Seth Fried’s new book, The Municipalists has been just sitting quietly on the shelves of bookstores for months, and I’ve heard little chatter, which, while disappointing, gives it an appropriately culty kind of charm. The Municipalists presents a bizarre buddy cop romp that whose main affiliation with the science fiction genre is the cool toys. In order to stop a domestic terrorist plot, civil servant Henry Thompson, so hipster that he sails over the line into poindexter, must team up with OWEN, an AI interface that likes project itself in a hologram as a high-functioning alcoholic G-Man. Putting the baddies back in their place will take all of Henry’s obscure knowledge and OWEN’s brute strength, but first they have to learn to rely on each other to survive.

Henry’s dramatic backstory – parents killed in a train wreck – leads him to work for the United States Municipal Survey, which recommends projects for cities to build in order to grow, foster community sense, and generally crap gold. But, of course, nothing goes according to plan, and so people like Henry need to be sent in. Henry operates out of the agency’s Suitland, Maryland, headquarters, where he has no friends even though he’s the most thorough, pedantic agent possible. Then the Survey’s main computers are attacked by a virus on the same day that Terrence Kirklin, the director of the agency branch in nearby Metropolis kidnaps the mayor’s daughter and declares war on American cities. It should be mentioned now that this individual has an eye patch and is bald. The very next day, Garrett, Henry’s boss, hands Henry a special tie clip with gives him access to OWEN, and they’re off to Metropolis to reel in Kirklin’s rebellion.

The store brand names and tropes can be a little to get used to, but the story’s bizarre turns quickly outpace its derpy tone. Yes, derpy. This little weirdo story just bounces along from fight scene to fight scene despite the best efforts of its ubernerd main character. Most of this strangeness comes from OWEN, who writes a program that allows him, a computer, to get drunk and decides that he’s afraid of blood, and also has a penchant for bringing virtual katanas when Henry really needs a sting op. Ridiculous as that might sound, the humor thankfully avoids careening off into campiness by sticking to its characters and not the formula. Sure, every buddy-cop story needs a serious man and a funny man, but Henry’s unrequited love for centralized bureaucracy creates pages of subtle digs, even as it sets up compelling internal conflict. Henry’s nerdiness and smothering progressivism combined with a pop-culture worshiping sidekick seems like the perfect hipster crime-fighting duo, but it’s a little too perfect. This can make it hard to tell whose being laughed at or with, but it creates an intriguing dynamic.

For a wonky humor-fuelled action ride, The Municipalists wholly satisfies. On the surface, this kind of book exists for people who’d rather watch a movie. However, once the bullets and bricks start flying, the bizarre cast of characters starts tripping over each other in fascinating ways. Overall, it’s been one of the best reads of the summer.

A fun and zany story! A dystopian near-future novel featuring some very original characters. A lot of fun!

Interesting and well written, this story of a being of Artificial Intelligence and a psychically wounded Municipal Agent manages to be original, exciting, suspenseful, touching and humorous.

I’m a city kid; there’s no shame in that. Yes, I enjoy a nice weekend camping trip, but I live a block away from the hospital and two blocks from a fire station. I can’t sleep without the ambient glow of streetlights and the haunted sirens of a major metropolitan area.

Something, I think, the main protagonists of THE MUNICIPALISTS by Seth Fried would understand.


Henry Thompson, an agent of the United States Municipal Survey, is sent out to investigate an attack on the USMS’s base. The director sends the agency’s AI OWEN to help, much to Thompson’s surprise and dread. In one of the largest cities in the nation, they find themselves hunted down, shot at, and questioning why one of their own would go through the lengths to tear a city down.

I didn’t expect to like the book as much as I did. I mean, it’s an adventure story with an AI as a companion, so I knew it’d be a good time, but there’s some of that old-time classic magic between Thompson and OWEN that just sets the stage for this to be an amazing story.

You know what I mean, right? When you get two people who are extreme opposites, force them to work together, and watch as they become friends? It warms my stupid lil whenever I see it, and as soon as I saw the brickwork being laid here I just KNEW.

The setting was perfectly balanced between the bright and gritty sides of city-living, and didn’t hesitate to both laud and critique the nature of major metropolitan areas. The antagonists did all the wrong things for all the right reasons. OWEN could get himself drunk by messing with his own code and it was easily the best part of the story.

And Henry? Darling, dearest Henry? Is the most delightfully stick-in-the-mud character I’ve read. I hope we get the chance to see more of him. His growth in this story doesn’t stem from a distaste for who he was, but for experiences gained that allowed him to grow more easy in his own skin, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Well done, Mr. Fried. Well done.

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Check out the full review on the podcast episode BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITIES

The Municipalists is a collection of strangely compelling elements that coalesce beautifully, resulting in one of the more unique novels I’ve read this year. I was surprised to find a novel centered on an uptight civil service worker whose defining feature is an obsession with trains and the transit systems of various cities. Coupled with a hilariously down-to-earth AI named OWEN, the novel sets off on a fun, albeit dangerous, mission in an enormous city named Metropolis. The story has a noir feel to it, coupled with a few absurdities that make the tricky situations lighthearted and fun. You’d be surprised at how fun a work trip can be.

While the story and the setting are done well, the author’s greatest achievement is the creation of two completely different, yet equally fascinating, main characters. On the one hand, we have Henry, the lonely outsider whose life is his job. Coworkers hate him because he’s the worst. He follows every rule to the letter, occasionally stopping dead in his tracks in an extremely deadly situation to point out that a rule is being broken. On the other hand, we have OWEN, the artificial intelligence who acts as Henry’s partner on the mission. OWEN is hilarious, always giving Henry a hard time and forcing him out of his shell. There are no obstacles for an AI who cavorts around in digital form, quick to turn from a man to a woman to a tiny dog to an enormous clown (no joke). As the story progresses, they grow closer to each other and begin to open up. You begin to realize they’re not so different and that camaraderie presents a solid dynamic.

Overall, The Municipalists is an original mix of genres, combining elements of sci-fi, classic movies, and bits of other sub-genres along the way. You never know what trick OWEN has queued up and that element of surprise leads to an extremely entertaining reading experience.

Link: https://reviewsandrobots.com/2019/04/04/the-municipalists-book-review
Date Published: 4/4/19

This one was too slow for me. Ironic that a book about a bureaucracy would spent so much time on the bureaucracy itself. It's hard to make that interesting, you know? The banter with the AI was fun.

Henry Thompson is an A+ pencil-pusher. He works his dream job as a bureaucrat with the United States Municipal Survey. He loves following the rules and the structure that the USMS brings to the US cities. Metropolis, "the gleaming city of tomorrow," is his favorite of all. So when the USMS suffers a terrorist attack and the chief of the Metropolis branch goes missing, Thompson accepts his duty to figure out what's going on. Only instead of working alone, as he prefers, the USMS sends him with the AI supercompter OWEN. A bit of an odd couple, Thompson and OWEN set out in Metropolis to uncover the truth behind the attacks.

This book took me a little while to get into, but once I did it had me hooked. I appreciated the relationship between OWEN and Henry, even though it is a bit typical for these "buddy cop" type stories. That being said, the story itself covers many topics that often drift into ethical dilemmas that we often see today and brings in plenty of originality. Timely and humorous. Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the eARC.