No month stated, 1976 Mayflower Books
Two years after he published the greatest rock novel of all time (or at least of the many I’ve read), Mick Farren turned out The DNA Cowboys Trilogy, which was only published in the UK…and which wasn’t really a trilogy, as in 1989 he published a fourth installment (which to make things even more confusing was initially published in the US!). Apparently Farren wrote the “trilogy” all at once, so I read the three books in sequence – meaning this week and next will be dedicated to DNA Cowboys reviews!
At just a little over 200 pages, The Quest Of The DNA Cowboys isn’t so much a piece of world-building as it is a fast-moving adventure yarn with a definite surreal vibe. The reader must do the heavy lifting on figuring out what is going on, or more importantly why it is going on, as Mick Farren clearly was under the influence of various drugs while writing the book – and no doubt would proudly proclaim as much. So it’s definitely psychedelic sci-fi, only not “sci-fi” in the sense that there’s space exploration or alien worlds or the like. It’s all grounded on Earth…though a seriously fragmented and strange Earth, possibly centuries after some apocalyptic event.
Another funny thing is that there’s neither a “quest” nor any “DNA Cowboys” in the book! At no point do the two main characters, Billy Oblvion and Reave, refer to themselves as “DNA Cowboys” (and nor does the narrative refer to them as such), and they don’t go on a “quest” so much as they just wander aimlessly around the wastelands of this strange world. In fact I really started to wonder where Farren even came up with the “DNA Cowboys” tag…I’m assuming he got the title in some narcotic flash and just ran with it, but it turns out to be a little misleading for the reader. About the most we get in this regard is when Billy and Reave arm themselves with replica Old West revolvers at the start of the book…but then nothing more is made out of this in the ensuing narrative.
Farren throws us right in with little setup: we meet (the mostly undescribed) Billy and Reave just as they’ve decided to leave the small town of Pleasant Gap and to go see the rest of the world…the first residents of Pleasant Gap to do such a thing ever. The two are presumably young, but then Mick Farren’s not an author who is much for describing his characters – indeed, we don’t learn the age of one main character until late in the novel, which renders all the preceding material with this character even more shocking in retrospect. Billy, with his fringe of black hair, is ostensibly Mick Farren’s stand in. Reave, described as being built like a “farmer” is the less cerebral of the two…not that Billy is very cerebral. If there’s any subtext to The Quest Of The DNA Cowboys it’s that young men are pretty clueless and just wander aimlessly through life as they look for the next kick.
And that’s really all that makes these two leave Pleasant Gap. I identified with this early part of the book, growing up as I did in a similar small town that seemed to be cut off from the rest of the world – to make it even more coincidental, there was a place called Short Gap near where I grew up. But Pleasant Gap is truly cut off from the world. In order to leave the place Billy and Reave must get portable “stasis generators,” little gizmos they apparently strap on (again, details are minimal) and which literally create matter in the pocket of “nothings” that separate all the communities in this future ravaged Earth. And it is certainly Earth, with occasional references to 20th Century pop culture and the like. People drink tea and whiskey, everyone speaks English, etc.
It's just all so surreal and vague that it’s hard to identify with anything, and ultimately there’s such a disconnected air to it all that The Quest Of The DNA Cowboys lacks much impact. It doesn’t help that our “heroes” are kind of losers, bumbling from one misadventure to the next. They gear up and leave Pleasant Gap, and the reader is prepared for an epic adventure. Instead, the two find themselves in a truckstop, being bullied by truckers who don’t like the looks of them. Here is the first appearance of what I guess would be considered another “DNA Cowboy:” The Minstrel Boy, a sort of wandering musician with a Bob Dylan-esque mop of black hair and a silver guitar strapped around his back. While The Minstrel Boy will becoming more of a figure in the next two volumes (I’ve already read the second one), here he is more of an aloof presence, more of a deus ex machina that Mick Farren employs throughout the damn book to get Billy and Reave out of their various jams.
Meanwhile the narrative frequently veers off into two subplots, only one of which will ultimately merge with Billy and Reave’s narrative. The subplot that doesn’t ever meet up with the main plot concerns what appears to be a female deity, presumably the triune figure appearing on the cover. These sequences are annoying at best, written all in ugly italics, and seem more stream-of-conscious than anything. Farren refers to this figure as “she/they,” as if he’s attended his “pronouns training” decades early. The other subplot that does impact the overall storyline concerns one AA Catto, a promiscuous babe who lives in a drug-fueled pleasure dome; her sections really reminded me of The World Inside, given that she lives in what appears to be an entire community that’s indoors.
Oh, and “AA Catto;” Farren has an annoying tendency to refer to his characters by their full names. Constantly. So every time “AA Catto” does or says something, it’s “AA Catto” we get in the narrative. (Curiously though, Billy Oblivion is just “Billy.”) By far I enjoyed the parts with Catto the best; whereas Billy and Reave’s adventures take them through downtrodden slums for the most part, Catto lives in the high-tech pleasuredome drug paradise that I demand in my ‘70s sci-fi. Farren really puts his psychedelic imagination to work here, with such notable drugs as one that makes flesh transparent – and the woman who has done this to herself can only imagine how interesting it will be for the man who gets to sleep with her. Decadence is the order of the day in AA Catto’s sections, and given that she’s a highborn who lives only for indulgence she almost seems to have walked out of a toga trash novel.
In comparison, Billy and Reave’s adventures seem threadbare. Things get off to a bumpy start when they’re almost immediately drafted into an army for crying out loud, complete with boot camp and the like, and I was afraid for a bit that Farren wasn’t writing the book I wanted. Luckily though this “war” stuff is eventually dispensed with and we’re back to various random travels with the two – with the Minstrel Boy constantly showing up, as if via magic, to save them. But as mentioned he is a very aloof presence; there are times where Farren doesn’t bother to explain how the Minstrel Boy has even found Billy and Reave, and also there’s more unexplained stuff besides. Like for example one part late in the book has the trio on a raft, and a big hole in the lake crashes them, and Billy and Reave make it to shore. A few pages later they’re reunited with the Minstrel Boy, who again looks different (his clothing and hairstyle changes constantly, and at one point I was certain Farren was referencing glam-era Lou Reed). But the Minstrel Boy claims that the raft scenario was “a whole long time ago,” even though to Billy and Reave it was just “a few days ago.” So does the Minstrel Boy travel in time, or did Billy and Reave themselves jump unwittingly through time? Farren is not at all concerned with letting us know.
Action is sporadic, and when it happens it isn’t much exploited. For that matter, neither is the sex. There’s a lot of talk of sex, but the book itself isn’t overly explicit. It’s certainly kinky, though. Like early on Billy hooks up with a blue-skinned babe (Farren implies she might be an alien – but again he doesn’t give any details), and she has this electric-shock thing she jolts Billy with during the act. But mostly it’s AA Catto who handles the brunt of the book’s sleaze – despite which it’s her brother she’s sleeping with. Oh, and Farren pulls one of the craziest reveals ever. We spend the entire novel cutting frequently over to AA Catto, where we are told of how sexy she is, and how she’s slept with this or that person, or whatever. Then only in the very final pages does Farren drop the bomb that AA Catto…is only twelve years old! As mentioned I’ve already read the second installment, Synaptic Manhunt, which reveals that Catto’s really an adult, but one who has used “age retardation” to keep herself pre-pubescent. Still…this definitely lends the entire preceding events an “ick” factor.
Farren enjoys pushing buttons throughout; there’s a random part where Billy finds Reave in bed with an albino dude named “The Medicine” who randomly enough sports a pair of breasts. But our heroes are not judgmental at all, and Billy basically laughs off Reave’s attempts at an explanation. Otherwise our heroes don’t do much to make themselves memorable. They’re essentially on a quest to just keep moving, even when they’ve found happiness: one of the best sections has them in a society that seems to be a commentary on the ‘60s movement. Here the eternally young do nothing but take drugs and listen to endless music; for once the Minstrel Boy whips out his guitar and plays with the house band (I couldn’t help but imagine the Grateful Dead, what with how Farren described the scene). But while Billy wants to stay, Reave and Minstrel Boy insist he leave, to “keep moving.”
This constant hopping around means there’s no unifying thread to the narrative, and the finale comes upon us without much warning. Billy and Reave end up in the community of AA Catto, and the book features the coldest of endings – Catto makes Reave her personal plaything, and Billy takes off for more adventures. But as mentioned Farren wrote all this at once, so it isn’t really an end at all: the story continues with Synaptic Manhunt, which I’ll be reviewing next.
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