Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick Review: Jason Pargin’s Wild Satire Hits Hard

Zoey Ashe returns to Tabula Ra$a for a fast, funny, and surprisingly sharp story about online mobs, isolation, and survival

zoey punches the future in the dick

“Will, calm as wind chimes, said, “Wu, if you hit Zoey two inches below her rib cage and one inch to the right of her spinal column, you’ll punch a hole through her abdomen that she’ll likely survive. Set the round to detonate about six inches later, inside Mr. Tilley’s torso. It will blow him in half, implants or not.”―

David Wong, Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick

About

The latest–and greatest–sci-fi thriler in the Zoey Ashe Series.

Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements. An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move. Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes. A young woman suddenly in charge of the most decadent city in the world–and her very smelly cat.

Zoey Ashe is like a fish so far out of water that it has achieved orbit. She finds herself struggling to establish rule over a sprawling empire while Tabula Ra$a’s rogue’s gallery of larger-than-life crime bosses and corrupt plutocrats smell weakness. Tensions brew across the city.

A steamer trunk-sized box arrives at Zoey’s door, and she and her bodyguard Wu are shocked to find that it contains a disemboweled corpse, and even more shocked when that corpse, controlled by an unknown party, rises from the box and goes on a rampage through the house. After being subdued, it speaks in an electronic voice, accusing Zoey of being its murderer. Soon, it makes the same claim to the public at large, along with the promise of a cash reward for proof that Zoey and the Suits are behind the crime.

Now Zoey is having doubts of her own: Is she 100% sure that someone on her team didn’t do this? She also doesn’t even have a complete list of what businesses she owns, or what exact laws her organization is still breaking. So what does she really know?

My Thoughts

Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick by Jason “David Wong” Pargin is the second installment in the Zoey Ashe series, following 2016’s Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. Just as it did in Futuristic Violence, this newest Zoey book delivers a hilarious blend of science fiction storytelling and the absurd. Once again, the story takes place in Tabula Ra$a, Utah, a city built around the wealthy, the indulgent, and the lawless.

In the previous installment, Zoey inherited her father’s multibillion-dollar empire, one built on mob-like tendencies and the whimsical desires of a man with too much money and not enough scruples. Zoey, who grew up poor with a single mother, now has to morally navigate this ridiculous world while holding onto her own compass. All while surviving everything thrown at her, from exploding humans with superpowers to mobs of online rage addicts spreading rumors that she is a cannibal.

This particular entry in the series finds Zoey being digitally harassed and attacked. The trolls of Tabula Ra$a accuse her of being a cannibal and a power-hungry despot. They threaten her home and her general well-being. They attack her online, invent wild accusations, and generally make her life a living hell. To make matters worse, a rival security company is throwing proverbial gasoline on the fire.

Did they send the steamer trunk with a dead body that jumped up and started chasing everyone around the mansion while shouting about Zoey being a cannibal? Or was it something even more sinister?

This story once again demonstrates the wit and imagination Wong brings to all of his books. Both the Zoey Ashe series and the John Dies at the End books use the absurd and the gonzo to deliver sympathetic characters alongside sharp social commentary. While Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick is very funny, the characters also play off one another well. There is plenty of banter between Zoey and her team, but there is also an undercurrent of sadness beneath it all. Zoey is isolated. She has no close friends, and her only regular social interaction is with her cat. That isolation leaves her feeling off-kilter and deeply alone.

Another strength of David’s writing is that he does not shy away from humanity’s uglier problems. For instance, in the time between Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits and Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick, Zoey has a mental breakdown and enters a mental health facility. Given everything she has been through, it is no wonder. But instead of using that experience as comedic fodder, Wong lets Zoey speak about it with real honesty. Likewise, Zoey has smaller breakdowns, nightmares, and moments of panic that feel recognizably human. It adds realism to her character, and it is genuinely refreshing to see an author handle mental health with more care.

“The victims smelled smoke. They all wanted to get out but they didn’t hear an alarm. The alarm, in that situation, wasn’t there to announce there was a fire—they knew there was a fire. The alarm was there to give them permission to get up and leave. Nobody wanted to be first, the social pressure kept them glued to their seats.

Well, mass violence works the same way. It just takes one person to be the fire alarm, to give everybody permission to go wild. But probably half of the rioters back at the inn couldn’t pick you out of a lineup or even explain what they were angry about. It’s a core of obsessed true believers surrounded by a cloud of fence-sitters looking for a purpose to cling to. Most of those would disperse if the core were to . . . go away.”

Zoey is, fundamentally, a realistic person. She was a coffee barista, she has a terrible ex who broke her heart, and she knows what it is like to worry about keeping the heat on. At her core, Zoey is a morally good person, maybe not all the time, because who is, but she is trying. She cares about people, even people she has never met, and she wants to make the world a better place. She is also constantly being thrown into bizarre circumstances that are usually beyond her control, and she survives by faking it until she makes it, holding onto her goodness and humanity as best she can.

That quality in Zoey, paired with David Wong’s sharp writing and ferocious wit, is what makes him one of my favorite authors to read. He consistently puts out good work, and if you are a fan of the slightly bizarre with a science-fiction edge, his stories, and Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick in particular, are absolutely worth reading. I have a feeling you will love his books.

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