false 1078189 2 "Shipp's clear, insistant voice pulls you down into the rabbit hole and doesn't let go." --Jack Ketchum "[Vacation] is an intriguing, challenging, literate, provocative novel I'm not sure I understand and suspect I'm not meant to… I recommend it to those who find reality boring; it may make them see it in new ways." —Piers Anthony The world has, since the inception - intentional or otherwise - of humankind, always been a dubious plane of existence. You'd be hard-pressed to find an author, poet, artist, musician, politician, holy man, or everyman who has never spoken out concerning the human condition, from the tiniest fib to the most horrific act of genocide. Newspaper columnists, Sunday preachers, eastern philosophers all dissect the meaning of life in their various fashions - but Jeremy Shipp's Vacation, a first-person tour de force that takes place in an alternate universe and / or future-in-the-making, actually takes the human condition and turns it inside out. On the surface, Vacation is about a disgruntled English teacher named Bernard Johnson who goes on Vacation (yes, proper capitalization) with an ex-student, once-male, now-female friend and discovers the world is not what he initially thought it to be. Okay. Simple enough premise - you see it all the time in various forms of literature (well, maybe without the sex change). Peel away that superficial layer, though, and you soon find yourself entangled in a labyrinth of spiritual testing and social commentary unflinchingly portrayed by Shipp's characters. In this world, society exists in two major flavors: the Tics and the Meeks, the former being the well-to-dos of the industrialized nations, the latter being the poor, the exiled. Using this metaphor, it quickly becomes obvious the Tics are our own pop culture, the pill-popping, credit-card-wielding, overfed, and over-stimulated masses who have been shielded from the terrible truths of the world in a sort of global propaganda scheme to bolster big business. The Meeks are, well, everyone else - a grassroots conglomerate of militants who have cleansed their bodies and minds of all social poisons. Somewhere in between is the Garden, an external haven lead by Noh, who seeks to seed truth back into the world, one mind at a time. Bernard's adventure plays out in the classic escapist fashion - on crack. Indeed, much of his transformation has to do with the altering of his mind, the skewering of his perspective, so that he may glimpse the dream he's been living from the outside. He goes on Vacation, falls in love, becomes a tool for the Meeks, and ultimately helps to realize Noh's vision of social revolution - but don't expect any of this to be A-B-C, for the strength of Shipp's narrative lies in his ability to toss the ball to his characters and trust that their decisions, their reactions will guide the story true. The underlying meaning is present throughout, but it is quite obvious from the start that you, the reader, are just as responsible as Bernard in coming to your own conclusions. Shipp's style in Vacation demands an agile approach, as various scenes shift seamlessly between dreams and reality - often without warning. I'm reminded of S.P. Somtow's Riverrun Trilogy: one quarter real, three quarters surreal. Considering the concept, I can't imagine it any other way. Vacation is a potent social theory, a spiritual hopscotch from start to finish. With interesting scenarios and thought-provoking dialog, it is a compelling reason for fans of psychological fantasy to look up Jeremy Shipp. --Jesse Gordon 2710075 10 4 2007 Vacation total:139|5:66|4:41|3:26|2:3|1:3| 139 581 394 47 4 6 false false Mon Mar 03 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 26 19:55:40 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 04 07:08:31 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 20 08:35:48 -0800 2007 Tue Nov 20 08:38:21 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 4 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Nov 24 03:03:38 -0800 2007 Sat Nov 24 03:07:40 -0800 2007 Awesome writing
Awesome author
Jeremy Shipp is currently taking the world (as we know it) by storm...!!!
Or is that, Jeremy (as we know him) is currently storming into the world ????
Either way, this writer is no storm in a tea cup.... although I have heard s...more...]]> 4 4 false false Wed Aug 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 15 20:33:24 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 24 10:01:17 -0700 2008 2
People love vacations, need vacations, jump at the chance to take vacations. The blossoming thoughts of laughter and fun and mystical locales unseen sparkle with possibility in the mind’s eye. The rush to get there, wherever there may be, casts a thrilling tenor to the ...more...]]> 5 3 false false Thu Oct 13 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sat Jul 12 17:22:32 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 12 17:23:52 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 3 false false Fri Feb 15 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 24 03:29:16 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 24 03:56:56 -0700 2008 through the eyes of Bernard Johnson. A thirty-five year old
intelligent man with a wild, incredible imagination. Bernard
is tormented with his dreams, fantasies, and nightmares.
The reader is taken through the door of a m...more...]]> 4 3 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 04 14:00:48 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 04 14:43:56 -0800 2008
I'm sure some of you must think of it as an insult when I occasionally refer to a book here as "weird;"...more...]]> 5 3 false false Mon Jan 28 11:42:24 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 16 10:43:13 -0800 2007 Mon Jan 28 11:41:42 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false false Fri Oct 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jan 15 12:51:46 -0800 2008 Fri Oct 10 11:26:46 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 4 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 23 22:32:07 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 23 18:24:20 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 2 false false Mon Nov 17 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Oct 26 19:49:14 -0700 2008 Wed Nov 19 21:51:10 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jul 23 18:49:07 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 23 18:53:10 -0700 2008
The beginning of the book had me grasping a bit, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. I was confused and almost felt like I was being shoved around a little bit. Then as more and more things began to unfold, the smile got wider and wider.

The...more...]]> 5 2 false false Mon Jan 28 23:03:38 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 06 08:34:48 -0800 2008 Vacation, but suffice to say that it managed to both meet and confound all of those expectations.

For many, a novel of ideas is an excuse to be preachy and a novel that uses surreal images and dream-like prose is all flash and no substan...more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Mar 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 16 18:52:16 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 18 14:16:27 -0700 2009 What if the life you're living right now is a dream of a dream? Now take it another step further:
What if the life you're living right now is a dream of a dream being controlled by an outsider to mask the truth ...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 31 17:49:29 -0800 2007 Fri Jan 25 18:49:48 -0800 2008
The story is detailed and believable. That is what makes it scary. You have to care. A lot of info and a...more...]]> 4 3 false false Wed Jul 30 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 15 21:23:27 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 30 17:08:42 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 2 false false Thu Feb 28 19:42:45 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 28 19:45:49 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Mon Feb 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Nov 26 06:38:26 -0800 2007 Mon Feb 25 08:36:54 -0800 2008 0 2 false false Tue Apr 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 15 16:26:27 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 15 16:26:27 -0700 2008 5 1 false false Tue Apr 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 17 18:55:22 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 10 18:40:20 -0700 2009 more...]]>