If you didn’t already know, this is the second novel in this series. The first is called Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits and it’s not too late to go back and read it if you started with this one. It’ll be like a prequel! And when beloved characters show up there who are conspicuously absent from this one, well, this way you’ll know not to get too attached.
If you enjoyed this book and would like to see more adventures involving Zoey and the Suits, the best thing you can do is go out onto whatever social media thing you use and tell everyone you liked it. Now, the way social media works, these messages will travel further if there’s some kind of outrageous statement attached, so maybe try something like, “You’ll love this book if, like me, you agree that cannibalism should not only be legal, but required.” If it doesn’t get any traction, you can just keep adding stuff. (“Too bad we’ll never get those laws changed as long as women are allowed to vote. Also, I never, ever tip.”)
It also helps to leave an online review at whatever outlet is appropriate for your situation. If you’re the type of reader who still likes to go outside the house now and then, you can even spread the word in real life. Maybe go to a pharmacy during their busiest time of day, walk up to the counter and throw a bottle of erectile dysfunction pills at the cashier, and say, “We no longer need those. We have these.” Then hold up all of my books, kind of fanned out in your hands. There are a lot of ways to go about it, these are all just suggestions. The point is that whether or not there are future books will be determined by the invisible hand of the marketplace, and word-of-mouth is everything.
Speaking of which, I should also note that one danger of writing about a hypothetical future in which an Internet-of-Cameras has reshaped society is that it is almost impossible to keep up with the speed at which the actual technology appears. Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits was conceived in 2012 and finished in 2014. That means, for example, that doorbell cameras didn’t exist when I first sat down to write it. Today, all of my neighbors have them and, sure enough, there’s a social network/app called Neighbors where you can join up and watch other people’s feeds. Did something terrible and/or hilarious happen in the neighborhood last night? Jump on and see it from every angle, follow the action down the street. So, yeah, it kind of looks like by the time I get around to writing a third book in this series, Blink will mostly exist in real life but will just be called something else. It’s like when you read a futuristic sci-fi novel from the sixties and a character says something like, “I need to access the mainframe with my portable computer! Find me a DATA-NET port!” and you’re like, “Man, this author was way off. What a dipshit.” It’s not my fault. I’m writing these as fast as I can.
Meanwhile, if these are the only books of mine you’ve ever read, you should know that I’m actually more well known for the gruesome and bizarre John Dies at the End series of horror novels. As of this writing there are three of those:
John Dies at the End
This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It
What the Hell Did I Just Read
Yes, those are real books, I’m not just making up titles here. The first book got turned into a movie that you can find on whatever device you watch movies on, the second became a New York Times bestseller. As of this writing, I’m under contract for a fourth book in that series, which may already be out on shelves by the time you read this. If you’re reading this several years in the future and no such book exists, well, it’s probably time to google my name to find out what happened to me.
Otherwise, please allow me to end this novel about corporations exploiting modern narcissism to trick citizens into building their own surveillance state by listing all of my many internet and social media platforms:
jasonpargin.com
twitter.com/JohnDiesattheEn
instagram.com/jasondavidwongpargin/
facebook.com/FuturisticViolence
facebook.com/JohnDiesattheEnd.TheNovel
goodreads.com/author/show/225033.David_Wong
Or you can read my humorous nonfiction essays at Cracked.com:
cracked.com/members/David+Wong/
Thanks, everybody.
—Jason “David Wong” Pargin
January 2020