The Great Leap Forward
Armand Burke
Language: English
Pages: 282
ISBN: 1481097466
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A CULT CLASSIC! - No. 1 Satire on Amazon!
(Top 100 Free Books in Kindle Store - April 10 -11, 2013 and again on July 26 - 27, 2013)
And now No. 1 in Alternative History (Top Free Kindle Books, October 8 - 9, 2013)
If you like Kurt Vonnegut, Catch-22, Chuck Palahniuk, the Illuminatus trilogy and the Fu Manchu novels of Sax Rohmer, you will enjoy THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD - a comic fantasy of alternative history that defies categorization. It has become a cult classic since its original appearance more than 30 years ago.
The year is 1978. China is an isolated empire of conspiracy, deception and delusion. From Radio Beijing comes the astonishing announcement: China will unilaterally disarm. Is this a Great Leap Forward for mankind--or a plot to take over the world?
Into this surreal landscape steps Number Five, a master spy of undisclosed nationality. What he finds in China is so shocking, so strange, so far beyond the usual categories of fact or fiction, that the story of his mission must be passed off as fantasy. It's as if Kafka, Borges and Wittgenstein, after binging on Fu Manchu novels and the Illuminatus trilogy, had decided to write a spy novel, with a little help from Lewis Carroll.
Die-hard fans of thrillers and spy novels beware: Don't buy this book unless you're prepared to suspend your expectations in favor of a story that's funny, literary, and trans-genre'd!
are trying to destroy this nation. It is part of their attempt to divide the people by leading them to believe that the highest circles of the Government are wracked by dissent.” “Just who are these evil forces?” Lu leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Come now, Mr. Duloup. You’ve heard of the Hung League.” “No,” said Five. “I don’t believe I have.” Lu hesitated for a moment, then smiled and sat back in his chair. “There seems to have been a misunderstanding,” he said. “And I can see that
the corridor stood slightly ajar. “Pssst!” came the sound again. The door opened, wider, and an aged Caucasian face appeared in the crack. “Are they after you?” Five nodded. “Come on in, then.” Five squeezed through the door and found himself crammed into a narrow vestibule with a white-haired old man, who had snapped the door shut and bolted it in half a dozen places almost before he could get inside. “You’ll be safe here,” the old man said, edging closer and poking his wary face towards
were already part of the conspiracy. “And what are you going to tell the others? Are you going to tell them that you didn’t discuss it with me because I convinced you that I wasn’t Number Five?” “What I tell my colleagues is not your concern.” “You will look very foolish, Colonel.” With these words Five slipped out of his chair and over to the wide French doors which the Colonel, on his last sally around the room, had left partly exposed. Drawing the curtains all the way, he opened the doors
moment he seemed on the verge of saying something, but he swallowed his words as manfully as he had swallowed his sherry and struggled to maintain the air of inattention he had been affecting ever since Five began his story. I’ve learned a great deal about this country of yours in the short time I’ve been here,” Five went on, as if the Colonel sat listening in rapt attention. “And everything I hear or see leads back to the insidious Doctor who first introduced Henry Pu Yi to Mrs. Moy. This man’s
think whatever I please. In that case let me tell you what it pleases me to believe: There would have been no disarmament, even if the mysterious Doctor had not thwarted Sammy’s plans; and even if your last-minute intervention had come a minute late, the world—with the possible addition of two billion fallen arches—would still be the same today.” “But Wild Thing—” “Wild Thing was deceiving you, Five. She admitted as much when she told you that she had misrepresented certain facts on the night