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Pipedreams A Freak Tale Stephen Hartford, Michael Harmon 9780615640013 Books

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The long strange trip begins. It's 2468. Following the economic and natural upheavals of the twenty-first century, the great cataclysm known as Helter-Skelter caused civilization to disintegrate. There are no great nations, no highly organized governments, no telecommunications, no electricity, no internal combustion engines. But you can still get concert tickets on a Saturday night, and Honkweed is cheap and plentiful. Or it was, until recently....

Pipedreams A Freak Tale Stephen Hartford, Michael Harmon 9780615640013 Books

Product details Paperback 552 pages Publisher RETROBATE BOOKS LLC (May 18, 2012) Language English ISBN-10 9780615640013 ISBN-13 978-0615640013 ASIN 061564001X

Tags : Pipedreams: A Freak Tale [Stephen Hartford, Michael Harmon] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The long strange trip begins. It's 2468. Following the economic and natural upheavals of the twenty-first century,Stephen Hartford, Michael Harmon,Pipedreams: A Freak Tale,RETROBATE BOOKS LLC,061564001X,Fiction - General,Fiction General,General,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Pipedreams A Freak Tale Stephen Hartford, Michael Harmon 9780615640013 Books Reviews

As I read I kept envisioning Pieter Bruegel backdrops. Better have your weed-culture glossary and a cast of characters handy for this romp! It's an atavistic "Rhode Trippe" in search of the Necronomicon, with everything but magic dragons. This "Epick Taille", its battle-of-the-bands paean to Pete Townsend finale, are hatched crazily from the abstract essences of the authors. Big FUN.
As I suspected, the title is a pun a major element of the story-line is the dreams of the hero (who happens to be a pipesmith by trade), and the word “pipedream” also means “an illusory or fantastic plan, hope or story” (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). The book lives up to its title in both ways.

Furthermore, the fact that the title is a pun is itself a clue to understanding the book. Rarely does a paragraph go by without the inclusion of a good pun (or two or three).

The subtitle “A Freak Tale” piqued my interest. I’d never read a book of that particular genre before. Is it actually a genre? I mean, if this is “a” freak tale, are there other freak tales? You might be thinking, “There are thousands of them,” but I honestly don’t know as I already said, this is the first one that I’ve ever read.

Every genre has its “rules,” so if that’s what a “freak tale” is, it would help to understand the “rules.” I was able to pick out several, despite my previous unfamiliarity with all things freakish
1. You have to assume that the future is an extension of the past and the present (in this case, the world of 2468 is an extension of the world of 1968).
2. Within that assumption, you have to assume that the “1968” from which the book is drawn is the 1968 of hippies, freaks, greasers, fascists and communes (this was a difficult part for me; I experienced a different “1968”).
3. Within that assumption, you have to realize that an entire culture is being constructed out of what was originally a subculture.

As I said, I experienced “a different 1968.” Evidently, the “tribe” that I belonged to in 1968 really did become extinct at some point – so much so, that the people of 2468 didn’t even remember that there had ever been such a tribe. I was a Nerd (sometimes known as a Geek). My interests, up to that point in my life, had mostly lain in the math and science departments (“pure” science, like astronomy, not “applied” science, like computers). At the very end of that year, my life took a dramatic turn in a different direction – one that also doesn’t show up in “Pipedreams” (I became a Christian, and, ultimately, a career clergyman).

So, I sometimes struggled simply to understand the language in “Pipedreams,” because I never had many of the experiences that would lead a reader to be able to “relate” to the book but I was fascinated by all of the things that make for a good book (in my opinion) – the character development, the ever-changing plot, the philosophical conclusion, and (perhaps most of all) the authors’ amazing ability to evoke memories of my teen years by referring to songs, sayings, people and events that DID occur in the world that I lived in then.

To be honest, I didn’t EXPECT to like the book. To my great surprise, I DID like it.
Please, Please, read this book. It was written by a Vietnam vet and his friend. They rewrote this book 47 times, watch for the humor, it is subtle, sarcastic (my fav), and rampant.
PIPEDREAMS - A FREAK TALE, is an amazing book that I have just finished and highly recommend! The long strange trip begins. It's 2468. Following the economic and natural upheavals of the twenty-first century, the great cataclysm known as Helter-Skelter caused civilization to disintegrate. There are no great nations, no highly organized governments, no telecommunications, no electricity, no internal combustion engines. But you can still get concert tickets on a Saturday night, and Honkweed is cheap and plentiful. Or it was, until recently....

I bought this book because an acquaintance wrote it. Obviously, that is not why you should buy and read it, but YOU SHOULD! This is an amazing book combining science fiction, horror, mystery, magic, fantasy, and a large dose of humor. Freaks are a people, as are white riders, fascists, greasers, diggers, and assorted others. The book, set far into the future, after the collapse of our society and a couple of others. To say the book is good vs evil, although true, is a colossal misrepresentation.
Written by, Stephen Hartford and Michael Harmon.
This story of mild mannered pipesmith Josiah Toad, who finds himself somewhat reluctantly at the center of an epic conflict, is about the craziest thing I’ve read in a while. The 1960’s was sort of a crazy time anyway, or at least a period of upheaval, or at the very least we who grew up (if we ever did) during that era remember it as a special and formative time; which it was, at least for us. Though readers who were born too late to remember the era, or who like myself weren’t involved much with 1960’s counterculture, might miss some of the many cultural references that appear throughout the book, still I found the story and the evocation of the era engaging and appealing. That is to say you don’t have to be a child of the sixties to appreciate this book, any more than you have to have lived through the 1920’s to appreciate “The Great Gatsby.” Not that Pipedreams is anything like Gatsby, except that both books are distinguished by capturing the feeling and spirit of a particular era. Pipedreams, however, takes place four hundred years in the future. Also Pipedreams is a whole lot funnier than Gatsby, laugh out loud funny in places.

The authors have assembled an entire fictional world from the wreckage of 20th century civilization, and from the first page you're in an unfamiliar but vivid place, like Dorothy in Oz. “Fantasy,” “steampunk,” “dystopian” are words that come to mind, but the book defies categorization. An inventive and entertaining, wild flight of imagination, in which the fictional future world presented is both alien and familiar, by turns idyllic and menacing, and is always fascinating and engaging.

The fictional world and its people, as the authors present it, is fantastical and eccentric, and yet fully real, true in the way that only fiction can be. The authors have immersed themselves in the environment of the story, and they know their characters well. The protagonist Josiah Toad is, like the reader, somewhat of an outsider and peripheral participant and observer to the events of the story. Just as Toad’s friend Ernie talks him into going with him on a road trip that Toad is reluctant to take, so the reader tags along with Toad, and finds himself caught up in the events of the story.

Pipedreams is an apt title, as the story has a feel of a stoner’s reverie,with characters and scenes and events forming, shifting and evolving from particles of smoke in a quiet room.

The book description provided by the authors gives a much better sense of the story than I can. Also you can read well into the book for free by downloading a sample to your or clicking on the “look inside” feature on the book’s page. The edition lacks a clickable table of contents, making it difficult if you want to go back and reread a particular chapter unless you bookmark each chapter as you read it. The map of The Freaklands in the edition is so small as to be unreadable, and I can’t seem to get the map to enlarge. At half the price of the paperback, I’m happy owning the edition, but some readers might prefer the paperback.