Jon Dennis' Hyponormalization: a look at the first standalone Faction Hollywood book

After finishing the Boulevard Volume 1, I've been wanting to get back into Faction Paradox and realized I haven't actually read most of the more recent books. I've decided to start going through the series in reverse chronological order (reverse as most of what I'm familiar with is the older stuff, and I'd like for it to be less fresh in my head before I revisit it, as well as finally getting to know the part of the series I'm least versed in). This retrospective on the series won't be entirely comprehensive; for now I'll be ignoring more recent tie-ins (the Dave Rudden stuff; the City of the Saved; Faction Paradox appearing with serial numbers filed off in Big Finish's The Warren Legacy; Ryan Fogarty) and the new BBV stuff. The old Bernice Summerfield content gets an in, though, as it ties more directly into Miles' view for the series and the loose overarching narratives that defined his time in charge.

    But I'll talk about all that when I've actually read/reread it. Today, I bring you a revised take on my old YouTube review of Jon Dennis' Hyponormalization: A Faction Hollywood Production, a fairly brief novella released as part of a set commemorating ten years of Obverse Books. Each novella in that set focused on a different Obverse series, and this is their Faction Paradox entry. Rather excitingly, it's the first standalone book focusing on Faction Hollywood, written by their creator. My main thought on this book is that I wish my review were more positive. The series as a whole deserves so much praise and this marks a second unimpressed take in a row.

    The book is by no means without merit, as Jon Dennis is a very talented writer with a knack for interesting concepts even at his weakest. The concept driving this novella is another great one. Briefly, the United States Military comes to Faction Hollywood looking for a solution to the public's waning interest in the War on Terror. This works on two levels. There's the obvious satirical element, of course, but there's also a metaphorical thing going on here. Ever since This Town Will Never Let Us Go, the in-universe War in Heaven has been shown in parallel to the War on Terror. And over time, the Faction Paradox universe has expanded well beyond the scope of the War to the point where there are entire anthologies that barely mention it at all. In more ways than one, this book is about a demographic losing interest in a war.

    It could've definitely taken those themes further than it did, though. By the time I'd brought the back cover down, I didn't feel as though either layer had been considered thoroughly.  Instead, this book wastes a lot of its time on the military side of things, and Dennis just isn't the kind of guy who can make military operations interesting. I did like Chapter 12, though, which reads like an SCP exploration log and has some of the book's better horror moments. Aside from that, though, much of the military element of this novella is fairly lifeless. I don't think I could describe a single character involved in this book's military operations.

    Which is a shame, as the Faction Hollywood side of the cast was captured very well. Brookhaven in particular has some of the book's best moments. Mixing the fictional drug Praxis with cocaine was inspired as all hell. The scene where he asks another character, "what's your motivation?" is a very effective bit of character building that really says a lot about his worldview while also providing a good laugh.

    Another highlight is Cousin Jowday, perhaps more for what ze represent than for any particularly enticing scenes - although there are some good ones. Dennis uses a set of atypical pronouns to refer to Jowday, and does so in a way that feels distinct from the usual approach in science fiction. A lot of SF does this annoying thing where they feel the need to tie nonbinary people into the lore somehow. You probably know what I mean. Like, people from x planet go by x pronouns; this set of pronouns is for aliens, this one is for robots, etc etc. I always hated that, it feels like an attempt to justify the inclusion of queer characters. As if "but it's part of the lore" would ever be enough to dissuade bigots.

    Jowday is just a normal person living zir life, and I love to see it. I got a little bit of pushback from a nonbinary friend for the less fleshed-out take on Jowday featured in my original video on this book. They told me that one reason so many nonbinary characters aren't strictly human is that many queer people don't feel entirely human themselves. Which makes sense to me, and I do think there have been some very good nonbinary aliens done over the years. We can have both, for sure, but I'd like to see more like Jowday and I haven't seen many characters in zir vein before. Queer SF characters lean very heavily towards the alien. Just fairly normal human beings using neopronouns, living their lives. It's something I think needs to exist in a media climate where so many people are using their platforms to demonize folks who just want to live their lives like everyone else.

    Aside from characters, the idea of Remakes - originally introduced in The Book of the War - is elaborated on quite effectively here. These are caricartured resurrections of iconic figures; a remake of George Patton is a major player in this book. Dennis crafts a few very effective moments involving these Remakes, and I get the sense a seasoned satirist like Kurt Vonnegut could've created a masterpiece with the ideas in this book. Dennis has only created a few very effective moments. For the most part, though, the jokes in this book are recycled from other sources. Which leads us, finally, to my biggest problem with Hyponormalization.

    Part of what draws me to Faction Paradox is its willingness to push boundaries, and this book just... doesn't. Its satire is all stuff you could find on a late-night comedian's Twitter page, every joke is as old and worn out as the book's unnamed President (it will surprise absolutely none of you to learn that this President is described, at one point in the book, as having tiny hands). This sort of anti-Trump commentary just makes folks who have actual problems with the guy look bad, and it's especially unfortunate here because it could've easily been very good! This novella involves a Trump stand-in, the military and a trans character. It wouldn't take much effort to depict Jowday as somebody who lost zir job due to the trans military ban and joined Faction Hollywood because a cult was the easiest way to find the community and income that was suddenly lacking in zir life.

     But honestly the book's focus is, itself, a bit of a problem. Hollywood and the War on Terror are things everyone else has already satirized. If you're going to tackle something like that, you'd better have an original take on things.

    The other problem with focusing on those two particular fields is that Faction Paradox's first-ever novel was about the entertainment industry and the War on Terror. Say what you want about Mad Larry or his This Town Will Never Let Us Go, but you could never say it wasn't idiosyncratic. Lawrence Miles' takes on well-worn topics were always worth listening to because he was a weird guy. Politically radical, highly opinionated, genuinely unhinged and also quite funny at times. The narration in TTWNLUG is raving lunacy that left me feeling annoyed/offended/violated more often than not, and I mean that as high praise. It's an angry look at a world worth being angry at. This novella is just self-righteously quippy.

Dennis has said that this book was intended as the stealth prequel to a full-length novel, and that should be coming out sooner rather than later. Despite everything I've said in this review, I'm still cautiously optimistic to see where this story goes. There are characters here I'd love to see again, and I think if he focuses less on the military and refines his satire game we could end up with a solid book. Do I recommend this book at Obverse's asking price? Maybe the ebook, when it's on sale. But I do think it has the potential to look better in retrospect as the first part of a longer narrative. Fingers crossed.