Review
"In a word: Mind-blowing....An intriguing fusion of poignant coming-of-age tale and skull crushing social commentary....Powered by a soundtrack featuring Public Enemy, Jeru the Damaga, and Digable Planets,Pharmacology is one of those cool “full immersion reads."--Unabashedly Bookish, BN.com
"This gripping novel, written in an eye-catching style that many have already compared to Chuck Palahniuk, will suck readers in and keep them hooked until the very end. The story is unique, the depictions of 90s-era San Francisco are gritty and real, and the main character is a fascinating, multifaceted study of human morality."-- San Francisco Book Review
"Pharmacology is a bold and edgy dive into a world dominated by corporate greed that eventually consumes the person who seeks to expose it." -- Neon Tommy, Annenberg Digital News
"Pharmacology is urban fiction with an edge, it paints a view of the city of San Francisco not usually seen by the tourist or even most of its dwellers. It walks us into a world of characters that do not fit the mold and are accepting of each other's limitations, and shows us the world through their eyes and their motivations. It does not demonize the sub-culture but rather humanizes it - these are multi-layered characters defined by the sum of their parts and not by a single characteristic or trait. Pharmacology is a must read."--MariaS, Flair
"Herz's incisive look into the early days of the internet and his skewering of the fear tactics used by the pharmaceutical conglomerates includes some of the most eccentric supporting characters I have ever encountered." --Emily Ruben, Author of Stalina
"Christopher Herz’s gadfly of a novel, Pharmacology, rips the gauze from our romantic notions about the dawn of the digital era. Like Sarah Striker, we fall in love with 1990s San Francisco, peopled with heroin-addicted vampires, bicycle messengers on social crusades, and graffiti artists who go legit for six-figure salaries at technology start-ups. But there’s always a price to pay, especially when Sarah discovers that the underground drug trade and above-board pharmaceutical industry are selling the same thing: ephemeral, chemical cures for being human. In Pharmacology, Philip K. Dick’s futures have become our glorified, recent past and ubiquitous present, and Sarah must choose whether to inhale another glass-shard line of clickable pleasure, or to swim against the rising tide of spurious information for a shore that can actually be walked upon barefoot. In the quiet spaces of this brilliant, kinetic narrative, Herz poses a bracing question: what happens to a society that pays this generation’s subversives handsomely to medicate the next generation’s subversives out of existence?" -Harold Taw author of Adventures of the Karoke King
"This gripping novel, written in an eye-catching style that many have already compared to Chuck Palahniuk, will suck readers in and keep them hooked until the very end. The story is unique, the depictions of 90s-era San Francisco are gritty and real, and the main character is a fascinating, multifaceted study of human morality."-- San Francisco Book Review
"Pharmacology is a bold and edgy dive into a world dominated by corporate greed that eventually consumes the person who seeks to expose it." -- Neon Tommy, Annenberg Digital News
"Pharmacology is urban fiction with an edge, it paints a view of the city of San Francisco not usually seen by the tourist or even most of its dwellers. It walks us into a world of characters that do not fit the mold and are accepting of each other's limitations, and shows us the world through their eyes and their motivations. It does not demonize the sub-culture but rather humanizes it - these are multi-layered characters defined by the sum of their parts and not by a single characteristic or trait. Pharmacology is a must read."--MariaS, Flair
"Herz's incisive look into the early days of the internet and his skewering of the fear tactics used by the pharmaceutical conglomerates includes some of the most eccentric supporting characters I have ever encountered." --Emily Ruben, Author of Stalina
"Christopher Herz’s gadfly of a novel, Pharmacology, rips the gauze from our romantic notions about the dawn of the digital era. Like Sarah Striker, we fall in love with 1990s San Francisco, peopled with heroin-addicted vampires, bicycle messengers on social crusades, and graffiti artists who go legit for six-figure salaries at technology start-ups. But there’s always a price to pay, especially when Sarah discovers that the underground drug trade and above-board pharmaceutical industry are selling the same thing: ephemeral, chemical cures for being human. In Pharmacology, Philip K. Dick’s futures have become our glorified, recent past and ubiquitous present, and Sarah must choose whether to inhale another glass-shard line of clickable pleasure, or to swim against the rising tide of spurious information for a shore that can actually be walked upon barefoot. In the quiet spaces of this brilliant, kinetic narrative, Herz poses a bracing question: what happens to a society that pays this generation’s subversives handsomely to medicate the next generation’s subversives out of existence?" -Harold Taw author of Adventures of the Karoke King
Product Description
1993. San Francisco. The digital and pharmaceutical industries are booming. They're looking for the young, the hip, and those on the counterculture fringe to be both the face and consumer of their new world order. Recruited by an advertising agency focused on targeting a new drug to her own age demographic, Sarah Striker is grateful for the steady income, but begins to question the side effects of the products she's pushing.
Sarah begins publishing an underground 'zine to expose the secrets behind the pharmaceutical industry's aims. Fulfilled by her quest to spread the truth, her new life seems to be working out perfectly--until she realizes that she herself is perilously close to becoming a victim of this new corporate world.
A kinetic, hyper-stylized jolt of pure energy, Herz delivers a strong follow up to his debut novel, The Last Block in Harlem. Full of vibrant characters and razor-sharp dialogue, Pharmacology captures the voice of the Internet generation with style, heart, and soul.
