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Just finished "Archelon Ranch." Maybe I should wait and let my impressions settle- but no, that would do the book a disservice. All the pertinent details are covered in other reviews and the official descriptions, so it's likely you know what it's about, but here are my impressions. First off, the IRL layer has this book being written and published in the same circumstances as my own forthcoming book, so I immediately felt that resonance. This is a metafictional text of the highest order- it froths over at the climax and spills out even into the author bio at the end. Its setting might be recognizable from Logan's Run, Finder, Escape From New York, etc.- but from the fans atop the dome to the psychedelic mud-choked suburbs surrounding it, this setting lives or dies on the 'open-beam' metafictional framework underlying it, and as many dinosaur toys a young Garrett Cook was allowed to have in his tub. Additionally, while the text may perpetually state that one character is a Protagonist, it is clear that another more well-developed character is, and that narrative friction was enjoyable, though I would like to have seen more time devoted to the latter character. Last, I would like to point out the courage Garrett Cook displays for dumping the uglier part of himself into the story- whether for catharsis, katabasis, or simple praxis, it is emotionally powerful, and I hope my similar tendencies in most of my works are even half as effective. More than just a simple weird tale, this is a keen dart thrown at the void.