Bash Bash Revolution

*SELECTED FOR GAME INFORMER’S FALL 2018 READING LIST*

A compelling coming-of-age artificial intelligence novel from Philip K. Dick Award-nominated author Douglas Lain.

Seventeen-year-old Matthew Munson is ranked thirteenth in the state in Bash Bash Revolution, an outdated video game from 2002 that, in 2017, is still getting tournament play. He’s a high school dropout who still lives at home with his mom, doing little but gaming and moping. That is, until Matthew’s dad turns up again.

Jeffrey Munson is a computer geek who’d left home eight years earlier to work on a top secret military project. Jeff has been a sporadic presence in Matthew’s life, and much to his son’s displeasure insists on bonding over video games. The two start entering local tournaments together, where Jeff shows astonishing aptitude for Bash Bash Revolution in particular.

Then, as abruptly as he appeared, Matthew’s father disappears again, just as he was beginning to let Jeff back into his life.

The betrayal is life-shattering, and Matthew decides to give chase, in the process discovering the true nature of the government-sponsored artificial intelligence program his father has been involved in. Told as a series of conversations between Matthew and his father’s artificial intelligence program, Bash Bash Revolution is a wildly original novel of apocalypse and revolution, as well as a poignant story of broken family.

Douglas Lain is the author of Billy Moonand After the Saucers Landed, the editor of two speculative fiction anthologies,In the Shadow of the Towersand Deserts of Fire, and the publisher of Zero Books, which specializes in philosophy and political theory. He hosts the Zero Squared podcast, interviewing a wide range of fascinating and engaging people with insights for the new millennium. Lain lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.