“It’s not reality TV. It is storytelling, at the grandest and most immersive scale. Imagine going to see a Malicarn movie and knowing it really happened.”
I was curious about this book long before I was able to sit down and read it. While I am not a big fantasy guy, and a Game of Thrones comparison does not sell me, The Truman Show was the one that worked. I am a PKD guy after all (and that movie felt PKD). The idea of a fantasy world where it is manufactured to fool one or more people that is the real thing that made me curious.
It should be noted that I root for every book that I read, and I never want to be critical, but writing reviews is one of the things I do. I have to be honest. This novel has many good elements, and it is clear the author is talented, but it also felt like there were several clear signs to me that this was a first-time novelist. I don't think it was ready for prime time, and whoever edited this didn't do it any Elrod any favors. It is not a bad book, and honestly, it was a great idea. I think maybe some readers who not into structure to the nerd level I am will actually have a better experience. Personally, I didn’t like the structure, and another draft could have fixed this in my opinion.
The Franchise is more Westworld than Truman Show, and it needed, in my opinion, to be more Time Out of Joint, and without spoiling that specific difference, let me talk for a minute about how PKD does horror Vs. Lovecraft. I think it is instructive about the limitations this book has.
Both writers deal with a certain amount of horror at the vast insanity of the universe. Lovecraft opens his stories with POV characters already crazy. Think of his characters as untuned guitar strings. PKD’s characters often are strings that slowly get pulled out of tune. The Franchise has a cool idea at its heart, but it needed the approach of stings slowly untuning. If I am really going to murder this analogy. The structure of the novel explained how strings were put on the guitar, tuned, and then they started to come undone.
This novel almost had the structure it needed, opening in the fantasy world of Malicarn, then there is interesting stuff about the creation of it. How it is maintained, for me, these were the best parts of the novel. The problem was it was just done at the wrong time.
I think Westworld meets Game of Thrones is actually a truly fantastic pitch. Elrod clearly understands the genre. I certainly related to the origin of this fantasy world that started in a thinly veiled Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The problem is he front-loads this in the story.
There is a pretty effective part on page 85 that expresses the concept, and shows how the idea works..
“Do the advisors know?”
“No, Nobody does.”
“Except for you.”
“Yes and a few others. Kreek among them. Kreek is not his actual name, and he is not from Malicarn. His Real Name is Brian Doyle.”
Could’ve been an interesting reveal, but we were already time jumping in the early chapters with the development of the novels and the interesting backstory. The problem is I felt this should’ve been back-loaded.
I would rather be thrown into the deep end and be confused at first. If the answers are revealed, that is exciting. The first time author thing comes into play here, because I felt like Elrod or an editor thought the reader had to understand what was happening from early on. What this novel needed was characters we were hooked into, so we don’t mind being confused, and then we keep turning pages because we care about the characters and want the mystery solved.
The reality is that when I closed the novel, I remembered a lot about the setup, but I couldn’t name any characters. The Franchise is a perfect set-up for a TV series. Honestly, I think it will have a better life in that media than as a novel. Expanding the back story and the inner fantasy world is also something a show could do well. The theme of commercialism and disrespect for authorial intent was pretty well said. I am interested in what Elrod does next.
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