Chaz and Lu are childhood friends still navigating the realities of their half-Asian, half-western parentage. One night, an ill-advised adventure in an illegal gambling den soon devolves into a mesmerizing multi-generational tale of human trafficking, experimental neural implants, kung fu, and mold. Their experiences are bound together by the dazzling, heterogeneous city of Hong Kong, where a massive escalator carries humanity of every stripe from one world to another—creating unexpected opportunities for reflection, romance, and danger.

Ray Chan’s ESCALATE leads with the experience of mixed heritage. As Chaz and Lu move through a casino and its ulterior spaces, they’re sensitive to “the elongated vowels of kitchen Cantonese.” Lu considers his comfort with certain markers of Chinese cultural identity, “like knowing all the words to a karaoke song you hate.” This tension pervades the text—embodied in Hong Kong, where much of the action takes place—but it doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the story. On the contrary, ESCALATE skillfully synthesizes the race-and-belonging themes with a sci-fi plot about cognition, empathy, and memory. Some of the action can feel bland (there’s a visit to an ancient monastery, a kung fu scroll to steal, and more), but the text more than counterbalances these moments with its most engaging, intensely weird sequences (like surviving five weeks in a shipping container with an unconventional diet). The diversity of plot threads and ideas can seem chaotic, but the reading experience holds together with a flippant, wry prose style that’s particularly adept at encapsulating character. “To Chaz,” for instance, “travel was a marketing ruse, like diamonds and Christmas;” a kung fu teacher meditatively ponders his own chest muscles, “which would occasionally twitch like frog bellies excited by the prospect of twilight.” The text rides high on this balance of thoughtfulness, beauty, and absurdity.

ESCALATE does need a final copy-edit to be fully reader-ready, though. There is some missing punctuation, especially closing quotation marks, which can create confusion over a paragraph break. Some capitals are missing (“catholic churches” need to be “Catholic churches”), and there are some straightforward typos. There are also some formatting issues: margins will occasionally change, words will be indented, or spacing will change (including within a sentence). These are annoyances that need to be resolved, but they don’t ultimately detract from the overwhelming pleasure of the storytelling.

Ray Chan’s ESCALATE is a weird, funny, and surprising sci-fi debut.

~ Dan Accardi for IndieReader