Synopsis
"Todd James Pierce's Newsworld exposes characters who are so thoroughly immersed in - or overtaken by - popular culture that they cannot tell where the media ends and real life begins. The students in "Columbine: The Musical" rehearse songs such as "I Have a Gun, I Have an Arsenal" while a representative of the play's sponsor, the SafeCampus Corporation, expresses pride in "such vision, such enthusiasm for the high-tech, fully monitored world of the future."" "The book's title story is set at an amusement park where the rides are inspired by memorable headlines, with attractions such as "Siege at Waco" and "The Vietnam Experience." One teenaged narrator explains, "As little kids, we'd watched in irritation as OJ's Bronco crawled up the freeway followed by patrol cars and TV news helicopters, the live footage interrupting Animaniacs and Duck Tales. Five years later we climbed into similar Broncos - vehicles outfitted with lap bars and individual sound systems embedded into the headrests - and were whisked into the dim sound stage of Los Angeles." "Alternately funny and chilling, Newsworld is a collection that captures the hyper-reality of media-dominated American life in the twenty-first century."
