Head Trip by D.L. Line

Head Trip by D.L. Line

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


You know that scene in Total Recall when Arnold goes into a 'memory' place for a nice 'vacation' trip to Mars? And suddenly stuff is going wrong, and technicians are screaming that something's going wrong? Well, this story isn't that - since the woman who went to the memory place didn't have technicians screaming and running around - but otherwise it was damn near similar. Removing Mars and stuff like that. And hidden memories.

Replace Mars with Berlin. In 1985. And Arnold for some random woman who would make the worst spy ever (not because of the way they look and act, or anything like that, but because of their personality - weak-willed, stupidly arrogant (diving into a mission without allowing anyone to tell her what her mission actually is, etc.), quite 'wimpy', and talks to herself (a lot - and this is before, right, adding that part would be spoiler-y).

And so - woman goes to that memory place. For a vacation - she just loves shooting up 'commies' on her Playstation. And so she asks for a vacation like that to be implanted in her brain. But she refuses any information - she's going in by the seat of her pants . . . . quite stupid that. And . . . it was established early on that they have the ability to implant languages and the like into the brain. That's how she got French. Her trip puts in her in Berlin and assigns as her 'enemy' the KGB, but . . . she doesn't get either German or Russian implanted into her brain. Why did they even include that part about her getting French implanted if they weren't going to put languages into her, and other skills?

So, she's on this mission and completely bloody incompetent. Start to finish. Completely . . .. One of my worst experiences in my life was forcing myself to read that 'vacation' trip to 1985 Berlin. That was just incredibly . . . annoying/irritating/etc. And why the fuck (ack, I've been trying to keep from including fucks) did the super spy have a heavy thick Russian accent? Seriously? Yes, she's from Russia but . . . they have fucking heavy fucking accents in the movies, not in the real world scenario - they have fucking training, classes, etc. so they don't have really thick fucking accents ..... Fuck. My head hurts.

Yes, well, naturally the vacation trip goes to hell, she exits a little early, and suffers massive health issues. Then runs into someone who looks like the twin of someone she ‘meet’ on her ‘vacation.’ And so . . . they investigate and shit.

There is an interesting premise here. I hated, scratch that, loathed every character though. Andrew the smarmy technician, Jack the overly solicitous underling (to the lead female character), to Tasha the Russian spy with the thick accent but awesome ass; less so Trisha but I’m sure there’s something to loath about her (Trisha being the Tasha clone/twin/template).

This book makes me wish I could go soak my brain in acid.

Right, finally tracked down ‘head female woman’ name – Shelby Hutchinson. Which is stupid of me, since the bloody obvious Russian spy with the really thick accent kept calling her by her whole fucking name every fucking two fucking seconds. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…acid bath for brain please.

One last note – it’s some far date in the future, but there were references dropped that didn’t really make a lot of since for it being the far future. Why would someone be described as being a ‘skinny Billy Idol wannabe’ in 2039? Also a) ‘skinny Billy Idol’ as opposed to what? Billy Idol is a super skinny dude; b) he was born in 1955 – he would be 84 in 2039, if still alive people born and living as adults in 2039 probably think of him the same way people born in my generation think of . . . oh, Betty White – old (though I’ve seen some early pictures of her – she was quite nice looking back in the day (good grief, I accidentally just saw a nude picture of her, Betty White had posed nude at some point? Huh; ironically I just saw a Snopes page for her saying that the hot young woman that gets returned as a 20 year old White isn’t her; but I had not been looking at those pictures when I mentioned she was quite nice looking back in the day – but actual pictures of her when she was 35; you can tell how bored I am of this book and review in that I first examined what people would think of Billy Idol in 2039, then started looking at pictures of Betty White)).

November 25 2016




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