How I Killed The Universal Man by Thomas Kendall Review

The premise of the book

(No danger here, spoiler-free zone.)

First of all, whoever came up with the beautiful idea to resurrect and revive contents in the first pages of the book; thank you. I am not sure why most physical books don’t have this addition anymore, but it was a refreshing sight and definitely something that I have missed from my younger reading years. 

The book itself is a digestible, short novel with 10 chapters. Each chapter has a highly creative and telling title. Pretty much all of them are a little poem by themselves. The novel has 240 pages with an average of more or less 24 pages/chapter so it is digestible. What’s more, if you have the time and undisturbed peace it is easily devourable in one or two sittings. Keep it in mind just like Orbital by Samantha Harvey, you don’t want to rush this novel if possible. There is so much going on, so much thoughts and feelings that you will end up bombarding yourself so it might be worth it to put in some breathers.

There are a few trigger warnings: substance use, gore, violence and sexual/nudity content ( if there is more that I left out I apologise). So just keep this in mind.

The synopsis in M.O.W.: 

The main character is called John Lakerman. He is 23-years-old, son of immigrants, orphaned since birth and got adopted when he was 8 years old. He works for an online media brand called donkeyWolf as a journalist. He is assigned to write about a new designer drug: Noumenon or N for short. The drug is offering an alternative way of ‘fixing’ bad memories,  a kind of trauma-eraser. Obviously, the doctor who came up with it disappeared after hearing about the drug’s side effects. Lakerman needs to figure out the background story of this drug and the people behind it.

We are somewhere in the future, in Miami, at Patrick Diaz’s abuelas flat. Temperatures are soaring and people only go out at night. Mind altering implants, migrant labour, drugs, bio-engineered vegetation, employers using avatars instead of being at their workplace physically, just to mention a few from the list of the macabre visions of the novel. One of my favourite scenes were, when a woman opened her purse, and a pocket cloud floated out of it, which she attached to a stick and gave it to her toddler.

The whole book is a ride. It’s philosophical but full of action, so there is not a second when you are bored. It is a disturbing and highly fascinating read. Especially, the second part of the book. With a perfect combination of food-for-thought, action and complex characters. These characters are not necessarily completely relatable, but neither far-fetched or pushed down your throat. They have a layered complexity deep enough to be entertaining for the reader. 

If you are looking for the original synapsis you can find it here, on the original publisher’s website.

Artist’s Corner

The Author:

John Lakerman’s creator, Thomas Kendall is the author of the Autodidacts. The Autodidacts** was the first publication I have read from him. Even at that time I knew that he is someone whose work I’m going to keep my eye on. Mostly, because his prose and his way of thinking, more than anything, was just so vastly different than most of the mainstream authors that I have read in the past years. Very philosophical, highly intelligent, especially emotionally. And most of all: creative. Also, his main characters are always a little bit sarcastic with dark self-humour which I absolutely adore as a reader. 

But as I said before, with How I Killed The Universal Man he stepped up. He leveled up and he allowed the readers to go with him. I was a bit sad when the book was finished, as I would have loved to read it a little bit more. This being said, I think it had the perfect length for its caliber. I would also love to read a collection of short stories from him, but this is just me being greedy as a reader.

The Illustrator:

The cover art was done by Shaw at Multifold I couldn’t find much about it. Nevertheless, I thought I should mention it at least.

I Want To Be a Robot

(SPOILER ALERT!!)

There is a lot of meditation on identity and dissociation, which I’m sure many of us are constantly battling with at the back of our minds. Even if we pretend that we can absolutely control our consumption of media and mindless scrolling. And their effects on self. There are also thoughts on greenwashing and on controlled mechanically enslaved nature. There were a few scenes, at the end of the book, which were very hard to read. Especially, if you have a very vivid imagination, because the way they tried to engineer nature caused malformations in humans. And when I say malformations, I mean, the Substance movie can hide behind it. So definitely, it’s worth it to keep the trigger warnings in mind before jumping into it.

There was a point in the beginning of the book, where Lakerman mentioned that he always wanted to be a robot. I wrote in my notes: same. I’m sure Lakerman has his reasons, as I have mine, but this was one of those moments when I could feel a connection to this character. I also loved the little easter eggs, like how donkeyWolf was owned by a baby food company. Which explains a lot if we think about a real life example. Or maybe it’s just me thinking too much into it. 

At certain times for Lakerman, especially when he was on the substance, it felt like he was half-conscious. Doing things he wouldn’t do normally in a certain detached way from himself. It reminded me of those dreams that I had sometimes where I would be walking on the street and the urge to lie down and sleep comes over me. This urge is so overwhelming that  I just lie down then and there. Meanwhile, I kinda understand that I am actually sleeping in real life as well. I think my brain just wants to have a break from thinking all the time. It is there but it is not at the same time. Fight Club type of feelings. 

There were also very clever and troubling ideas about how robotics can be cross-engineered with biological matter on a cellular level. I still don’t want to spoil it for people, but it is actually one of the most original and realistic ideas I have read since a long time ago. Additionally, I have found it very interesting how the author marries tech and capitalism with climate change. There could be pages writing about just this one subject, but this just adds another reason to read the book, in my opinion. Just to mention another one: how simple things like tourism and long journeys could possibly change in the future. Even the way we shop, or work for example. It was surreal to read about it, but it had a strong base hold in our current reality. I think this is why I have found it so terrifying but exhilarating to read How I Killed The Universal Man. Because I don’t want to have a future like this, but the ideas themselves are just so mind blowing, that I can’t help praising the one who came up with it.

Overall, the book feels like playing a video game. The short texts give you the feeling of a psychedelic journey of a game-like fever dream. The reader is being pushed to play it alongside the characters. Makes you think that we might live in a simulation, and if we do, we won’t even recognise it. 

What if our endless trying to be a better version of ourselves is just programmed into our code in order to level up our character stats?

Anyway, enough of my rambling. If you can please go and pick up either the physical copy or the ebook version of How I Killed The Universal Man and please join me in my existential crisis. It’s worth it.

A huge thank you to Thomas Kendall for giving me a beautiful physical copy of this gem. And I hope more amazing stuff is on the way for us hungry readers in the future.

What’s Next…

I am currently reading Omniviolence** by the author-duo Jones Worthington. It is pretty violent and triggering read. Mafia/dystopian/noir a little bit too mafia for my liking, but a short review is definitely coming. So keep your tabs open for that.  

P.S.: If you are an author and would like me to read your book, feel free to reach out to me on my socials or drop me an email at no************@***il.com with Books as the subject, in case it ends up in my spam folder. I’m always on the hunt for amazing stories. If you want to stay up to date with the latest thoughts and reviews, sign up for NOLITETHOUGHTS‘ newsletter at the bottom of this post.