Nanoland was an enjoyable book about a place like Disneyland which goes completely crazy. I thought it was a fun idea but some parts of the story got a little too technical for me.

A huge theme park, Nanoland is Frank Nano’s vision come to life. Alicia, who plays a nano princess, longs for more. When the attractions begin attacking guests, Alicia and a small band of survivors work together to flee the park and uncover the mystery of what is happening.

This book can be summed up in a few words - Mickey mouse meets Jurassic Park. The fact that out of control technology was beloved children’s toys added a fun and twisted element. The characters themselves were a bit stereotypical, I really wanted more from them. However, I enjoyed the story. Overall, 4 out of 5.

In an alternate present Nano technology was developed in the sixties, and used by Frank Nano, a prominent movie maker and puppeteer, to make an amazing amusement park, Nanoland (hard from Gorilla House). As Jack McGuigan tells it, on the same day that the head of the corporation visits the island, the park goes wild trapping longtime cast member Alicia Amandi, some tourist kids and the head of the corporation in a nightmare filled with mermaids and frog puppets. It is definitely Jurassic Park on LSD. While there is a secret underlying the problems, it’s a lot of fun following the survival of the best people. Lots of fun

I always enjoy reading books where theme parks go wrong, and this had everything that I was hoping for. I could see the elements of other theme parks and enjoyed that it was different enough. The characters were what I was hoping for and enjoyed from the genre. I was engaged with the story and how the characters worked with the story. Jack McGuigan gets you invested and brings you in from the world. I enjoyed what I read and can’t wait for more.

I love weird, haunted, scary theme park books but this one is in a class by itself. 80s technology gone rogue sentient killing people... hmmm

A lot of people have said this is a riff on Disney and the Muppets and I fully agree. I also wondered why the author did not tweak it to be so patently obvious.

I also don't think Walt Disney was an egomaniacal psycho in the same thread as Frank Nano, the owner and founder of Nanoland. You'll have to read the book for more context.

Not something I'd read again but I enjoyed the few hours it took to read.

My thanks to Gorilla House and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own.

I had expectations when I started the book of a Juriassic Park type story but this book seemed to push the envelope a little more. The first description of the park made it sound like a souped up high tech version of another Florida park with a frog in place of the mouse. There were a lot of parallels but the characters set this park apart. Knowing their stories made them more real even if we did push a political agenda a bit with acknowledging Alicia is the only black nanoprincess. Don't get me wrong, she was a great character full of gumption and strength who put her own life on the line. When she was huddled with Ethan and Maddie and made the comment that sometimes the world needs princesses, she set the tone for part of the story. She would be what she needed to be and do what was asked to save lives and survive.

The cautionary tale portion was the rise of the machines rouge AI set as the villains in this story. The AI that was a man's whole world but that world got turned upside down wiping out a dream that got to be to big. As an IT person, I can't imagine a company running on such dated software that literally did everything. Imagine the whole story came down to the need to have rebooted and updated the computer so the machines did not become killing machines. Such a wild imagination the author showed with his rogue machines.

There is also a bit of an ick factor with the nanomeds and what Frank does to his body and the lengths he will go to. He became drunk on power and would do anything to keep it no matter how gross. He became the villain of his own tale. While icky, it made the story interesting in another way.

As I am typing, i bumped this from 4 to 5 starts because this book was a blast full of action and an IT's person worst nightmare. It was so much fun to read that I could not turn the pages quickly enough. It may have been political and it may have been a cautionary tale but it was a fun one. Recommended to all. This is not a normal book for me but I am glad I read it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Gorilla House for the opportunity to read this ARC

Nanoland by Jack McGuigan provides an action and adventure story embedded in a twisted fantasy/sci fi parody of Walt Disney World—with frogs (and princesses).

Instead of a mouse named Mickey, this Florida theme park centers around a Kermit-the-Frog like character named Frank.

The story is told by one of the park’s princess face-characters, Dee, who is played by a woman named Alicia.

In addition to the human beings that play costume characters, princesses and such, the park is full of other characters and features that use nano-technology. After many years, the tech is starting to glitch and the outcome could prove disastrous.

I enjoyed the story being told through Alicia’s perspective, as well as the book’s descriptions of the ins and outs of working in an amusement park. By the end of the book I felt like I had been part of an incredible story and adventure.

Published by Gorilla House.

Started with cool looking art for the map and opening comic. Everything went down hill from there and just could only remember multiple other books that were better than this one.