FantasticLand cover art

FantasticLand

A Novel

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About this listen

Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where "Fun is Guaranteed!" But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts?

Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh. This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost?

FantasticLand is a modern take on Lord of the Flies meets Battle Royale that probes the consequences of a social civilization built online.

©2016 Mike Bockoven (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Anthologies & Short Stories Dark Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Ghosts Horror Science Fiction Supernatural Suspense Thriller & Suspense Scary Paranormal Haunted Employment Exciting Survival Short Story
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You can't really review this book without a quick nod to WWZ as its interview format is near identical. Not that this is a bad thing, and it really allows both Luke Daniels and Angela Dawe to put in some very distinct performances as the array of characters they take on.

The concept is excellent, built on the premise that society is 3 days' food from collapse at any given point. Take a group of 200 young people, isolate them from the world for the first time, split them into groups with no centralised leadership... yup, I can get onboard with this reality.

Well written but might benefit from a slightly slower pace in the first instance. All the killings are thought out in terms of cause and effect, but things shift from isolation and suspicion to full on tribal warfare a little quickly, maybe one more interview to bridge the gap early would have accomplished this. Then again, maybe I'm being picky.

Well worth your time if you enjoy the apocalypse for some light reading.

World War Generation Z

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This was an absolutely FANTASTIC listen. The characters individual stories are so compelling, listening to it all come together to create this horrific sensational event hits home. I especially love how the author addresses the fascination we as a society hold for tragedies, how such horror is trivialised into quizzes and merchandise and people wanting to somehow simulate it for enjoyment. We would all like to think we would act differently while taking some kind of sick interest and entertainment from savagery, we aren’t that far from the edge as we might like to think.

I can’t stress how much I love this book. It’s original, thought provoking and heart breaking. I loved every second.

The best book i’ve listened to in a long time

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Wow, never has a book been more suited to being narrated. The interview style of writing leads itself brilliantly to Audio, and whilst the story does require some significant suspension of disbelief, along with the ignoring of a couple of plot holes, the acting and subject matter make this an engrossing listen.
thoroughly enjoyable

Fantasticland

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I really enjoyed this book. I like how the story is told and found it hard to stop listening

Loved it

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Not the kind of thing I would normally listen to but it had good reviews so I thought I’d give it a try. Do not regret it at all. The performances by the various actors is very good and the story is gripping. Early on I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t real, this was a fictional documentary and there was no need to Google the park details.

Shockingly believable.

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