My local library has a science fiction and fantasy book club. One of the books assigned this year was Jason Pargin’s I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom.PremiseBlack Box of Doom centers around a group of people who end up on a roadtrip that draws the attention of the “hive mind of the internet”. They are trying to take a black stagehand box from California to Washington D.C. Chapter interludes feature the theories that the internet comes up with for what is happening on this road trip.Can they finish the road trip? Should they finish the road trip?ImpressionsI really like what Pargin did with including the aside with the internet in this one. They felt real, like what you might watch play out on a Twitch stream or a subreddit as people start being people and interpreting news through their own lens.I also liked the interactions between Abbott and Ether as they figure out on the road just how much they can trust one another.What I LikedAll the characters, even the throwaway anonymous internet posters from the interludes seemed to have their own lens and own voice that came through. They all played to this theme about people seeing what they want to and what their individual communities on the web want them to in every bit of news. The UFO guy, the federal agent hoaxer, they all had their own piece to play in shaping how the narrative came together.Like I mentioned in impressions, I also liked the way that the tension played up between Abbott and Ether on their trip, which cut down how small the single car setting they are spending most of the book in felt.There’s also this recurring theme about misunderstandings and acting on partial facts that really rings throughout the book. The way the theme sometimes plays backward to recolor earlier scenes once more information paints a more complete picture was really fun.What Worked LessThere’s a scene in the climax where a person and an event that have been mentioned once a piece through the entire book get merged together into essentially the big threat of the book. It felt a little contrived at first, though what the threat is and dealing with it weren’t nearly so important in that moment as the growth of the characters to be able to deal with the threat. It turned into an interesting scene, just a kind of weird one.OverallI own multiple books by Pargin, but this is the first I actually read. It got me excited to take a look at the others. It’s a pretty interesting commentary on media consumption and how communities get siloed from others in the online world. I really liked it and really liked the way that the themes played out through the characters.
