The Wild Palms Reader

Released as the ambitious companion book to the Oliver Stone-produced ABC mini-series, The Wild Palms Reader has now attained legendary status in its own right as a landmark work of subversive speculative fiction. Wild Palms is at once epistemological whodunit, comic book opera, and a hyperreal satire of contemporary culture, from cyberkitsch and Japanophilia/phobia to most hallowed ideas of family and mortality. The Wild Palms mini-series detailed the rise of Synthiotics, a dynastic techno-cult which co-opts the public's dreams through 3D TV and psychotropic drugs in an effort to induce mass psychosis. The Wild Palms Reader unfolds the saga of Tony Kreutzer, the brilliant and twisted guru of Synthiotics, and his sister Josie, grand dame of his mystical-fascist media empire.