Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy : A Novel - Hardcover

Ruff, Matt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871136414 ISBN 13: 9780871136411

Publisher: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011

Synopsis

The year is 2023. High above the canyons of Manhattan, a crew of human and android steelworkers is approaching the halfway point in the construction of a new Tower of Babel. The Tower is the brainchild of billionaire Harry Gant, who is building it as a monument to humanity's power to dream. Meanwhile, on the streets (and below), a darker game is afoot: A Wall Street takeover artist has been murdered, and Harry's ex-wife, Joan Fine, has been hired to find out why. Accompanying her is philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand, resurrected from the dead by computer and bottled in a hurricane lamp to serve as Joan's unwilling assistant. While Rand vainly attempts to tutor her in "the virtue of selfishness," Joan discovers that the murder is the key to a much larger mystery - one in which millions of lives may hang in the balance.
The world of Sewer, Gas & Electric includes such characters as submarine eco-terrorist Philo Dufrense; his daughter, Seraphina, who lives in the walls of the New York Public Library; newspaper publisher Lexa Thatcher, whose Volkswagen Beetle is possessed by the spirit of Abbie Hoffman; and Meisterbrau, a mutant great white shark who swims in the sewer tunnels beneath Times Square - all of whom, and many more besides, are caught up in a conspiracy involving Walt Disney, J. Edgar Hoover, and an army of homicidal robots.

About this title

Review

"Ruff is a protean talent. . . . Very much in the absurdist tradition of Pynchon, Heller, Robbins, and Vonnegut." -The Washington Post "A dizzying rampage . . . will leave readers gasping for breath, mainly from laughter." -The San Francisco Chronicle "A careening riot. . . . Ruff's second novel can only enhance his reputation as a fantasy writer with imagination to burn." -Kirkus Reviews "This exuberantly silly tale will find an audience among admirers of Steve Erickson and David Foster Wallace." -Publishers Weekly

From the Inside Flap

"A post-millennial spectacular-dizzyingly readable." -Thomas Pynchon" A turbocharged neo-Dickensian hot rod [with] plenty of intellectual horsepower." -Neal Stephenson

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0871136414
• ISBN 13: 9780871136411
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 461