In 1964 Philip K. Dick responded to a letter from fellow Berkley science fiction author and future historian Ron Goulart wherein he outlined his particular formula for crafting stories. Obviously whatever he was doing was effective: he wrote a total of 44 novels and 121 short stories in the time between 1950 until his death in 1982. That formula is just the first layer of many that David Agranoff asks us to peel back in his newest novel, Great America in a Dead World.
The book is a harrowing and entertaining extrapolation of the chaotic times we live in today, propelling us into a future of climate collapse, immersive virtual reality, and the ultimate goal of MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN no matter the cost. Though the subject matter is thoroughly prescient, the book has roots firmly in the tradition of New Wave science fiction due in great part to Agranoff’s use of Philip K. Dick’s formula as his narrative foundation. In many ways there is a semi-translucent film of questionable authorship that needs to be addressed because of Agranoff’s familiarity with the formula and Philip K. Dick’s work. Is this book truly Agranoff’s doing or was his hand guided by the channeled mind of a Philip K. Dick that exists in a world where he continued to live and was forced to adapt to every trend or crisis that has occurred since his passing in our own reality? I can only imagine how Dick’s work would have changed with the advent of cyberpunk or the creep of “elevated” genre works but what Agranoff does in this book comes eerily close to hitting that particular mark.
The story of Great America in Dead World begins with Kai, a service worker whose bionic modifications allow her to travel through the blighted future and assists her in caring for the physical bodies of people using a virtual reality system called America+. Her clients spend their days wasting away in pods with feeding and waste tubes to keep them alive as they lose themselves in the vision of America that most closely resembles the empty promises of our current real-life presidential administration.
Kai is lost in this world. She splits her time between working and playing violent games to earn coin. She even employs an eerily realistic AI doppelganger to do the work of engaging with her social media profile and keeping up the grind while she works and sleeps. Even though she resents her clients, she wishes she could be right there with them in America+ and earn enough coin to get the ultimate upgrade to an elite level of virtual reality called Heaven, the ultimate escape from their ruined reality.
That grind mindset brings Kai to Nick, the father-in-law of one of the authoritarian President Supreme’s closest confidants. Nick is a luddite and intellectual from a time when knowledge and introspection actually meant something. Her assignment? Convince Nick to sacrifice his human form for an eternity in a digital paradise.
The rest of the book is exciting and unexpected but I’m afraid that describing the plot further might be misleading. There’s a moral ambiguity to the storytelling that drives a kind of engagement with the text that isn’t just about the narrative. As I said before, the book itself is layer upon layer upon layer. What’s real? What’s right? You peel one layer back and the next shows a loose corner that Agranoff begs for you to start picking at to discover for yourself what else is spread beneath it.
Ursula K. Le Guin once said that science fiction is descriptive, not predictive and Great America in Dead World fulfills that promise. If you’re a fan of classic sci-fi, cyberpunk, or even a more recent subgenre like cli-fi then this book is definitely for you. David Agranoff has written a truly entertaining book here, even if I am not entirely convinced he was the only one behind the wheel the entire time.
Great America in Dead World is available in paperback from Quoir.
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