Go Go Girls of the Apocalypes is a novel that is filled with the vast majority of post nuclear clichés that ran rampant during the 80’s.
The funny thing is, it’s all the good (if there is such a beast) clichés, not the post nuclear male fantasy crap that was so prevalent.
There were no strange mutants, no bizarre powers, no super science, nothing at all like that.
There wasn’t even one sick, fat, sexually depraved would be world ruler.
That fact set this novel apart from the crap that was prevalent in the 80’s.
Oh, there were parts of the book that existed back then, believe me – strange cults, factions vying for domination, that sort of thing.
Before I go any further, here’s the typical disclaimer – I will not reveal any details about the novel that you can’t glean from reading the back cover, with the exception of what I mentioned above. I don’t like spoilers.
Nine years have passed since the world as we know it ended. A man, Mortimer Tate, hid away in the mountains of Tennessee and waited out the end of the world, abandoning everything including his ex wife.
Nine years have passed without any contact with human life. He has no idea if the world has been spared, or if things have decayed into pure hell on earth or not. But, he’s lonely and wants to see what has happened.
It doesn’t take long for Mort to discover what has happened in the nine years since he abandoned civilization… and what he learns isn’t pretty.
Except for the dancers who are the main attraction of Joey Armageddon’s Sassy A-Go-Go strip clubs, which have become a shining, naked beacon in the ruined cities and towns of Tennessee.
But, all is not well in paradise… The Red Stripes want to control everything, and Joey Armageddon’s standing in the way of their domination.
Now, growing up in the 80’s I read pretty much every single crappy post nuclear series I could get my hands on. Hey, it was crap, and I didn’t know better, I just read what I enjoyed.
All but one of those series has long since been cancelled and has gone the way of the do-do bird, with good reason.
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">These books for the most part were complete and utter crap! Something that took me years to figure out.
But when I saw the book at the local book store and read the back, despite my feelings towards the long dead series, I felt a stirring of nostalgia. I figured, meh, what could one book hurt? It might be fun to read the stuff I used to love but finally grew out of.
I was pleasantly surprised that despite it being along the lines of the stuff that I grew up on, it wasn’t bad at all.
Gone were the typical crappy clichés of the series – the impossible mutants, the super science that was lost but somehow recently discovered, the muscle bound ‘heroes’ and I use that term loosely that typically shot first and then had messy and erotic carnal relations with loose beautiful women.
Gone were the often crazy, oft mutated world ruler wannabes.
In other words, gone were pretty much all the really bad aspects of the now defunct genre.
Yes, other aspects of the genre one would expect are there, including violence, factions trying to rule the wastes, strange groups and the hope of a better tomorrow, and of course unusual food.
The main character was pretty much a Joe average. Nothing remarkable about him, just someone who saw the writing on the wall and decided to cut while the going was good. He wasn’t some super-soldier or survivalist, just someone who got lucky and rode out the end in relative comfort.
The book was a fun read. Pure and simple, and it was a well written tale of survival in a new world, clinging to the remnants of the old, while trying to carve out a future.
And the characters were not only believable, but very human. Strength and weakness all rolled into one.
Finally, the two so called bosses, the two men at odds with one another who both want to reshape the world, well, they certainly weren’t what I was expecting to read about, and that alone was a refreshing surprise.
Overall, it was a fun read, it wasn’t a great read, but it was most definitely worth the cost of the book - especially if you happen to be a fan or as me, a former fan of this sub-genre of science fiction that hopefully is long gone and never to return.
3.5 out of 5
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