Sirk TV Book Review: LAST EXIT [Tor]
The idea of true love and the lengths that it will break the bounds of reality takes on a literal form and perspective in "Last Exit" [Max Gladstone/Tor/400pgs]. The Alts are a place in between where different aspects of darker futures run in parallel to our existence. A group of 5 college students 10 or 15 years ago (approx.) traveled to different paths trying to right certain wrongs before they lost one of their own: Sal. The Troup is like The Goonies or It. Everyone has their own quirks but adds their own distinctiveness. These characters are very well defined though Zelda is the one with the most skin in the game because she never transferred to her next step. She lost her love Sal when the crossroads took her. Now many years afterwards, Zelda is trying to find the ways to close up the cracks to the other worlds. However she keeps seeing visions of Sal instead being in a different, likely darker place. Sal's cousin June pushes Zelda looking back towards where she dare not pursue but needs to. The other members including Ish, Ramon and Sarah are the perfect balance of people with strengths but with inherent flaws that make them stronger.
Zelda reaches out in letter form because there is a presence (a faceless cowboy) that can find them through anything electronic. This device in certain ways feels like a form of "The Matrix" with the agents but with a single individual in the cowboy instead forming the front line. In terms of the others who form the group, Ramon firstly has a connection with a car that transcends space and reality and a sense to avoid danger. Each of the group has this kind of defined knack. Sarah, a mother of two, protects her clan at times from an evil which is her knack. June sees that she can draw and open what is called "the rot" towards her. Ish is the wild card and the flashbacks dictate this. There is a little more between them all, including hidden desires, some realized, some not that are related in flashbacks much like again "It" or "Dreamcatcher". The dynamics of the book are interesting and the imagery including everything from a haunted amusement park to riding on dead mechanical horses to a dilapidated Oz of sorts is very vivid though the book itself is not a quick read so instead reads longer that it should. That said "Last Exit", like its reference to Sartre, is about the nature of being either understood or fleeting. B+
By Tim Wassberg
