. She runs away to mallworld, a place that is described in fairly similar ways each chapter, so much so that I wonder if the chapters were published stand alone at some point.
There, she generally wanders and we see a lot of awesome exposition. I love mallworld. It's so ridiculous, between suicide parlors and automatic shopping bags, and all the other hundred of so things this book introduces you to. I don't want to give full plot for each of my summaries, but this is a cute first story.
#2-
Our second tale is a man reflecting on his youth. He's introduced as Julian barJulian, part of the richest family in the human universe. He owns mallworld. His whole family is a bit of a running theme in the book, showing up and playing parts or at least getting mentioned. Julian barJulian is my absolute favorite name, by the way, and I will treasure it forever.
Julian talks about strange people he used to see in mallworld, homeless kids who lived there. And he gets caught up with one of them, tracking her and trying to find out who she is. Compared to the previous, light-hearted tale, this one is seriously pretty dark. There's a nice resolution, but still- bad things exist, and they are not changed. Also, he plays a musical instrument that puts on laser light shows.
#3-
This is probably my favorite. A reporter, and his robot camera, try to investigate the stories of a vampire living in mallworld. The whole story is a mystery, with them running around and trying to solve it. It's fun, the mystery is fun, and again it's very high in drama and darkness.
This is also the first time we see the theme of stars show up. The rest of the stories usually have a bit to talk about them- when the humans were bubbled from the rest of the universe, all the stars were blocked out.
#4-
This one is the story of how stars were brought back to mallworld in one specific restaurant. The milky galaxy (or something like that) was a high end restaurant that serves alien cuisine and has windows that display fake stars. The main character is a waitress working there when an alien dish turns out to be alive and escapes into mallworld. Whatever it bites becomes rabid and attacks others. She and her boyfriend try and catch it.
This story brought out a very sudden reaction from me towards the end, where I sort of exclaimed out loud 'no'. Because, no. Wow. There was a twist that actually gathered a real reaction from me. That's a pretty good sign!
#5-
Moving back to the theme of the barJulian family, this is the life story of an artist who is tasked to create an icy tomb for one of the barJulians. Essentially, he has sex with her when he's a teen, and she challenges him to build a giant, ice stature of her on the outskirts of jupiter to serve as her tomb.
This one is a lot more of a life story, as said. He talks about trying for a few years, but never getting farther than her lips. And then he goes off and marries someone in mallworld and has twelve children, and is severely depressed with his life- until dimensions cross and he meets an alternate version of himself and visits that other universe.
This one was actually super great. The vampire one is my favorite, and this is probably right behind it. I love any family of insane rich people, and the barJulians are pretty great in that aspect. The actual story here is sweet too.
#6-
This one is.... weird. The next one is even weirder. A woman works as a boogeyman for the child genetics lab. Essentially, if you don't pay your bills for your child, a boogeyman picks the kid up and puts them on a used child lot and up for sale. That part of the story is not the odd part.
Our hero is tasked to collect from a sect of the barJulians, essentially the disliked cousins. They haven't been paying for their expensive, custom designed daughter who has eyes that honestly show Jupiter. They collect ugly art and the father has custom-limbed himself until he looks like a human centipede of limbs.
The girl travels with the boogeyman, and tries to convince her to take her to mallworld, where a gang called the 'mallkyries' have been contacting her.
This story isn't terrible, but it's weird as hell. Everything that happens, really. Also, a weird but semi-expected thing is that the age of consent is like 8 in this world, and the young girl casually asks the bogeyman if she'd like to have sex. I don't know. It can get uncomfortable. But the ending is still cute?
#7-
Wait, did I say the last one was weird? This is weirder. The main fact there is a place called 'copuland' should cue you in.
The main dude practices anti-grav surfing, and is interrupted by a barJulian and old friend who wants him to convince his family to open Copuland, a sexual themepark. Evidently, the council of mallworld thinks the place is too crass.
At one point, he tours Copuland and views all the odd sexual things. There's even a creature called a porcupine who- god. It's weird, okay? This chapter has a lot of sexual things in it, and it's very weird. My high praises for this book were not lies, and there's some great stuff going on. It's interesting. But god, it's weird as hell.
Porcupines are people covered in various sexual orifices, allowing for some weird orgies (you have to pay extra for a private session). Our main hero falls accidentally in love with one. Then Copuland starts flooding, and a giant shark is involved, and-
Okay. Let's end it there.
End notes:
Just read this book.
More...