protomattr reviewed Trump Sky Alpha by Mark Doten
Review of 'Trump Sky Alpha' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
“The internet’s freedom was illusory, and if drastic action wasn’t taken, the internet would lead us into a situation of mass control, if not, indeed, the end of the world.”
Such is essentially the premise of this incredible, utterly unhinged, train wreck (or blimp crash) of a book. Readers expecting a cheap satire of the cheap satire that is President Trump will be surprised that Doten has written something else entirely. In Doten’s exploration of “how we got here”, fantastically arranged in Pynchonesque prose—the opening chapter comprises a single sentence running for several pages—the 45th POTUS is but a sideshow, an appropriately placed symptom of an existential disease of global scale. Have we surrendered free will in exchange for wiring all our brains together? Have we become, to conjure Dawkins, mindless replicators of “selfish memes”? Is it too late to change course? Who do we want steering the ship? Such …
“The internet’s freedom was illusory, and if drastic action wasn’t taken, the internet would lead us into a situation of mass control, if not, indeed, the end of the world.”
Such is essentially the premise of this incredible, utterly unhinged, train wreck (or blimp crash) of a book. Readers expecting a cheap satire of the cheap satire that is President Trump will be surprised that Doten has written something else entirely. In Doten’s exploration of “how we got here”, fantastically arranged in Pynchonesque prose—the opening chapter comprises a single sentence running for several pages—the 45th POTUS is but a sideshow, an appropriately placed symptom of an existential disease of global scale. Have we surrendered free will in exchange for wiring all our brains together? Have we become, to conjure Dawkins, mindless replicators of “selfish memes”? Is it too late to change course? Who do we want steering the ship? Such are the questions this book, born of this bonkers moment in history, leaves behind as it bores into your skull.
“They say we live in a universe fine-tuned for life. We say: for death.”
“The universe was fine-tuned for Trump to become president, just as it was fine-tuned for him to end civilization as we had known it here on this planet, this little bit in the universe.”