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Item must be in original condition and packaging along with tag, accessories, manuals, and inserts. Unlock any electronic device, delete your account and remove all personal information. |
Returnable | Yes |
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Resolutions | Eligible for refund or replacement |
Return Window | 30 days from delivery |
Refund Timelines | Typically, an advance refund will be issued within 24 hours of a drop-off or pick-up. For returns that require physical verification, refund issuance may take up to 30 days after drop-off or pick up. Where an advance refund is issued, we will re-charge your payment method if we do not receive the correct item in original condition. See details here. |
Late fee | A late fee of 20% of the item price will apply if you complete the drop off or pick up after the ‘Return By Date’. |
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Niketown: A Novel Paperback – March 24, 2014
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length254 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateMarch 24, 2014
- Dimensions5.98 x 0.53 x 9.02 inches
- ISBN-101495431029
- ISBN-13978-1495431029
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Product details
- Publisher : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (March 24, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 254 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1495431029
- ISBN-13 : 978-1495431029
- Item Weight : 12.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.98 x 0.53 x 9.02 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,490,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #118,485 in Crime Thrillers (Books)
- #1,677,303 in Literature & Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Vern is an outlaw movie critic and novelist. Since his illiterate beginnings on The Ain't It Cool News in the early 2000s he has become a leading authority on the films of Steven Seagal and an early adopter of the direct-to-video action renaissance. He coined the term "mega-acting" to describe Nic Cage's acting style and invented the Action Comprehensibility Rating system to promote coherence in modern action sequences.
Vern's writing has appeared in The Village Voice, Thrillist, CLiNT Magazine and Daily Grindhouse, but mostly at outlawvern.com. His life is shrouded in mystery, but he claims to live in Seattle and seems to know a lot about what goes on there.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the narrative peppered with interesting social commentary, wry and witty humor, and a fresh, interesting story. They also appreciate the wonderfully bizarre details.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the content interesting and peppered with social commentary.
"...Beyond the strengths of the narrative, it's also peppered with some interesting social commentary, mostly a critique of consumer culture and how it..." Read more
"...Niketown is brimming with whimsical ideas and social commentary, but Vern is doing all this from the shadows...." Read more
"Relatable characters that are fully shaped and feel human. Social commentary, some great action scenes, seriousness but also that same kind of humor..." Read more
Customers find the humor in the book wry, witty, and incisive. They also say it's funny as hell.
"...He has a style of humor so dryly sarcastic and imaginitive, but again, he has heart, too, which separates it from the dreck of other unappreciated..." Read more
"...Wry and witty, the author uses Chase's bemusement at life outside his prison to poke holes in the absurdities rife in the commercialised and..." Read more
"...Carter Chase isn't an invincible badass, but he's well-written and realized, and at times it feels like he could've been the star of an Elmore..." Read more
Customers find the story fresh and interesting, with wonderfully bizarre details. They also appreciate the great action scenes.
"...Though the story is fresh and interesting, it’s the wonderfully bizarre details that make this a must-read. He also writes some fantastic dialogue...." Read more
"...This was a memorable story that took me to some very cool and unexpected places; I can't recommend it enough." Read more
"...Social commentary, some great action scenes, seriousness but also that same kind of humor you can expect from reading Vern's movie reviews." Read more
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Niketown follows ex-con Carter Chase as he is recently released from prison for a botched robbery of the Nike superstore known as Niketown. Chase has to deal with an onslaught of problems as he enters the world outside of his jail cell. Both of his parents have passed away—his father years ago from medical problems and his mother shortly before his release due to an unexpected accident. He also has to decide whether or not he wants to walk away from the Niketown job completely or to turn around and get revenge on his partners who betrayed him. And if this weren’t enough, Chase discovers that his brother has mysteriously gone missing.
Perhaps the novel’s cleverest conceit is how it deals with Chase’s attempts to reenter “polite society” after being locked up. Because he has spent years in prison, Chase’s release acts a sort of time warp. He’s not used to the way in which people seem wholly consumed by their cell phones or the changing fashion trends or the idea that people actually refer to themselves as “foodies.” What’s even worse, the world he finds himself in has been taken over by advertising. The Pepsi Company has even taken out an advertisement on the grave of Chase’s mother. Chase appears to have a better sense of decorum and values than just about everyone he encounters.
As a character, Chase is a wonderful creation. He’s someone who has messed up in life. Before being shipped off to jail, he spent his time occasionally pulling off haphazard robberies, but he knew what he was doing was wrong right up until he was locked up for stealing from Niketown. (When taking on the Niketown job, Chase comforts himself with the knowledge that at least he’s stealing from a faceless corporation and not some mom and pop joint.) He’s someone who wishes to atone, but at the same time he looks at the world around him and finds that there’s nothing sacred anymore. The old rules of what’s acceptable in society have shifted over time, and while Chase’s shock at where we as a culture have arrived may in part be a result of his time tucked away in jail, much of it has to do with an unyielding sense of right and wrong, even if he isn’t always capable of following his own moral compass. In one particular scene that stands out, Chase goes online to check in on old friends and acquaintances from high school, and he finds himself both jealous and disgusted by the bland, yuppie lives they’ve created for themselves. Chase is a man fighting against time, both on a personal and a larger cultural level.
Vern sets up the novel as both a mystery and a story of revenge, and while these elements form the spine of the narrative, Vern is confident enough as a writer to take us down several detours along the way. In an interview, Vern says his fiction was inspired by Richard Stark’s Parker novels, George V. Higgins’s Friends of Eddie Coyle and the writings of Elmore Leonard. You can definitely see the influence of these authors on Vern’s writing style. One of my favorite moments in the book, the actual set up and execution of the Niketown robbery, reminds me of Leonard’s cast of crooks who aren’t stupid, exactly, but they are just a little dumb. But to Vern’s credit, he’s never fully beholden to these authors. He has fashioned a world that is familiar and yet still one step removed from ours, and, likewise, he is working in genres that have certain expectations attached to them, but he never feels obliged to fulfill those expectations. Vern has taken the crime fiction story and infused it with satire and pathos in equal measure, which is quite an accomplishment for a first novel.
Beyond the strengths of the narrative, it's also peppered with some interesting social commentary, mostly a critique of consumer culture and how it warps people, cheapens ideas and paints a picture of the individual consumer that may make an easy target out of him or her.
The whole subplot involving massive billboards and how street artists reclaim them really gives this novel a strong visual edge in the later half of the book.
Good stuff. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it.
If you’re familiar with his site, you’d figure he would write something about an ex-mercenary tracking down someone who killed his wife/girlfriend/partner, and all the ensuing bloodshed as this character exacted his revenge. In a way I was hoping for that, because we all know that’s where his talents lie, in his ability to recognize and pinpoint hardcore action as well as the characters that are forced to do it. But Niketown is really nothing like that.
It’s strange. The protagonist is a badass, and he does kick an ass or two, but the novel is much more transcendent–it’s operating on a level that goes deeper than the standard plot and sequence of an action film. Niketown is brimming with whimsical ideas and social commentary, but Vern is doing all this from the shadows. He’s doing it slyly, like someone pulling off a card trick where you never see the sleight of hand. The setting is eerily sometime in the near future, maybe a year from now, maybe two, maybe even five, though Vern never comes out and states this. It’s the small things, the subtle touches he paints it with. He’s picked up on certain things and taken them to the next evolutionary level. Sadly, I think he’s predicted or foreseen what’s to come for the real world. I can easily imagine a church named after a cell phone company, which is one of Vern’s cleverly featured details. Why not? Stadiums are. So are skyscrapers. How about a Pepsi advertisement on a grave site? It doesn’t sound too futuristic to me. It sounds like it’s right around the corner.
It’s not the story so much as Vern’s outlook on society that intrigued me in Niketown. Though the story is fresh and interesting, it’s the wonderfully bizarre details that make this a must-read. He also writes some fantastic dialogue. Everyone always compares great dialogue to Elmore Leonard, and he was great at it, but if I had to compare the dialogue in Niketown to something I think it would be Gregory McDonald’s Fletch. Fletch is also one of those books where you read it and you can literally see the fireworks igniting from the pages. With Fletch, you were left with a “wow” feeling, and that’s the same feeling I get from Niketown.
It’s also funny as hell. If you’ve ever laughed at anything on his site, this book is a special treat. I found myself highlighting paragraphs every other page or so. There is an original voice at work here, and I rarely come across one these days when reading a new author.
Not sure if Vern intends to write any other fiction or not; it doesn’t look like he gave the book much publicity. But I’m hoping he follows it up with something. He’s too good to simply write about the movies, though you can hardly call his movie reviews “simple.”
Top reviews from other countries
Much like Vern's reviews, this is a thoughtful story with a lot of heart and an awful lot of humour. It kept me gripped from the first page, with strong characterisation, great dialogue and well paced action.
Aside from the humour, the best thing for me about Niketown is how unpredictable the plot is. It definitely keeps you guessing, and events play out in unexpected but believable ways. The style of prose speaks to the reader with well-made observations about modern living, as told from the perspective of a no-nonsense fish-out-of-water ex-con, setting out on a noirish, blackly comic quest to find his missing brother.
I once learnt that the key to good writing is to have a simple story with complex characters. Well Vern has accomplished just that and more, fleshing out a clever detective story with complex characters. I enjoyed this story and Vern's style so much that I could have happily continued reading about the world of Carter Chase forever. There aren't many books or films that do that for me.
Buy this book!
THE EXTENDED PITCH: The mysterious figure known only as Outlaw Vern has been publishing movie reviews on the Internet since 1999. He’s known for his wit and his respect for genre filmmaking, expressed through his extended, thoughtful, and insightful takes on types of films that don’t usually receive that treatment, like direct-to-video action or ‘80s slasher. He’s perhaps best known for SEAGALOGY, his extended monograph on the themes and motifs in the work of Steven Seagal.
Now Vern has written his first novel, and it’s a gem. The premise is engaging from the start: Carter Chase has just been released from prison, where he’s been languishing for almost ten years on a burglary charge, just in time for his mother’s funeral. His brother Mark was supposed to pick him up, but doesn't appear. Carter assumes that this is because he’s embarrassed, but when Mark also fails to appear at the funeral, Carter realizes his brother is missing, and it’s up to him to figure out where Mark went, and why. While doing this, Carter has to begin putting his life back together, which is always tricky for an ex-con, but is especially so in this case, as the world has changed since he went up: mobile phones and advertising are ubiquitous now, for one thing. For another, his former criminal associates, whom Carter refused to implicate when he was arrested, aren't pleased that Carter is back and wants what he’s owed.
It’s a great set-up, and engages the reader immediately, and it pays off in the end - Vern has watched enough movies to know the genre structure intimately. The last third of the book delivers several surprises, but in each case they are earned surprises: Vern lays the pipe to foreshadow these early on, but does so without tipping his hand. Vern also has more on his agenda than simply crafting a straight-ahead pulp thriller. He has things to say about contemporary American life; things that, like his subject, manage to be funny and bleak at the same time. And he does all this while investing his characters, even the minor antagonists, with a sense of humanity. It’s clear that minor character Dante, a scumbag criminal who makes a habit of betraying his compatriots, sees himself as the hero of his own story; so too do the unhelpful cops, advertising executives, and small-time chancers that round out the cast.
THE VERDICT: Orson Scott Card may have gone off the deep end, but he once made the trenchant observation that fiction is about one or more of four things: plot, character, setting, or ideas. Vern nails all four here: the plot is engaging from the get-go, is well constructed, and goes to unexpected places; the characters all seem real and are sympathetically drawn; the setting, a five-minutes-from-now future, is believable but appalling; and the ideas, about the pitfalls of life, both external and internal, in twenty-first century America, are heavier fare than one expects from a genre novel, but are worth ruminating over.
Vern has delivered a winner here. Do yourself a favour and check it out.
(Original review posted at [...]