“We’re back from Bizarro-land, and to demonstrate that, we’re bringing you a review of a post-apocalyptic Melbourne Australia that’s chock-full of plastic surgery, social deviancy, detective movie references, and a few goats to boot. Check out Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat, it’s pretty great.

“Recommended to us by many people, including Gordon Highland, this book delivers. It’s a great little post-apocalyptic tale about a man who finds himself the pawn in a dangerous game, and what he does to stay alive, get the girl, and steal the goat.”

LISTEN IN TO THE 28-MINUTE REVIEW & ANALYSIS HERE.

“The hard-drinking, hard-boiled and witty hero, Floyd, would usually be the detective in a [Raymond] Chandler story but here in the “new” Melbourne, post-event, he’s placed in a bubble-like world as a “Seeker”, with more authority than a Chander detective, to seek, locate, apprehend, contain and terminate Deviants.

“Chandler’s heroes have to fight the system to get some resolution and Bergen’s hero is no different. He’s only doing the job to pay his sick wife’s hospital bills, and he never gets to see her. He lives with the nagging fear of being “relocated” but somehow can’t keep his acerbic mouth shout. He’s constantly in trouble with authority, despite being in authority himself. And just as in Chandler’s novels, the hero’s instincts usually turn out to be correct.

“Ultimately however what makes this book a good read is not plot nor form, but observation, wit and dialogue.

“In the background of a wasteland, Bergen makes as many allusions to film as T.S. Eliot made to literature. There’s a useful “Encylopedia Tobacciana” at the end of the novel which you can check out if you’re not sure what a reference is to, and similarly a glossary for the slang contained in the novel. These add to the sense of the quirky, as does the calligraphy in the book itself and the typeset. Chandler could perhaps be scratching his head about some of this, safe up in heaven-dead, but his own writing always struck me as kind of idiosyncratic, and we’re living in different times now, brother. In a modern age of conspiracies and corporate agglomerates, I think he’d be pleased as to where Bergen has taken his legacy…

Read More: http://zouchmagazine.com/tobacco-stained-mountain-goat-a-novel-by-andrez-bergen-and-a-conversation-with-the-writer/

“Yes, it is littered with references to so many aspects of 20th century culture that if you were to pile them all up and take them to the recycling depot you would need an articulated lorry, but as the story starts to kick in and you begin to get a handle on what’s going on in this post-apocalypse world inside some huge plastic dome in Melbourne (trust me, it works) you will get totally hooked on this Orwellian Brave New World where the rich are protected from every hardship and the rest struggle to get by amid acid rain and polluted food supplies.

“Floyd, it has to be said, is a very reluctant hero and would rather nurse a bottle of cheap vodka and prescription meds lying on his sofa than avenging his wife’s death. But this damaged man who seemingly has had his freedom of choice and liberty taken away somehow manages to make you believe that he can make a difference in this horrible, deluded and damaged world.

“I love how multi-layered Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat is, not like a huge sandwich filled with peperami, cheese, tomato, lettuce, chicken and bacon but more like a huge bowl of broth full of every kind of vegetable, bean, rice and barley that you’ve every known in your life. Every spoonful brings a different flavour and texture and the aroma is just divine.”

READ MORE @ I Meant to Read That…

“I really felt for Floyd in spite of his drunken existence. I hurt for him, I was angry for him, I was right along with him as he started to reach out for loved ones as they started slipping away, family and friends alike.

“Floyd is admirably tough and lovable, which takes some strength in a world where people get snatched away for no good reasons thanks to corporate greed and politics. He manages to pull himself from a helpless position in his world to a position of power to try and save people he cares about as well as society in general… at least, whatever’s left of it, soggy with acid rain and scarred by struggling to grow in a dying world. What’s scary, though, is that aside from just a little bit of futuristic cosmetic surgery and a few other things, you could look around at the current global climate and see this mess be a real possibility.

That gives me just enough of a spine-chill to hope certain company executives never read this tale, and that humanity hasn’t been consumerized into (near) extinction just yet.”

READ MORE @ The Kindle Book Review

“Bergen has great affection for film noir, gangsters and cool broads with a shady past. Jokes and references zip past and clobber the reader, so many that an encyclopaedia, glossary and film/reading list are included should you want to check those you have missed. The atmosphere is similar in style to the movie Blade Runner whilst the structure is from The Maltese Falcon.

“Witty and literate, the book skips along at a lively pace… Floyd is a likeable character, the low down gumshoe in need of a quick buck and a shot of whisky is a familiar trope, and Bergen gets the voice and accent just right. The story does go a little off kilter at times, meandering rather than setting out any true destination, but it is the ride rather than the finishing line that makes this a fun read. It’s certainly no worse than trying to understand the plot holes in many of the best Bogart movies.”

READ MORE @ The British Fantasy Society

“Floyd sees everything through a haze of references to film noir, hard-boiled detective novels, Japanese films, you name it—all the things that bare*bones readers love to read, watch and quote!

“The prose is solidly tough-guy style, more noir than sci-fi, with technical terms kept to a minimum, yet the Blade Runner-like futuristic world of corruption is never too far away. This novel has enough twists and turns to keep a Raymond Chandler fan happy. There are echoes of Total Recall, and any novel where the main character goes in search of another character named Wilton Parmenter and instead finds one named Agarn is bound to entertain fans of 1960s TV.”

READ MORE @ bare•bones e-zine

“With one foot planted firmly in a futuristic world where Seekers routinely undergo Matrix-like virtual reality “tests” to ensure they are still in the fold and capable of carrying out company orders, TSMG manages to simultaneously have its other foot rooted in an authentic, throwback, hardboiled detective vibe. And it is in that fuzzy blending of post-apocalyptic and old-school noir that TSMG carves out what is one of the most wonderfully unique books I’ve had the pleasure to read… I can say without qualification that not only is Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat one of my Top 5 reads of 2011, it is one of the most creative and engaging books I’ve ever read. Period.”

READ MORE @ ELIZABETH’S BOOK REVIEWS WEBSITE

“Though this might seem a dystopian slice of life, it’s far more, and seemingly disconnected events tie together in a fantastic ending. I had my doubts (who doesn’t, with a debut? Endings are hard), but Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat genuinely succeeds in both surprising and surpassing your expectations. And as a reviewer – we have secret plot-senses – that’s rare… Referential, inspired, and occasionally defying any expectation whatsoever, this is an odd read that you really should try.”

READ MORE @ DRYING INK

“The dystopian Melbourne of TSMG, pitched at some distance into the future, has the unique distinction of being the only city left in the world. Unfortunately, things are not going terribly well in terms of civil liberties, the political climate or the environment. In fact, things are comprehensively fucked up on all fronts, and the portrait painted is of an overcrowded, polluted metropolis groaning under the control of a government vested in corporate interests and busy herding non-conformists and misfits into extramural death camps styled as ‘hospitals’…

“Oh, and on a final note, you will thoroughly enjoy the company of the protagonist, Floyd Maquina – he is ruggedly handsome and generally ruined; witty, self destructive and self-effacing with his air of gracious defeat. He has a weary charm that is impossible to resist. If only he were real…”

READ MORE HERE:
http://theflawedmind.com/2011/10/19/tobacco-stained-mountain-goat-a-bleak-but-entertaining-melbourne/

“And then the girl from the Activities was standing before me. You remember her, the one from my recurring dream. The one I murdered, even if I don’t exactly remember the details. She stood before me, a hole the size of a football cut into her stomach, her hands cradling her innards.”

Those are the kind of stark descriptions of the grotesque and fantastic that litter Andrez Bergen’s debut novel. Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat is a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi noir caper that comes on quick and relentless, and doesn’t quit until the last words.

The protagonist, Floyd Maquina, is a messed up guy. Living in Melbourne, Australia (which happens to be the last city on Earth) he hunts Deviant citizens with government sanctioned vigor and a wicked drug and alcohol dependency. There’s violence, humor, and some tugging of heartstrings, but all in all, Bergen manages to keep things light despite a setting of pure bleakness: constant rain, depression, drug addiction. Somehow, among all of the drabness and desolation, Bergen crafts a tale that is full of fun dialogue, quirky idiosyncrasies, imaginative, lively characters, and a relatable world to put it all inside of. The image of Floyd sitting on a cramped train with his head pressed against a rain washed window reflecting bright with neon advertisements still sticks with me.

At the heart of Bergen’s novel is the love affair our author has with popular culture. This book is bursting with nods and homage’s to everything from Humphrey Bogart to Mobile Suit Gundam. At times I thought that his continuous placement of sly cultural references would weigh the narrative down and Bergen’s original thoughts would get lost in the milieu. Not the case. His sensitive placement and explanations of these references binds them firmly to the story and are vital to the reader’s sense of place and feeling. The idea could have gone overboard, but the execution remains poignant. And just in case some things go over your head (example: a tosser cracking foxy with a twist) there is a glossary and an encyclopedia in the back.

Bergen’s style doesn’t coddle the reader. His sometimes informal voice and penchant for showing and not telling require a little extra participation on the reader’s part. The result, though, is a quick but memorable excursion to a unique place that rewards the reader with invigorating style and a very satisfying ending. Check this one out.

EVAN PEARSON @ Verbicide Magazine, 29 Aug. 2011