Book Review: FantasticLand — Mike Bockoven

If you’ve been waiting and yearning to read Lord of the Flies 2.0, then this is the book for you.

Imagine this: You’re working at a huge theme park. A theme park that not only lives up to, but arguably surpasses the joyous experience you could have at Disney World or Universal Studios.

Now imagine you are given an opportunity: Hey kid, if things go tits up in the park, you wanna hang around for a few days to hold down the fort and get paid while you’re at it?

Hell yeah I do. I mean, what are the chances that will even happen, right? Right.

Wrong.

The unthinkable happens, and the ~300 person “skeleton crew” that were left on site at FantasticLand in the midst of one “Hurricane Sadie” end up stuck for weeks instead of days. And instead of holding down the fort? They divide and conquer. Violence ensues.

The first thing I loved about this book is that it stayed in character. The Author’s note and the afterword are not written from the actual author, Mike Bockoven. The entire book is presented as an actual investigative journalism piece that tries to analyze the events that occurred at this fictitious park during a hurricane event that didn’t actually happen, and the elements of the book mentioned above come from the point of view of the journalist, Adam Jakes. It’s like inception, but for authors. Author-ception.

The story unfolds in a series of interviews. We hear from everyone, starting with people who were were not actually there in the park — like the father of a family who was evacuated and someone who was the head of relief efforts for the area — to several individuals who lived the experience, and finally we hear from some of the people who discovered or were involved in the fallout — like a key prosecutor and a (now former) member of the National Guard. When I started reading the book, I thought for a minute it was real.

The very first thing we learn about in the book is the history of the whole thing, and about Johnny Fresno who was the brains and the vision behind FantasticLand. And the only reason that I even think it is at all important to bring this up to you now is because I will not accept any arguments that the best line of the book comes from this section:

“Fuck you for pissing on my dream”

Words to live by, kids, words to live by.

I loved the concept of this book so thoroughly that I was maybe a little more willing to let go of some of the things I liked less. I felt there were a lot of unanswered questions. And I know the “author” (and I do mean Adam Jakes) mentions that his book does leave more questions than answers. I agree, leaving certain questions unanswered makes sense — Why did this happen? Who was responsible? Are these victims guilty or not guilty? How can we really know what the truth is, since everything is hearsay?

But some questions needed answers. For example, at one point we are introduced to these two characters — people who were walking around and possibly killing people, who were wearing these masks that had tusks, and they were creeping people out. Nobody ever explained who those people were, where they came from, or what happened to them. The best we get is that one of the victims is still being contacted by them on a regular basis. It felt like that part of the storyline was just kind of… forgotten, and I wanted to know the point of introducing them in the first place was.

I will also say that the book started off a lot stronger than it ended, in my opinion. Although I think the way the interviews were structured was very smart, and the order they were put in was logical. But it was strange that there is only one interviewee in the whole book who is repeated, and he was kind of a nobody, one of the less crucial or prominent characters. I would have loved to see other characters come back, so they could present their side of the events.

As it is, we get the “whole story” in a timeline of events. Each interviewee that was in the park gives us some information about a certain period of events from their point of view, and in that way we make our way through the weeks that this crew was left to their own devices in the park. But as most people know — especially journalists — there are as many versions of events as there were people present. I would have loved to see some overlap in the events. Let’s heaqr Sam Garliek — an overwhelmingly despised character — and then let’s hear the same thing from characters who were part of different tribes. As it was, there was very little overlap, and so despite having the point of view of some-odd 13 people, we only get one real version of events, which I think makes it harder for us to decipher what is true and what is someone’s personal point of view. On the flip side, maybe that would have become too repetitive and wouldn’t have allowed us to experience the whole timeline of events. I don’t want to discount Mike Bockoven’s authorial instinct here — I think he did a great job. But maybe I feel like adjusting the format a bit would have given me more answers and that’s all I really want. You hear me, Mike?? I was really invested.

Of course, as with Lord of the Flies, FantasticLand touches on the human condition. What do you do when you are fearful? Fight? Flight? Freeze? What happens when there are no leaders? What happens when all laws go out the window, and people are forced to make their own? And I loved that we got a taste of the why. People who were trying to protect themselves caused fear which may (or may not!) have incited more fear which may (or may not!) have spurred on some of the more aggressive characters to take action in a more forceful and deadly way. In the end, we don’t know. But I enjoyed pondering it, and I liked how it was presented to the reader in a way that allowed us to ponder it ourselves, instead of really giving us the answers to these pretty major concepts.

There was an added element that I thought was fun: What happens when we are completely cut off from social media, or from technology altogether? That was certainly not an issue when Lord of the Flies was written, but it is a huge consideration to make today. What happens when you take away ~300 people’s primary form of entertainment and communication with the outside world, lock ’em all up together with no way of knowing how or when they would be able to escape? Mayhem? Chaos? Well, this book presents one hypothesis. Let’s hope it’s not an accurate one.

I gave this book 4/5 amusement rides. The fifth is shut down for repairs, sorry for the inconvenience.

If you read this book, what did you think? And what should I review next?