What Is Time to a Pig?

Cold Storage #3

by John Straley

From the wild and wonderful mind of Shamus Awardwinning author John Straley comes a poetic masterpiece that explores the ugly truths of the prison industrial complex, the crumbling state of humanity, the role memory plays in the formation of the self, and much more. Its been seven years since Gloomy Knob landed in the Ted Stevens High-Security Federal Penitentiary and five years since the end of the war, the one North Korea started when they sent a missile to Cold Storage, Alaska. Serving a life sentence for the murder of his sister, Gloomy spends histime trying to forget about the past. Then one day, Gloomy is snatched from his off-site work station. Instead of celebrating his newfound freedom, Gloomy comes unmooredhe feels he belongs in prison. But his kidnappers believe Gloomy knows where a second nuclear warhead is hidden and demand to know where it is. The clock is ticking, and Gloomy knows he needs to find the missing warhead fast, or his wife, his friends, and the entire town of Cold Storage will be obliterated. The only problem is he has no idea where it is. As Gloomy struggles to escape, the memories he fought hard to repress begin to creep out from the strange corners of his mind, first in rivulets, then in waves. In a drug-induced haze, Gloomy makes a discovery that may just bring him the closure he desiresif it doesnt kill him first.

Genres: Fiction

1 pages, Audio CD

Published March 2, 2020

About the author

Novelist John Straley has worked as a secretary, horseshoer, wilderness guide, trail crew foreman, millworker, machinist and private investigator. He moved to Sitka, Alaska in 1977 and has no plans of leaving. John's wife, Jan Straley, is a marine biologist well-known for her extensive studies of humpback whales.

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite an fascinating blurb and a good start, it really did not live up to the mark. Great blocks of text seemed to be wikipedia entries and didnt add anything to the story. Unfortunately something which I couldn't finish.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

A strange story that often makes no sense.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started, stopped, gave another chance. Sorry, didn't finish. Disappointed since the previous Cold Storage novels were so witty and fun.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn’t going to read this one, based on ratings and reviews, but when I saw that a new Cold Storage book was coming out soon, I gave in, afraid I’d experience a discontinuity in the series if I skipped it.

Mistake.

I think a 3 star rating is a result of a generous mood, given the pleasure I’ve had from reading some of Straley’s other books, including Cod Storage, Alaska and most of the Cecil Younger series.

Should have listened to my gut and skipped this one.

Didn’t enjoy the prison/torture bits, the Native American Muslim/Marxist diatribes, the interspersed character backstory sequencing, or the fact that the protagonist (and therefore the reader) was never sure what was real or induced hallucination.

It also bothered me that the quaint, isolated town of Cold Storage had apparently been turned into a tourist trap (Gatlinburg, Alaska?). Or perhaps that was part of the hallucination.

I’ll still pick up the new book and hope Straley is back on track, but if it’s anything like this one, that will be the last for me.

[V · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Cold Storage books each take place in a different decade with different protagonists... so they should stand on their own, right? The problem is that there are beaucoup references to characters and events previously written books. Leads to the unpleasant feeling of sort of remembering something but not really and knowing that one isn't fully appreciating what one is reading as a result.

I thought the new world Straley constructed for this novel was interesting (published early 2020, set a few years in the future). A new Ghost Dance movement and other intricacies involving Native Americans and religious practice, a brief war with North Korea on the books, interesting (but disgusting) new interrogation techniques.

However, this novel spent waaay too much time in the nebulous reality of the new enhanced interrogation so that it was difficult to figure out whether one was reading something that was real or a hallucination fabricated by interrogators. Tired SF trope. The loyalties of ancillary characters were constantly being called into question and I found it difficult to keep up. I just stopped caring.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The PNW with extra weirdness
Depths of the prison-industrial complex, religion, human nature
Glories of nature, poetically described
Perception
Sound
Time
Self
Peace
Solitude
Memory
Reality
P.G. Wodehouse, Wovoka, Jack Wilson
"But that image carried the feeling of others..."
"Now he was going to die, he thought, and this relaxed him."
"It was the breath of the forest, distinct from the waves on the aand. The period of gusts of wind in the trees was longer than that of the waves on the sand."
Lakota, Las Vegas, Paiute, Tlingit
"This beach had the shallow hush-hush of small waves on a flat-cobbled shore."
black birds, eagles, herons, ravens
"salk-still"
"Our past is the country with no borders and no ports of re-entry."
Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? Luke 12:24
"But that was a kind of happiness that dug in and had a faint hint of dread."
"She wanted nothing so much as to rise up out of herself and float like a sooty spark through the ceiling."
A strange and interesting book

[Peyton Drake · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such an interesting concept of how the mind copes with fear and pain and how the prison complex of america only dehumanizes and destroys, but gosh I did not like how this was written. It feels like non-stop exposition and flashback reveals, and there aren't enough actual character interactions with spoken dialogue. The twists aren't very well set up and just feel like "gotchas" where information is revealed after the important thing happens. There was so much more the author could've done to build the world within the given setting. It felt like there were too many characters to follow, and none of them were fully fleshed out.

A police state is bad and more prisons are bad. There is never going to be a point where we fully eradicate crime from the world, and it's a lazy cop-out to put people in cages so that the rest of the population forgets about them because we don't have to see them so those in power can pretend like that actually fixed anything.

Maybe more creative punishment and more intense psychological warfare isn't the answer to a more peaceful society.

[Lulu · Rating 1 out of 5]

Muddled mishmash with lengthy sermons and lectures and a host of not-so-endearing characters in a truly unbelievable near cataclysmic, bloody, violent and frankly rather stupid take so unlike Straley’s usual winning storytelling…Geesh…almost reads like a really horrendous delirious hangover. Well at least Gloomy is happily ever after. Wait, wait, wait…did ChatGPT impersonate Straley here? 😅
I almost gave this review a 2 because Straley has consistently written good stories but then I thought, wait a minute, who ever told Babe Ruth to take first base when he’d actually struck out just because he’s Babe Ruth?

[Maggies Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gloomy has information about the location of a second nuclear war head some where in Cold Storage Alaska some where locked in his damaged brain. The authorities are so desperate to locate this ticking time bomb that they let Gloomy be sprung from prison in the hope of Gloomy leading them to the allusive nuke. Will they find it before it blows up? I read the ARC version and thought it was well written with lots of memorable characters and the content concerning our prison and defensive system is one that we all too frequently hear too little about.

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Debated. 3.5. Usually I round down. This time I rounded up. I liked the story and the people. I would have loved it as a younger person. Put me in mind of standing (sitting?) at 5he feet of Kurt Vonnegut. But is really in need of some good editing. Some parts dragged on too long (we get it — chemical and psychological mind control to benefit the powers that be). Other places leaving us guessing too long trying to figure out where this us going. Like the beginning.
But, I still liked it a lot and am glad I read it.

[Joshua · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite an fascinating blurb and a good start, it really did not live up to the mark. There were great swaths of text which seemed to have been taken from encyclopedia entries This really broke the story, destroying any momentum I gathered and I lost interest very quickly. A real shame as I was very excited for the book.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. It was pretty disjointed, on the edge of complete confusion, but I was kind of ok with it. Great writing style but a completely different feel from "Cold Storage". Parts reminded me of "Woman on the Edge of Time".

[Linda Gaines · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like it as well as the other Cold Storage books. There was too much "adventure" type action for me.

[Milo Adkison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Left his PI series behind and went for the post-apocalyptic genre (sorta). A fun, wild ride.

[Bob Rehfeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

To preposterous for my taste.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not your typical John Straley. Hard to follw but it all works in the end. Great reader for the audio book.

[Timothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chaotic, inspired, dystopian, optimistic story set in the future of Cold Storage, Alaska. The characters are eccentric if not mournful, the plot lunatic if not joyous.

[Paula Schumm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook of this novel, the third in a series set in Cold Storage, Alaska. It was great except for the pornographic entry. Reader beware.

[Veronica Sterling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. This read made me smile. A lot. It was a large, well written, almost philosophical, mystery, with fun, eclectic characters that live in a landscape different from what most of us would not experience in our day to day lives. But don't let that dissuade you, you will revel in all their actions, shake your head, wonder what they were thinking, maybe cringe a little, and end up smiling...again, at some coincidence or silliness. I was sad to see this one end.