RX: A Tale of Electronegativity is easily the best science fiction novel I’ve read in the better part of a decade. While perusing authors recommended to those who enjoy David Wong, Carlton Merrick III, and Robert Jeremy Johnson, I discovered this novel, and downloaded a sample to my Kindle. I got through maybe five pages before I knew I had to buy this book. When introduced to a protagonist who has woken up in the sewers without pants or underwear as a result of being too stoned for pants to be

RX: A Tale of Electronegativity is easily the best science fiction novel I’ve read in the better part of a decade. While perusing authors recommended to those who enjoy David Wong, Carlton Merrick III, and Robert Jeremy Johnson, I discovered this novel, and downloaded a sample to my Kindle. I got through maybe five pages before I knew I had to buy this book. When introduced to a protagonist who has woken up in the sewers without pants or underwear as a result of being too stoned for pants to be an option, there’s little option - you’ve just got to see how this plays out.



This story takes place in an indeterminate place in the future, in a mega city which is housed entirely in some sort of gigantic tower capable of housing hundreds of thousands of permanent citizens. A vast majority of the population are impoverished and live in tiny, makeshift homes – space is a commodity more valuable than money in this world, and the more power you have wrested from the hands of others, the more space you can claim. People have died over mere feet of space. Meanwhile, thousands of feet up, as the peak of this massive tower, the ultra-rich live in spacious mansions that flaunt their access to open space, not only in their size and sparse décor, but also in their use of reinforced glass floors and walls. Those who were born in the claustrophobic sprawl of the lower city – particularly the levels known as the Blackouts (presumably named because the only light available down there is artificial) find the open sky terrifying of these mansion, not for the height, but rather for the open space.



Most people are addicted to custom drug cocktails mixed by skilled chem artists – such as Redding “Red” Firth, the story’s protagonist – which are then printed onto cards which can be pressed against a panel embedded in the skin, which releases the drugs into their system. One of the most popular drugs – and the principle form of entertainment in the city – is a class of drug known as Gas. Gases come in two flavors – a passive experience, and an interactive one. These gases seem to literally transport the user back in time to experience a period in history. Regardless of the era, nothing anyone does – murder, theft, or worse – seems to have any impact on the course of history, so nobody worries about it. Either it’s all just a hallucination, or time “resets itself”. Either way, it is very common for huge groups of people to attend arena matches in which historical figures are pitted against one another, or massive predatory creatures; a particularly popular strain of gas is Abe Lincoln fighting various powerful woodland creatures, such as bears. It turns out that Lincoln is a viciously aggressive and effective fighter. More often than not, he wins, or the fight ends in a draw when both parties die.



When Red starts having severe and extremely unusual hallucinations from having beta-tested a gas mixture for a massive corporation, he begins making the slow journey upwards from the deadly sewers, which are filled with awful cyborgs created by a deranged janitor who has been banished to the lowermost levels, all the way up through the ‘Wells - massive, seemingly endless stairwells which were once part of a public transit system, generations ago – up into the Industry sector, and finally to the upper levels, where the mansions are located. To make matters worse, due to having violated one of the terms of the NDA he signed when agreeing to beta test the gas, Red is being chased by deadly, faceless assassins known as A-Gents.



This book is fast-paced, exciting, entertaining, and full of dark humor. To assign a genre to this book is difficult, since I don’t think Drugpunk is a thing; if it isn’t, I’m coining it now. While we’re at it, let’s go ahead and call it nanopunk or post-nanopunk, since either shoe fits nicely. Any fan of dark humor, sci-fi, or psychedelic drug fiction will thoroughly enjoy this book from cover to cover.