by Ernest Hogan
“I
don't pretend at highbrow Latino literature. I write violent
dystopian sci-fi for a readership wanting new action, blood and
mythos,” says Frank S Lechuga, author of LOM Book One
Highbrow/lowbrow probably ain't no big deal. Chicanos tend not to
make that distinction. I can be surrealsitic and pulpy at the same
time. It's a mestizo/rashquache thing.
As is LOM Book One. Lechuga calls it a Xicano science fiction
novel. And his roots go back to the original Chicano movement.
But this isn't a political tract or literary fine art. It's a
high-powered shoot 'em up full of martial arts and futuristic
hardware. Plus recombocultural world building, quotes from Carlos
Casteneda, Korean Hwrang Do, dates according to the ancient
calendar that the Aztecs stole from the Maya that was probably
created by the Olmecs. Move over Mad Max, this is out of the
tradition of Hot Rods to Hell and Harlan Ellison's “Along
the Scenic Route,” plugged into streetwise, lowrider/custom car
esthetics and badass technophilia. It hints at a different culture to
come, and makes me homesick for the streets of L.A.
Besides the action, there are fascinating infodumps in the cyberpunk
tradition – what strange, new traditions we have these days. It
could capture the attention of the Grand Theft Auto video game
generation who are protesting the police actions in their
neighborhoods, and take them beyond gangsterims into a
Xicano/Toltec/Hwrang Do future.
Or as Lechuga put in, in all caps: “THE SOCIOPOLITICAL SEEDS OF
LOM'S DYSTOPIA HAVE ALREADY SPROUTED.”
And it is Book One. LOM is an acronym. What is stands for will be
revealed in the final, fourth book.
Hang on, this wild ride has just begun.
Ernest Hogan
was born in East L.A., and is known as the father of Chicano science
fiction because of his novels, Cortez on Jupiter, High
Aztech and Smoking Mirror Blues and other stories.
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