Hunter S. Thompson, �Kingdom of Fear�
Ah, the wonders and joys of holding a new Hunter Thompson book in your hand. It�s been a while. I know, I know, there was that Screwjack book, but at 60 pages, and the majority of said pages being published previously, that was really more of a pamphlet showing the usefulness of recycling.
Recycling material, that is.
So now I have a big fat tome of Hunter rants and raves, shaking his weathered fist at the sky as well as the idiots of America. And suddenly, all is right with the world. If there is one thing that our Orange Alert society needs right now, it�s an old man with a lot of firepower ready to blast holes in the hypocrisies of the American Dream.
And he starts right away. From the introduction:
It would be easy to say that we owe it all to the Bush family from Texas, but that would be too simplistic. They are only errand boys for the vengeful, bloodthirsty cartel of raving Jesus-freaks and super-rich money mongers who have ruled this county for at least the last 20 years, and arguably for the past 200. They take orders well, and they don�t ask too many questions
.
Whoooo! HUNTER!! HUNTER!! HUNTER!!
Unfortunately, he doesn�t stay in the present long enough. Instead, we�re treated to exploits from when he was young and crazy (er), like running the night shift at the Mitchell Brothers O�Farrell Theater, or his run for Sheriff of Aspen County. Fun stuff, but much of these areas has been discussed before in books like Songs of the Doomed and Generation of Swine.
The result, especially after 200 pages, is the feeling that we�ve read all this before. And in a sense, we have (or at least I have...). The most interesting and entertaining stuff comes from his finally being able to legally talk about his disputed sexual battery charge, which he does with a vengeance, but this section is too little, too late.
Stranger still, for the first time in my life I can see points where Hunter may not be telling the entire truth, or worse, where he�s making stuff up. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has plenty of parts that seem implausible, but the descriptions are so vivid and amazing, that you want to believe them. In Kingdom of Fear, there are things that you know didn�t happen.
And for some reason, I was reluctant to buy the ticket and take the ride.
