Normal

A Novel

By: Warren Ellis

Narrated by: John Hodgman

Length: 3 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

A smart, tight, provocative techno-thriller straight out of the very near future - by an iconic visionary writer.

Some people call it "abyss gaze". Gaze into the abyss all day and the abyss will gaze into you.

There are two types of people who think professionally about the future: Foresight strategists are civil futurists who think about geoengineering and smart cities and ways to evade Our Coming Doom; strategic forecasters are spook futurists, who think about geopolitical upheaval and drone warfare and ways to prepare clients for Our Coming Doom. The former are paid by nonprofits and charities, the latter by global security groups and corporate think tanks.

For both types, if you're good at it, and you spend your days and nights doing it, then it's something you can't do for long. Depression sets in. Mental illness festers. And if the abyss gaze takes hold there's only one place to recover: Normal Head, in the wilds of Oregon, within the secure perimeter of an experimental forest.

When Adam Dearden, a foresight strategist, arrives at Normal Head, he is desperate to unplug and be immersed in sylvan silence. But then a patient goes missing from his locked bedroom, leaving nothing but a pile of insects in his wake. A staff investigation ensues; surveillance becomes total. As the mystery of the disappeared man unravels in Warren Ellis's Normal, Adam uncovers a conspiracy that calls into question the core principles of how and why we think about the future - and the past, and the now.

©2016 Warren Ellis (P)2016 Macmillan Audio

Excellent and Disturbing

Normal is an outstanding new novel by Warren Ellis and a superb performance by John Hodgman. Wow. Listen to this now.

Great listen

love Ellis! Had me hooked from the opening chapter! great book! I highly recommend it!

Thank you, Warren Ellis...time to disconnect...

As always, his vision of the future is thought provoking, wry, horrific & possible.

Warren Ellis on apocalypsism? Yes please!

I could listen to Warren Ellis riff about End-of-the-World scenarios all day... and I'll take any narrative excuse at all to explore these Big Ideas. In true Ellis fashion, it's mind-boggingly smart and at once too short. Much to ponder. Also, often funny in that fucked up way.

What's Normal

Entertaining/enjoyable read... Wry social commentary, clever humor, deft insights, and skillful writing make for a nice afternoon read... Great characters and appropriate narration... Mayhap a bit thick on the symbolism/allegory, some will appreciate more than others...

Short Story

Because it is a short story (did I realize that when I bought it?) There are two many characters for them to be well developed. It really felt like this was an outline for a longer story. Interesting premise. The characters had promise and then, it ended.

Warren, please write longer & more complex novels!

I don't think any novel Warren Ellis has written really qualifies as anything other than a novella. They're all surprisingly short. It's especially true here where I feel like the story ends abruptly at what should have been the halfway point where your expectations are turned around leading to you an even niftier ending. I don't regret buying and reading any of them but I know that the same man who wrote Planetary and Transmetropolitan can plot a more complex and involving story.

Meh

This was a struggle and I really wanted to like it more. Nothing engaged me about the story. A collection of good ideas that never cultivated into anything.

Warren Ellis

"The only God I have is Danger Mouse". Best line in the whole book I say.

Fun and Interesting

The best thing about this book is the dialogue. Warren Ellis excels at this. The concept is wild, and the characters will take your mind for a spin. I generally have only good things to say, but I wish the book was a little longer. There were a lot of fun characters with different stories that caught my interest, and after the book ended, I felt a little shorted. This is definitely worth the read though (or listen, that is) because of the concept and dialogue alone. Also, if you're a fan of Warren Ellis in general, this book complements his style very well.