"Michael Tolkin is a soothsayer, an early reader of our psychological topography, and his new book, NK3, is either the last great Hollywood novel or the first great book of Burning Man . . . A strangely terrifying if celebratory novel of remnants, fragments, the nag of one's inner voice, and dim reminders of the dissolve that has become America."-A. M. Homes, Vanity Fair

"Michael Tolkin is one of America's greatest living novelists-and way too underappreciated . . . [NK3] is an astonishing tour de force, in which he's created a language for a people who have lost the foundations of language-memory, history, identity-after what seems to be a North Korean chemical weapons attack that got out of control . . . The deep sadness conveyed by the book, sadness for the traumatic loss, as well as the joy in the language and in the characters' struggle, struck me as something like a psalm. NK3 is a great novel."-Lee Smith, Weekly Standard

"An intricate and cleverly constructed account of the aftermath of a North Korean chemical attack; the NK3 of the title has entirely destroyed its victims' memories and has vastly diminished their capacity to reason. This puts the novel's characters in the same position as the readers of all dystopian fiction: they're left to try to piece together not a whodunnit but a howdidithappen."-Jill Lepore, New Yorker

"[An] ingenious dystopian thriller . . . Clever entertainment about a disaster that won't happen."-Patrick Anderson, Washington Post

"An original and absorbing novel-written in clear, rich prose-that imagines a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles where dystopia is fine-tuned to our present turmoil . . . It is hard to imagine a better writer to conjure a vision of a demolished and encaged Los Angeles than Tolkin. As a filmmaker and novelist, Tolkin has been well tuned to the culture and zeitgeist of this most illusory and decadent of American cities . . . NK3 harkens back to a classic SF tradition while feeling fresh and modern. Tolkin creates memorable images and searing moments and peppers the text with sly, dark humor, all while raising provocative social and political issues. Like the novels of China Miéville or Philip K. Dick, the fantastic is combined with a lucid social conscience . . . NK3 is nightmare and satire, thriller and warning. Crafted by a master storyteller, it is a haunting parable about civilization marching forward, while forgetting what it leaves behind."-Alci Rengifo, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Darkly satirical . . . NK3 presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of postapocalyptic La La Land . . . with flashes of antic wit and honestly earned compassion . . . Names like 'AutoZone, ' 'Go Bruins' and 'Madeinusa' . . . remind one of how easily people are turned into commodities, how slippery the grip on identity can be, how there's always someone ready to set themself up as the savior of civilization. Just because someone is known as 'Chief' doesn't mean he can keep his followers fed forever. At a time of alternative facts and a bend toward cultural amnesia, NK3 feels especially prescient."-Michael Berry, San Francisco Chronicle

"I've read five dystopian novels published this year . . . A comic thriller devoted to the destruction of Hollywood as well as the exploitation of Hollywood tropes, [NK3 is] the most fun of the bunch . . . Tolkin, the author of The Player, goes about his demolition of L.A. real estate and mores gleefully, and his point is that beneath a delicate veneer of civilization, the city is nasty and brutish and life is short."-Christian Lorentzen, New York Magazine

"In this brave, brilliant and barely speculative novel, the population of Greater Los Angeles is wracked with varying degrees of amnesia, the social order is s