FKA USA

Uneven worldbuilding makes this dull, sprawling postapocalyptic picaresque a bit of a mess; the blend of mayhem and farce never gels. In the 2080s the United States has been replaced by multiple political entities, but King relegates details of how this came to be to appendices, leaving readers to try to patch together scraps from the main text, a journal kept by Truckee Wallace. Truckee is an employee of a processing plant for artificial food in the northeastern region known as Crunch, United. The head of his company assigns Truckee to travel west, accompanied by a talking goat named Barnaby, and stop the inventor of a chip that links frontal lobes with electronic devices from becoming even more powerful. King throws out head-scratching references to a Second Civil War having been caused by the First Lady’s legs, and to Texas and California, which have seceded from the union, forming a political alliance. He also blithely uses mass disasters as fodder for jokes. This dreary slog isn’t worth the effort. Agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. (June)