The Book Cage: Episode 98 - ON WHEELS
Our fallen king John Jakes is back and, well, just look at it. In the future, 10% of Americas population lives on the road. Always. If any member of the clan ever goes below 40 mph, they die. Featuring a cover that bafflingly mentions Slaughterhouse Five and Dune, it's a "brilliant prophetic novel of America's future lost generation." Come ON WHEELS, fellow Children of the Firebird, this Friday, 5pm eastern.
POP QUIZ HOTSHOT
John Jakes walked so Keanu Reeves could run in SPEED
"Just drove here from the post-Apocalypse and boy are my arms tires"
A little under an hour until ON WHEELS by John Jakes. Spoiler alert for this preview
Was he born, born to be wild?
I guess he really was born in motion if he's a screaming full grown man with wheels for arms and feet
Last of the Dragonards VI: DOWNSHIFT
"Billy Spoiler Worships Speed"
I mean, it's a fine movie, but it's not that good
Sounds more like Speed took its notes from Billy Spoiler
Billy Spoiler is Billy Karate's cousin. He shows up once per season like Tom Hanks on Family Ties.
If Billy Spoiler's not a Turbo Teen what has any of this been for
Let's ride.
Someone painted the answer to "why do you like cars?"
RIP
THE LAST AMERICAN HERO IS JUNIOR JOHNSON. YES!
YES!
Little weird to quote a book about an old-time NASCAR driver for your future distopia, but you do you, Jakes
i / Low Gear
More lore, Jakes. More!
Give me so much tablesetting there isn't room for a guest
Get on the radiophone
It's weird how many sci-fi writers got bored, stuck in traffic, hated it, and thought, in the future, everyone will want to do this full-time.
Radiophones are how you know it's the future.
I hate it when my brain coils
Picture a phone in your car, but with the 500-mile spool of telephone wire removed from the rear axle.
God damn that light
Boy, that sure is one sentence
Oh my fucking god it sure is.
This is why Jakes is a book cage legend.
That's a lot of words for 'deathtrap'
Just Billy and his Pinto
His pinto with the check engine light on.
Billy Spoiler worships fiery combustion!!
The far off past-future from the 1970s
Slapped, "dialled," and fiddled to get the intercar
God I love when sci fi is just normal shit with Jetpacks taped on.
Billy doesn't stop for ANYTHING.
"He entered the car like an ape that had never seen a car before"
He lives his life on the run. Run ON.
Jobe Spoiler says explore the rearvision for the Ramps
The real tragedy of Tiananmen Square was it voided this world's speculative history from ever coming true.
"Ramps. I only heard of these in songs and stories."
So Billy Karate is a first cousin then?
Billy's leakin'
They call their internal combustion engine cars "mothers" for some reason
"nope, just the Flintstones kind"
Freud goes to get a fresh notebook
The lugubrious, always cheering gravel-rasp of the many-named Tal. So venerated because he finished high school
The characters name is being built as you read it
Innovative
Well obviously you can't fuck your dad.
Col Tal has some Major Major Major Major authority going on
Those were crossed out but the publisher left them in anyway.
They're bad fatherfuckers? No, no, ridiculous.
I dig that he's special because no one knows why he's there
He was hard charger who drove a Lincoln Mercury
As all old men do.
He just showed up one day with a clipboard and a hardhat.
The ramps drive turbines. If you were wondering what that means, keep wondering
ahhhh. John Jakes and his never-explained terminology. It feels good to see again
Tighten your bowels
Fuck yeah on the new title, @gellaho, hardyboysorigins.com
That's too many tires
We may also have to examine what "van" means
It's short for "vanhicle"
This motherfucker pulling up in a clone trooper turbo tank
The highway patrol has a bedtime, because what bad could happen in the middle of the night?
The lanes are multiplying with each paragraph
That's morning shift's problem
Saw Tal's mother yaw
If this was an audiobook, this would be the point where Jakes started to sound like he was improvising
He's gotten better on the passive speech, but still needs to slice through the crap excess detail.
Tal's nodding off at the wheel.
That's his secret, cap
If the van's a-rockin', just come right inside
I'm sure this won't play a part in the story later
That wasn't sarcasm
I'm not sure John Jakes understands motor vehicles if he thinks you can link a ton of them together and just keep driving
These gang names are stupid.
Cloverleafs. I assume they're Bulgarian?
Probably shouldn't have called Tal "a hard charger" before if you were going to use "Hardcharger" as a proper name on the next page
How have we gotten this far in Book Cage without a character named Big Daddy?
Listen, you can't backspace a typewriter
We've just had medium daddies so far.
The nasty oversized blowhole of the happily married
Lord, I was born a rampin' man
The situation was quite ticklish
Witness him?
It was a fuckmobile, got it.
A fuckmobile continuously edging.
You can tell how nasty a turbine gets based on their blowhole.
But when it comes to performance - fuckgobbler
Billy, listen. Lee is doing this because he wants to fuck you.
Maybe don't breath so heavily while you say it, at least
You're all exhaust, no horsepower.
Ghostly balls
Oh man, you have to be perpetually blueballed when you're a ghost?
That's so rough.
Jakes rolls dice every time he needs a number of lanes.
Some numbskull pophead stopper in-boring on the merge-in feeder
This reads like Jakes was being misled by a bunch of truckers at a diner about truck lingo
Hot punch has started many blood feuds
Ginger punch sounds like something Dickens characters would drink.
Keeps you from getting a cold at least.
Sparkly intensity
Ginger Punch is my MMA drag name
Never going below 40 on the Federal I-Jobs
Sadness tugged at Billy, like a truckstop sex worker.
Electric runabout can't do 80mph
Merging: The Novel
Something you'll notice about this book is how the speeds they're going don't really seem that fast
Although I give Jakes credit for predicting Tesla drivers.
This is 1970's speeds. You have to adjust for inflation
Jobe Spoiler, inventor of the chromed bumper.
There's also a lot of bumper car action
Unstable Max: Annoyance Road
The fuck is a half-boot
This is just a normal commute in Toronto.
lmao a half boot? Like what school marms wear?
The license plates of a warrior
Are there two Nevadas in this future highway hellscape?
And they say chivalry is dead
Good thing these outlaw clans have valid plates with current registration.
They're rebels. But they're not law breakers.
It did a very specific maneuver, so common and so uniform that it's named after a letter of the alphabet, out of control
Gasoline is illegal, so the Spoilers' mothers are illegal. But they can also run in packs without being pulled over and have them registered?
This is like a very old man read Damnation Alley and the first chapter of Snow Crash, did LSD, and is trying to describe what those stories are like while he hallucinates he is being frozen in time.
Anyway, one of the Ramps ran into the lady driver, suffering the indignity of dropping below forty. But keeping some pride by walking
After falling asleep watching mad max.
Must making pissing real awkward.
8 Mile
You have to imagine they've passed the same cactus enough times to name it. The Sierra Nevada desert is big but it's not "drive forever and never see the end" big
GIF
How do you even refuel something if you have to do it shark style and never stop moving?
And adjusted the rolled up sock
If you're car starts falling apart at 94mph, I'm not sure you're cut out for street racing
94 isnt even that fast.......
That's a very narrow range of speeds they can be in. Not less than 40, but 94 is dangerous.
The moderately paced and the furious
Those are speed detaching parts, they make you go faster
He's sure to win when he pulls out this little trick
He's got fatter nuts to tighten
:FuckApe:
He tightens fat nuts, and leaves wiping up to someone else.
Big Daddy "Fat Tight Nuts" Ramp?
Does "see the big fifty" mean he'll see fifty years old or is it a highway?
He wants to see all fifty states?
Or see all 50 states?
The odometer of a legend
Cos hes gonna run into trouble in some of the Appalachian ones if he cant go under 40.
(ignore that John Jakes called it a speedometer)
A five digit odometer really dates this.
Big Daddy "Fat Tight Nuts" Hardcharger......
At mile 100,000, it explodes
Billy imagines his god of death is ridden by a chick with sweet tits
Or just more evidence his car sucks.
This is a really weird adaptation of Desert Bus you guys
A lady with hair of corn and tits of milk
This is desert communal van.
Oh man no wonder they think 50,000 miles on the odometer is a big deal if a Firebird is a legendary car.
The grammar on that first sentence really went out the window
Hightest meaning high-test or someone prejudiced against the tall?
Did the author have a stroke? "there was a hightest gas used it for signs"?
You know, when that
Someones editor had to have been dying of lead poisoning to have let that slip by.
Your car sucks, Billy
hahahahah it cant go past 101, my shitty SUV can and probably not even blow the engine.
Suddenly: station wagon
Does he mean... neon?
And those kids are fucking dead
The Griswalds try to take out the Ramps
hahahahaha, wait
The longer you drive, the bigger the desert gets.
They were just trying to beat rush hour.
These idiots have a "never drive below 40mph" rule and they live in a world where other people stop?
How are they still alive?
Really, who drives a fucking station wagon in the nightmare future?
So, high-test is a gasoline thing. I have no idea what happened with the sign. I'm pretty sure some words went missing there
TIL
I'm going to be skipping the car action. I don't think even the best authors could make car chases comprehensible in text
Billy gets crashed into the wall. He uses his speedo to check if he's a man
A very common experience for boys of his age
At least in Damnation Alley, Roger Zelazny had the good sense to include being attacked by giant mutant possibly radioactive bats.
Now do we think should of was a stylistic choice or the author's own mistake?
Billy is as bad at grammar as he is at having a good car.
Bullet-shaped milk freighters
Babe, what do you say tonight we slow down to 45 mph and just enjoy ourselves?
NO! SUSAN I goddamn SAID
DEER!
HYPEMILK: WE SHOOT OUR MILK AT YOU
You know how you suffer hurrahs
"In fact, stop talking altogether, Billy"
If they're 10% of the population, I think there are, by definition, many clans on the roads
aww, they meet up for Christmas? That's sweet
Is this one of those post apocalyptic stories where the government is still perfectly intact?
Billy bleeds black
Spurt towards the egg
Billy isn't the first person who vowed to stab someone at a holidy get-together
Billy........are you a beetle? Do you have ichor?
Someone say Spurt?
All of our books fit within the Steele universe, where Staten Island is a mysterious deathwaste but also we truck in coffee over the Lincoln Tunnel.
You gotta use all the punctuation, that's what they're there for
The roving clans of moto reavers use every part of the English language.
Yes, Wrinkleproof was a cutting expose on the fabric softener industry
Exclamation points are filed to become machetes.
THE FEDERALLY-ISSUED LICENSE PLATE OF A WARRIOR-NOMAD
The highways have 1d20 lanes
The DMV in post-apocalyptic America does not fuck around. You WILL register on time
LICENSED ROAD SAMURAI
Stupid gang logic is the most realistic part of this book.
Bleeding black all the way to his dick
"I know it helps the cops catch me but I'm obliged to stunt on other outlaws."
Federally licensed outlaws.
okay but why capitalize Tin?
"Hey Colonel? Remember how I said I cut myself? Turns out I done scraped my whole forehead off."
Caplital letters make it cooler and more important.
He better slow down to the low 40s if he's going to pass out
If you are wondering how these gigantic road vans get constructed when they have to be going 40 at all times: don't
it's like if Mortal Engines was stupid.
I hope it's bungee cords and putting the cars in neutral
Well you start with a set of wheels that you toss off the back of a truck while its tied to something.
And meth.
Also, the speed limit is 80, so their cars really suck
Mostly meth
Sammy Spoiler: mobile mechanic
Oh. They've got one of those trucks like in knight rider.
I wonder if Jakes played Car Wars or Autoduel or maybe Atomic Highway?
Sammy hasn't even looked at their cars yet but he's already overcharging them
Here's another Billy's willy update:
His dick is wobbly. Repeat: wobbly.
He should take up pedestrianism
If your genitals are wobbly, that means they're...working? Asleep?
Billys willy is wobbly when it should be wibbly. Its a bad sign.
Mad Max by Dr Seuss
I'm not sure how these 28 apartment vans help get the doctor there quicker, but whatever
You have to be really agile to jump from van to van.
They lose so many doctors in the assorted pistons and wheel wells.
Swing and a miss on the prognostication, Jakes
Those safety devices? The Club
Definitely a better system than parking
Pollution control device is half a potato with a hole drilled thru it in the tailpipe and a box of baking soda in the glove box.
At least, that's what an old Irishman told me
"Hey what if doing things with car was as awkward and dangerous as doing things in space?"
Putting car in neutral and letting the other car's engine haul twice the load. This will not backfire
The doctor gives Billy viagra, then goes on his way
As far as what "rendered his punchcard" means, who knows?
How would you change the oil like this? Or brake pads?
You drive into the service vehicle, which is going at least 40 and do it in there
How do the larger vehicles get serviced?
Road Fairies
If Billy gets three more head injuries he can get a free six inch sub.
The van is big enough for a hospital wing
Billy, if you are lying in a bunk, or standing in a way that you face a direction not in keeping with your velocity, are you still a real man?
If you were worried, the drugged up girl was fine
Kids are still dead, though
The ultimate van
Like if you turn sideways in the van are you not then travelling not forward?
They don't believe in relativity
So when Groucho Marx said "A hotel bed is a parked taxi with the meter running", is this what he meant?
Oh, she was jailed? By the outlaws?
Time for another Billy's willy update:
Whats even the point of nightmarish future road warrior shit if you cant do drugs without the Man coming at you?!
The Federal Highway Patrol, I'd assume
This is just regular America with a bunch of mad max larpers
I have a hard time picturing any of this
Gen. Ford Motors is the one man Col. Tal Dumbname respects.