Our story opens in the 1970s, with the inexplicably-too-young-for-the-military Charlie Bradshaw is in Army Basic Training, frequently the target of pranks and hazing by his older confederates. But this is soon all over: in true Dorothy-like fashion, he gets swept up in a tornado and somehow transported into the future, some time seemingly more or less our own, and for reasons unexplained, he can now see future events before they happen.
The most obvious problem with Jack Felson’s CHARLIE’S TRIPS is the writing style itself. It’s flat, and not terribly inspired, the novel’s vocabulary is no more than a tiny sandbox with characters all speaking as if they were children: “’Right.’ The sergeant turned away from him and walked around the room, continuing to talk without looking at any of the guys. ‘Tonight you soldiers watch the weather forecasts on TV. There’s a storm alert for the next two or three days. Maybe even tomorrow. But tomorrow’s drill is still on, so don’t forget to dress warm and thick. We need all of you guys. Have a good evening.’”
The military sequences, by the way, all play out like this, with no use of jargon or authentic-sounding protocol whatsoever, and a general sense that Felson did no research whatsoever; which really takes the reader right out of the story in a number of scenes. Versimilitude is minimal throughout in fact, in fact: reporters, cult leaders, even Charlie’s own surrogate parents, come across as broad caricatures and nothing like real people. It’s tempting to write this off as intentional, as some sort of postmodern archness, but if this is the case, it’s still not very funny, and there’s no real sense that the novel is in on the joke.
As much potential as a premise like CHARLIE’S TRIPS might have, the whole thing just sort of plays out like a clumsily-written TV pilot, full of mishaps and even the occasional successful joke, but ultimately no real point. The novel ends with an odd cliffhanger, but it’s not nearly enough to generate interest in a second episode.
Reviewed by Charles Baker for IndieReader.