Description:
Philip K. Dick meets the Coen Brothers in this genre-bending near-future tech nightmare that is as bitingly funny as it is horrifically believable from the New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie.
Meet Julia Flang, a twenty-something former semi-professional gamer, living with her retired uncle, and working two jobs she doesn't like. Out of the blue, her estranged mother, a CFO for one of the world's largest tech companies, offers her a temp job with a payday Julia can't refuse. One sham interview later, she's offered the job: to chaperone a man in a vegetative state--one with proprietary AI implanted in his head--from California to the East Coast.
To sum up in Julia's own words: "You want me to remote control this dead dude across the country." In a word, yes. But he's not dead dead.
Meet a middle-aged man who wakes within a disorienting hellscape filled with monstrous grotesqueries. Worse than the fluid, morphing reality in which he's trapped, he has no memory of who he is. He certainly doesn't remember getting the rabbit tattoo on his arm. He only knows that he must find a certain person. Who? He can't remember.
Using a cell phone modeled after a video game controller, Julia fumblingly navigates the man she calls "Bernie" from the company campus and onto planes and through one of the largest airports in America. All the while, the man endures an ever-changing and worsening nightmare that offers clues as to who he was--and who he must track down. And as their two lives intertwine, Julia and Bernie become unlikely allies and fugitives on a collision course with reality.
Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep is a heady, horrific genre-bender from one of the most groundbreaking voices in fiction today.
Brief description:
Paul Tremblay is the multiple award-winning, critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of eight previous novels (Horror Movie, The Pallbearers Club, Survivor Song, The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil's Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, No Sleep Till Wonderland, and The Little Sleep); a middle-grade novel, Another; and two short fiction collections (The Beast You Are and Growing Things). He lives outside of Boston with his family.
Review Quotes:
"Tremblay throws down the gauntlet for AI horror. . . .This masterpiece of storytelling is injected with a squirming worm of fear that forces readers to take a critical look at AI's encroachment. A not-to-miss experience for fans of a wide range of chilling, humorous, existentially terrifying titles." - Library Journal, starred review
"A semi-professional Twitch streamer is hired to pilot a mostly-dead corpse from coast to coast in a grotesque display of proprietary technology--a plot reminiscent of nothing so much as Weekend at Bernie's, oft-mentioned by the novel's knowing protagonist, and a signature example of Paul Tremblay's wacky influences and deadly serious applications." - CrimeReads
"Philip K. Dick would be honored to read Tremblay's novel, which, with its hypnotic prose, compels us to confront our existential horror even as it makes us laugh, excites us, moves us, and yes, makes us shudder a lot." - Agustina Bazterrica, the international best-selling author of Tender Is the Flesh and The Unworthy
"Paul Tremblay is on fire, this time with a furious work of science fiction that, chapter by chapter, melts your brain and scours your soul. As entertaining and pop-culture savvy as the novel can be, it's emotionally wrenching and truly scary--you'll never think of the phrase proof of concept the same way again. Get ready to root for Julia Flang and weep for our lost humanity." - Ed Park, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Same Bed, Different Dreams and An Oral History of Atlantis
"Innovative, terrifying, and deeply human. An electric and wild skewering of Silicon Valley's takeover of the human mind and body that could only be written by Paul Tremblay. Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep will keep you up at night." - Sarah Rose Etter, author of Ripe and the Book of X
"A distressed but uproarious war cry for the plight of humanity. . . .A master of his craft, Tremblay creates a new genre with every book he writes. This ingenious novel is refreshing, hilarious, teeming with warnings of real horrors to come, and ultimately entirely human. It will be the most stressfully entertaining journey of your year." - Virginia Feito, author of Victorian Psycho and Mrs. March
"Genius and original, a brainy, referential, slightly hysterical novel that you will grapple with and likely never forget. . . .Serious in its concerns, furious in its outlook and chilling in its plausibility - yet still, it is not joyless. Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep certainly does not lack heart or humor, and for all its commentary upon AI and automation, demonstrates implicitly too that the human voice and human art should probably stick around." - FanFiAddict
"Paul Tremblay is one of the most terrifying horror writers of his generation and his new chiller, Horror Movie, is a reason for excitement." - Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Horror Movie is strange and unsettling in the best way possible. . . . Tremblay's unique voice and chameleonic style have made him one of the leading voices in speculative fiction, and this is one of his best novels so far." - NPR
"Macabrely funny and incredibly smart, Horror Movie cements Tremblay's place as a master of horror. It encapsulates the unease of right now -- a runaway culture of self-reference with bloody hands. It's everything a horror novel ought to be: lean, mean, and genuinely scary." - Sarah Langan, author of Good Neighbors and A Better World
"Tremblay is often (and rightfully) recognized as one of the great contemporary horror writers. . . . As I read Horror Movie, I found myself marveling at its high-wire act: The novel hopscotches deftly among three timelines, interspersed with scenes from the screenplay...It takes bravado and skill to layer overlapping narrative frames like this without sacrificing tension, but Horror Movie never once loses its momentum or its way. It's a smart book, smartly told, and should establish Tremblay as not just one of our great horror writers but one of our great fiction writers, full stop."
- New York Times
"A profound, heart-wrenching, terrifyingly honest novel that's also a cinematic page-turner. Horror Movie zooms in on creation and consumption, integrity and ego, admiration and obsession, and how the desperate search for connection through art can be beautiful, or disastrous. This book is a gift and a curse." - Rachel Harrison, nationally bestselling author of Black Sheep