Product Description: While young men wage war against an evil empire of zealous mutants, the population of this modern inferno is afflicted with the epidemic of a radioactive virus. An opium-infused apocalyptic vision from the legendary author of Naked Lunch is the first of the trilogy with The Places of the Dead Roads and his final novel, The Western Plains.
wow, what a mess ^ If you read the Beats and about the Beats, you're eventually going to come to William S. Burroughs. He's very much a voice of the 1950s, post World War II. He was into the drugs, longer and harder and deeper than anyone else. He was into shocking the squares and living off the pathetic working class zombies. And it's all there on the page, man. A strong, unique voice that is still imitated decades later.
Unfortunately for those of us living in the twenty-FIRST century, it's about as relevant as fins on cars. It's convoluted, drug paranoia with a created mythology about time and space travel that's all about shocking images of sex and death. It's not a story.
Hypnotic and colorful ^ A novel that reads like a dream, there are half a dozen story lines woven into a virus pattern with occasional poetic cut ups. It takes awhile to work your way into understanding the world of Burroughs, and even longer to get over it. Before your know it, you're hooked. This book is no exception. Top notch junk.
Gather in the Nets ^ Burroughs drags in the nets he has held out for fifty years or so and sorts out the information he has gathered. In his most lucid, almost straight forward prose (inspired by Denton Welch), Burroughs puts forward a trilogy -Cities of the Red Night, Place of Dead Roads, and The Western Lands- with all his loves and hates, and serves them in his most favourite genres from childhood up: Pulp Dectective; Sci Fi; Pirates; High School Theatre; Egyptian; and others. Naked Lunch may have messed with you, but it never infiltrated your thinking as much as these books will. I think the deceptively simple language and 'sense' of 'narrative continuity' help to disarm and act as a Trogan Horse. If you are easily offended you may want to skip Burroughs altogether, though, in that case, I suspect you need him to unsettle your morals, just a little, so you can reflect on your position.
Mind Bending and Disturbing ^ This was one of the strangest novels I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Burroughs seemed to rip every cultural taboo into pieces--he certainly doesn't shy away from detailed descriptions, and his clandistine homoerotic liasons are refreshing in a culture where most people won't touch the subject mattter. The only thing that bothered me was his rather two-dimensional females(what do you expect, i guess)and his overly sentimental treatment of youth/boyhood.
-notes from an abysmal speller
Untramelled Genius ^ This is the most accessible William Burroughs novel ever written. It has more structure, cohesion and plot than most of his other works, so if you are a first time Burroughs reader this is the one to go for...Burroughs is a genius and a prophet of 20th Century literature. His writing pushes the boundaries of imagination,sexuality, social interaction and time. He is an alien soul injected into the dead body of a homosexual junkie. He started shooting up as a 1 yr old baby and by the age of 2 he was having anal sex with other babies in nightclub toilets. His stream of consciousness will transport you to planets and worlds that transcend human experience but also unveil the instincts that drive us to the edge of depravity and extinction. William Burroughs is in love with humanity and he knows how to show it. After all he did shoot his wife in the head xxx
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