It is hard
to stay 100% objective on a book your friend has been threatening to write for
more than a decade. I have been hearing about the concept of a New Tomorrow for
many years, during conversations at bizarro or comic cons. Let me say that my
mental bar was very high, I thought New Tomorrow would be good, but it
exceeded my expectations.
I have
been reading Cody Goodfellow for two decades, and when I read his first novel, Radiant
Dawn, I was convinced that he would be as big as anyone in the horror
genre. I thought he would have massive book deals, fan clubs, movies, etc. Cody
is a writer’s writer. He has the respect of those of us in the serious genre
lit world. A few Wonderland awards, he has accomplished many great things, but
he is not the household name I think he deserves to be.
Sure books
like Repo-Shark or Scum of the Earth are genius works, but they
are not commercial. I consider his horror novel Perfect Union a horror
masterpiece, but it might be a little too strange for the spinner racks at
drugstores. All that said this new novel while still being very Cody
Goodfellow, with the right word of mouth and luck (let's be honest that is
important) this is a story that should appeal to the mainstream.
An
alternate history pulp era superhero tale that could be pitched as The Boys
or Watchmen in a great depression setting. Sci-fi superhero crossovers
with this kind of ambition are often not ready for primetime, and they often
feel like underdeveloped sketches. What is special about New Tomorrow is how it
feels fully developed, like a world that has been growing for a long
time. It has the super smart and totally bat-shit crazy Cody Goodfellow
hybrid that he has perfected. These are weird heroes White Devil and Kid Amoeba
feel natural in this pulp era alternative.
“All
this she’d learned when the real Electrocutioner died in her arms after saving
the city from Dr. Gift, another suicidal lunatic who couldn’t hang himself. And
still, the comics, the radio serial, the Electrocutioner Shock-Mittens, kept
coming, as if their hero was old enough to vote.
So much
for superheroes. She didn’t know if she would ever be worthy of the pretentious
title, nor it worthy of her. She only knew she loved it.”
As you can
see, the heroes feel like they were torn from a classic graphic novel that has
lived in your memory, but at the same time, they are totally original and
natural. Goodfellow understands the world he is playing with. This alternate
world feels like it is in the past of a comic book universe, but it feels
adjacent to our history. A lessor author wouldn’t or couldn’t make you feel
like you were in the era but this novel does just that.
“The
mask craze first struck New York four years ago when a gang in pirate costumes
and a bulletproof flying coupe began knocking over Jewelry stores and banks
under the colorful sobriquet, The Red Hook Wreckers. A rogue mobster calling
himself El Pulpo donned an octopus mask and gunned down crime boss Giuseppe
Masseria in Coney Island and eluded police for six months before he was served
equally rough justice by Corsair, who was unmasked as a former cop drummed out
of the force for being Sicilian. That so many on both sides of this weird civil
war were frustrated inventors, scientists, and engineers whose bright ideas had
been suppressed by the patent office only added to fuel the controversy.”
That
passage highlights what Cody brings to the alchemy of this one-in-a-million
novel. A knowledge of history, both real and pulp fictional, literary talent
and a weird imagination capable of supporting a marriage of all these elements
into a blended family. Who else could come up with a hero like Kid Amoeba?
“By
trial and error, it had perfected its Camouflage, studying the rootless men,
walking, hitching, and riding the rails. They were innocuous enough not to
attract the authorities but large enough to present a target to predators.”
One of my
favorite moments in the novel comes about halfway through when the pulp
superhero elements fade into science fiction and alternate history. Real-life
robber barrons whose names historians might recognize go to a meeting with the
inventor who represents the hinge point where history changes with the
invention of teleportation. It is a bad part of this culture, but how well does
this technology work, in the hands of the villain…it changes everything. The
change of venue makes an excellent shift in the narrative.
“Good
God,” Whitney said, “We’re not on Earth.”
“At
last, the sparkling intellect that conquered the markets reveals itself,”
Chalice said. “What you’re seeing is the actual hub of our operations, through
our best guess is it’s on the far side of the Milky Way. Suffice to say it is a
long walk home. For want of a better name, I call it Circe, after the Greek
goddess of transformation and initiation.”
“So
this is a kidnapping?” asked Sarnoff, who had at least some inkling of the
business of force from his humble beginnings as a newspaper boy.
“Merely
a demonstration. This meeting ends when I’ve said my piece, and you’ve said
yours.”
The
historical vibe is also one of my favorite things in the novel, and pure Cody
Goodfellow.
“A
Salvation Army band slowly murdered “Onward Christian Soldiers” on the corner
of Tenth Avenue and 34th. The White Devil flipped a quarter into
their collection Kettle as he passed, crossing 34th amid a stream of
bleary-eyed men and women going to or from soul-killing jobs. The sun’s dying
rays touched the roofs of tenements and smoke stacks high overhead, the leaden
heat stored up from the sweltering day seeping back out of the half-molten asphalt.
Everything west of 10th had been swept away by bulldozers and
wrecking balls to make way for a new tunnel to Jersey.”
One of the best things about New Tomorrow
is something I refuse to spoil, and that is the nature, backstory, and tactics
of the villain; it is so well thought out. The good guys and the big bad could
all hold the weight of a novel on their own, but instead, the epic treat is that
we get a saga-worthy cast of characters.
The
historical vibe is also one of my favorite things in the novel and pure Cody
Goodfellow. Check out this part…
“A
Salvation Army band slowly murdered “Onward Christian Soldiers” on the corner
of Tenth Avenue and 34th. The White Devil flipped a quarter into their
collection Kettle as he passed, crossing 34th amid a stream of bleary-eyed men
and women going to or from soul-killing jobs. The sun’s dying rays touched the
roofs of tenements and smoke stacks high overhead, the leaden heat stored up
from the sweltering day seeping back out of the half-molten asphalt. Everything
west of 10th had been swept away by bulldozers and wrecking balls to make way
for a new tunnel to Jersey.”
It
highlights the vibe, the historical feeling you get reading the novel. New
Tomorrow is punching above its weight class on almost every page. It is a
epic worthy of the word, that is as strange as it is ambitious. An unbelievable
triumph.
Here is
the problem. I don’t know if it will be discovered. I thought it was inevitable
before. You have to take me seriously and read this. Then you have spread the
book around. It is the reason this book will keep finding fans.
