Major Karnage »

It has been 20 years since The War, and Major John Karnage has finally settled into retirement: locked up in an insane asylum, with an explosive device embedded in the back of his neck to curb his violent tendencies. Karnage and his troopers have been deemed unfit to live in normal society. Like a bit of old chewing gum stuck under a coffee table, the world has left The War and its scarred, unstable veterans behind. The military has been disbanded and World Peace has descended upon the Earth. Its inhabitants live happy, profitable lives under the global rule of the benevolent Dabney Corporation. All is tea and roses in this new, sanitized world... until a terrifying threat from beyond the stars rears its squiggly head! An invading armada of aliens threatens to destroy the Earth, and it's up to Major Karnage to stop them - as long as he doesn't accidentally blow his own head off first.

Publishers Weekly

In his debut novel, Zajac strives to satirize a host of familiar sf tropes but spends most of the story repeating the same punchlines. Major John Karneski (a.k.a. "Karnage"), a veteran of "The War," is wasting away in an insane asylum when the imminent threat of extraterrestrial invasion prompts him to escape and save the Earth. Once out, Karnage finds himself squaring off not only against scheming "squidbug" aliens, but also against pursuing agents of the Dabney Corporation, whose efforts to enforce world peace seem sinister. Zajac gives Karnage near-superhero powers, but the two most exercised seem to be his ability to talk scatalogically non-stop at high decibel levels and to recover from fade-to-black concussions that end most chapters. Running jokes, including a chatty "Sanity Patch" implant that verbally warns Karnage of his escalating violence levels in the heat of combat, grow increasingly tired with each repetition. (June)