Free Radicals

Set in a dystopian society in the not-too-distant future, this darkly humorous sci-fi novel follows the misadventures of a bar musician and army vet who's set up on terrorism charges and deported to a single-continent prison planet. After a fight in which he nearly kills a neo-Nazi, he flees to the other end of the continent with a prisoner he knew from Earth—a Mexican anarchist and fellow musician—on a Gulliver's Travels–type journey through a number of political and religious cult compounds. With comical and acidic depictions of the various cults they encounter on the way, Free Radicals insightfully explores the often-failed attempts at utopia and the day-to-day lives of two traveling musicians.

"Solidly entertaining . . . reminiscent of early Mick Farren." --Publishers Weekly

"The plot holds the reader's interest and should appeal to a fairly wide audience." --Booklist

"[Free Radicals] is among the best future-shock reads in years. . . . Teflon wields a dark sense of humor . . . and is a terrific depicter of violence. . . . [Free Radicals] is the only sci-fi novel I've read that captures the gritty existence of a futuristic bar musician . . . [and that] makes great use of border Spanish; indeed, Free Radicals includes a glossary of terms. If we lived in the '60s and '70s when audience-rattling paperbacks like Naked Lunch were cheap, plentiful and available on pharmacy spinner-racks, critics would hail Free Radicals as a masterpiece." --Tucson Weekly