Claim Now Growing Up In Tier 3000 Written And Illustrated By Felix C. Gotschalk Made Available In Readable Copy

read this when it first came out, I'd read it again if I could find a copy,

This is a very short book, more like a novella, The premise is a world that is totally materialistic, in which any desire may be satisfied, but at a cost.
The world does not have enough resources to satisfy everyone's desires, so when children become adults they routinely murder their parents.
Well written, with humor. Jonas Sum XA is five going on six, and has not yet fully committed to murdering his parents.
The cute redheaded six year old from next door, Carol III RexA, is getting impatient, as shes already disposed of her parental figures

and they cant start their new life together until Jonas does.
Shes also killed a clone of herself to be legally dead for tax purposes, Can Jonas folks Jason and Ellen outwit the children and murder them first

This is the only fulllength novel published by Mr.
Gotschalk, psychologist and New Wave writer, Someone at Ace must have seen potential here, but hanged if I see how,

The word that immediately comes to mind is “hostile, ” This book is actively hostile to being read, from the heavy use of future slang “putmat” for “legal mother” and “surmat” for “nanny”, psychological jargon and ten dollar words all jumbled together, to deliberately trying to offend Twentieth Century American sensibilities in every way the author could cram in.


The setting is some five hundred years in the future, after the genocide wars and multiple other disasters warped human civilization into nearly unrecognizable shapes.
And yet pop culture froze somewhere in thes theres a Lyndon Johnson joke, Genetic engineering and biocybernetics are all the rage, While Jonas and Carol have all the emotional maturity and impulse control of the small children they are, they have the vocabulary and cultural knowledge of bored grad students.


Their civilization at first looks postscarcity, with people able to “dial up” any object or creature they desire.
But theres actually a limited supply of energy, so children are programmed to kill their parents at a certain age.
The parents are encouraged to defend themselves, I shouldnt call it “murder”, as killing people is perfectly legal,

The first part of the book is Carol and Jonas killing off Jason and Ellen, with a couple of detours as Jason clumsily attempts to malebond with his son.
Once the parents are out of the way, Jonas and Carol are now considered an adult couple and start exploring their new life and jobs.


However, things take an abrupt term when the provobots closest thing to cops figure out that Carol killed her clone to avoid financial issuesturns out tax fraud is still very illegal.
Carol and Jonas must flee, but where can they go

Good: Yes, believe it or not, The author fully commits to the bizarreness of the future culture, and there are lots of little throwaway bits demonstrating the diversity and oddness of the world in Tier.
Theres some philosophical musings in the final chapters that make sense,

Less good: The writing style makes casual reading a struggle, slowing you down so you can savor just how much of a dumpster fire this book really is.
And the author almost completely commits to being as offensive as possible, Suicide, rape, foul language, sexism, racism, underage sex, cannibalism, slavery, drugs and the list goes on, Samesex sex is suggested, but the author chickens out on actually putting it on page, Surprisingly, no mention of birth control or abortion, given the whole “parent vs, child” motif.

Not recommended except to collectors who need it to fill out their checklist unread, An absolutely awful book, overall, There were some interesting underlying concepts regarding societal operations, but others bordered upon revolting and crass, Ultimately, it appears as though the entire novel was written mostly for shock value and to purposefully jab at majority sensibilities.
I do not recommend this novel, Quite pornographic and outré for an Ace Science Fiction Special, Based on the ratings on this site, this book is loved by no one, The author is the biggest problem Gotschalk sees himself as what the kids today would call an "edgelord" and his attempts to shock as well as show off are obvious on every single page.
of this novel is written in jargon, even the uncomfortable sex scenes betweenyearolds, And yet something in me liked it to an extent, despite being annoyed to the point of giving up at least once a chapter.
Some of it genuinely IS shocking, but Gotschalk makes such a fucking production of his TWiStED ideas that the effect wears off.
A bit of subtlety would have helped greatly, But if you finish it, you'll remember it, I first heard of this book as a child, I was reading one of Robert Heinlein's coming of age books, "Time For The Stars", and saw the title for this book listed in the back in an ad from the publisher.
It sounded like another coming of age book, Something about the title captured my young imagination, A lifetime later, I remembered the title and the magic of Amazon brought a copy into my possession, I do not know how long I have had the book, but it was on my GoodReads "to read" list for about five years.


So, I feel a bit of accomplishment having read it, It has been a lifetime in the making, as well as having doneyears on my "to read" list at GoodReads.


The late Felix C, Gotschalk had a doctorate in psychology and taught the subject at Nicholls College in Louisiana in the lates, before becoming a practicing psychologist in.
He was married and had two children, Interestingly the biographical bit in the book published inmentioned that he was a "weight lifter", something people just didn't do as a hobby back then, particularly professionals.
He had a number of other artistic pursuits, Gotschalk wroteshort stories, a novelette and one novel this book, You can find these works listed at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database isfdb, org.

If I had to sum up my experience reading this book in one word, that word would be: hostile.


The feeling of hostility started with a quote from the author at the start of the book which ended with:

"As for writing itself, it is something I do for me.
If people "like" what I write, fine if they don't, it's no skin off my ass"

The next perception of hostility came with the vocabulary.
The vocabulary was a witch's brew of sesquipedalisms, medical jargon, other scientific jargon, and some olds slang, This book was the most difficult piece of writing I have read since graduate school, I had to read it at my desk with a dictionary site up in a web browser, Understanding the text was almost literally a line by line endeavor,

The last of the hostility on my part was felt with the story itself,

It is set in the far future where most people live in artificial environments far above the ground ala "The Jetsons".
References to multiple moons and strangely colored landscapes made me mistakenly think it was another planet, but later on in the book it was made clear the story was set on an Earth many centuries after a nuclear war.


In this world people can have almost anything they want instantly by "dialing" for it, which causes it to be materialized out of thin air and energy.
The population is a mix of intelligent robots, some with biological implants, and humans who are cyborgs from birth via an array of implants and prosthetics.


The humans of this world are "suprahumans", They mature very fast, partially brought on by the cybernetic implants instantly implanting information into their memories and altering their biology.
The two main characters are six years old, each in the body of a typical six year old, but with the minds of intellectually advanced adults.
Homicidal, intellectually advanced adults. People are biologically and cybernetically programmed to feel urges to kill their parents starting at about age six, This programming is done to conserve limited energy resources against the huge usage instantly replicating whatever people want,

The first half of the book about Carolyears old encouraging her maturing boyfriend Jonasyears old to begin thinking about killing his parents.
Carol has already murdered her parents, Carol, Jonas, and Jonas's parents live together, each wearing personal force fields while Carol openly expresses hostilities while everyone plans to kill everyone else before they get killed.


There is no more story than this, Abstruse hostile in between murder attempt conversations done to describe the futuristic world and give a rational for the system.
The character differention is poor, Any bit of dialogue coming from one character could just as easily come from another character, All of it was selfimportant almost to a narcissistic degree and hostile,

The book seemed to be about shock value, expressing the kind of hostility an adolescent might have, or at least a giant "Fuck You!" but wrapped hifalutin language.


The funkiness with hostility reminded me of a book I found in high school library called "The Zip Gun".
On the cover was a picture of the main character picking his nose with a gun, in a bizarre outfit.
I have a sense that a lot of short sci fi stories from thes are about being funky with a hostile edge.


The funkiness I liked, as it reminded me of the experience of having my imagination capture and getting "mind fucks" as a child with thoses era scifi stories.


The ugliness and hostility I could have done without,

Interestingly, after finishing this book I Googled on the author and had many of my impressions validated.


Wikipedia had this to say about Gotschalk:

"Felix C, Gotschalk was an American science fiction writer with a distinct, idiosyncratic style, his work marked by energetic exploration of social and sexual taboos"

In regard to "thats funky, mind fuck,hostile short scifi story feel" Wikipedia also mentioned that Gotschalk was part of an actual movement of scifi writers at the time called "New wave":

"The New Wave is a movement in science fiction produced in thes ands and characterized by a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, a "literary" or artistic sensibility, and a focus on "soft" as opposed to hard science.
New Wave writers often saw themselves as part of the modernist tradition and sometimes mocked the traditions of pulp science fiction, which some of them regarded as stodgy, adolescent and poorly written.
"

Yep, that was some of what I read as a child and a teenager, That style can be alienating, but also fun in that it makes you feel you came in the middle of a movie or fell into a world you don't understand.
It is a mind fuck, which makes the escapism you sought feel all that much stronger,

I have to confess I felt a little guilty writing this review, thinking that authors do have feelings, maybe the writing wasn't a reflection of his personality, and that his family who survived him would be hurt by this hostile review.


Given the mild nostalgia/joy I had with the "thats funky scifi" feel of the book part of me is tempted to look up his short stories or those of other authors of that time.
If the vocabulary and stories are not as hostile I can see myself enjoying those stories as Gotschalk was a very intelligent, educated man with a good imagination.


This particular book was just a negative experience for me with the difficulty of the vocabulary and the hostility expressed in the story.


I gave itinstead ofbecause of the joy of finding a "New Wave" scifi work, the joy of sticking with the book to the end, and finally having read a title that captured my imagination as a child, then materialized as an actual book later in my life.
A dystopia in which children are so evolved they are ready to reproduce at six and kill off their nowunnecessary parents.


I can't tell if it's just dated, or it's not the kind of SF I like, It's trying too hard to be Important and hip/slangy at once, It doesn't want to be too easily understood, And interestingly, the little else I read about it online makes me think, Wait, did I read the same book Language structure shapes our world sitelink worldswithoutend. com/searc I thought their biological imperatives shaped the characters revoltingly spoiled, sexualized, morbidly obese childtyrants are really no fun to be around.
especially in a novel filled with much obnoxiously hip and embarrasingly dated vernacular, a person can get through this one in a couple hours, take a nice long nap instead, Theis the perfect community of the future, complete with all the exotic and erotic luxuries, amenities and technology that man's imagination could desire.
But it is a suicidal and malignant paradise, one that threaten to eat away the very basics of humanity.
. . and eventually humanity itself. .