58 pages • 1-hour read
FantasticLand
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Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and cursing.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Interview 5: Sam Garliek: First Shift Manager of FantasticLand.”
Sam Garliek, FantasticLand’s first-shift manager, stayed in the park during Hurricane Sadie as part of Operation Rapture, along with 326 other employees. The shelter was stocked with ample supplies, and managers were stationed at the two entrances. On the first day, everyone got along, but tensions grew as managers, including Sam, decided to keep information from the employees by shutting the Command Center doors. This sparked unrest, particularly with a young woman named Flynn, who demanded answers.
When the power eventually went out, the shelter plunged into chaos. Injuries occurred as employees panicked in the dark. Fighting his way to the exit, Sam opened a door to let in light and used the distraction to head to the locked Command Center.
Inside, an assailant attacked him, and he successfully fought back. The attacker disappeared, leaving behind only blood from his injuries. Sam started the generator, restoring light and revealing people injured or dead. He used the intercom to urge anyone unwilling to stay peacefully to leave.
Several deaths occurred when the power went out, including Brock Hockney’s brother, Bryce, who couldn’t find his inhaler. Sam felt bad about Bryce’s death until he realized the boy’s connection to Brock, who would later become the leader of the Pirates and encouraged the violence that ensued.
In his interview, Sam defends his actions and speculates that Flynn might have been his attacker. He claims, “Given all the violence that came later, I feel pretty safe in saying I’m the closest thing you’re going to find to a good guy in this clusterfuck” (55).
Chapter 6 Summary: “Interview 6: Stuart Dietz: Maintenance Employee at FantasticLand, Mole Man.”
Stuart Dietz, a maintenance worker in FantasticLand and member of the Mole Men tribe, primarily stayed in the park’s underground tunnels after the storm. Stuart believes that Sam Garliek killed Flynn, a view shared by most employees. The maintenance workers camped near the rear door of the shelter to keep an exit available. After the power returned, while most slept, Stuart and Charlie, who eventually became the Mole Men’s leader, planned their next steps, anticipating worsening conditions.
After leaving the shelter, Stuart and Charlie discovered that all the escape routes from the park were flooded. Charlie organized a search for alternate routes, with maintenance workers Carlos and Miguel volunteering to explore routes through the trees at the edge of the park. Meanwhile, the Mole Men moved into the tunnels, which gave them access throughout the park and could be secured. The tribe consisted of 38 members, excluding Carlos and Miguel. Miguel never returned from their initial foray, and Stuart heard that Carlos was killed by the Pirates three days later after stumbling back into the park.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Interview 7: Jill Van Meveren: FantasticLand Character, Deadpool Soldier.”
Jill Van Meveren, a character actor who played Jill the Soldier in Hero Haven, loved working at FantasticLand, and it motivated her to pursue martial arts. In her interview, she says that when the shelter opened after the storm, there was no clear leadership. Sam Garliek attempted to take charge, but his credibility was undermined by accusations that he had killed Flynn. Amid this uncertainty, employees distracted themselves. One man pretended to be Batman and climbed onto a roof.
Another employee, Riley, suggested raiding food from Muscle Man Grill, and Jill and her friends joined Riley. While they were at the Muscle Man Grill, three men entered and, seeing Jill and assuming that she was alone, made lewd remarks. Jill chose not to call her friends for help, handling the situation herself by slamming one man’s face into a counter. Her friends emerged, prompting the men to flee. While impressed, Riley worried that this confrontation hinted at worsening tensions.
The group recruited others in Hero Haven and returned to the square where everyone initially gathered. There, the Batman impersonator was on the ground with a severe head injury. Brock Hockney, the leader of the Pirates, crushed his head with a metal stanchion. Jill views this as a “mercy kill,” as the man was in pain and dying from his injury.
Jill’s group named themselves the Deadpools and organized patrols. Later, there was an explosion, and Jill saw Tom, a member of their patrol, tied up by Brock and his group. Brock declared, “You think you’re safe. You’re not” (78), and his ally severed Tom’s hands. After the Pirates left, the Deadpools retrieved Tom and found the stanchion alongside his severed hands, one of which had its middle finger raised. Riley armed herself with a sword and rallied the group with, “No, we’re not safe. But neither are they” (79).
Chapter 8 Summary: “Interview 8: Cristobal Abasolo: Concession Manager in the Fairy Prairie, Eventual Robot Soldier.”
Cristobal Abasolo joined the Deadpool tribe after following a friend to the group’s meeting. Riley, who had become the Deadpools’ leader, seemed skeptical of his loyalty and sent him on patrol with Tom, Sam (a different Sam from Sam Garliek), and Adrienne. In a Pirate gift shop, Tom and Sam began taking items when Cristobal spotted a flash of light and warned Adrienne to hide. Twenty sword-wielding Pirates surrounded the shop, demanding that they come out. Brock Hockney accused them of stealing and offered them the choice to join the Pirates or face punishment and return to the Deadpools.
Cristobal and Sam agreed to join. Brock then ordered that Adrienne be brought to him, offering membership to whoever delivered her while the other faced punishment. Cristobal tried to stop Sam, but Sam dragged Adrienne outside. The Pirates branded Sam and told him that he must brand Adrienne to prove his allegiance. The heated brand pierced Adrienne’s cheek, missed her teeth, and entered her mouth. Using the ensuing chaos as cover, Cristobal fled. He ran into Jeremy, a member of the Robots, who showed him kindness and support.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Interview 9: Elvis Springer: Security Manager at Fantastic Future World, Leader of the Robots.”
Elvis Springer, the security manager at Fantastic Future World, mentored younger employees and led the Robot tribe, which initially thrived after leaving the shelter. The Robots organized food distribution, watchkeeping, and entertainment. However, Cristobal’s arrival disrupted the tribe’s harmony because he reported troubling events involving the Pirates and Deadpools. Skeptical of the worsening conditions that he reported, Elvis and Karen, another security officer, investigated the park’s riot locker, only to find it emptied, raising fears that someone intended to use the stolen weapons.
While venturing to Pirate Cove, Elvis and Karen were confronted by Pirates, one of whom crudely asked about buying Karen. Elvis defended her, but a growing crowd of Pirates forced them to flee. Karen was caught by a tripwire. Elvis tried to carry her to safety, but he was eventually captured. The Deadpools attacked, rescuing Elvis, but the Pirates took Karen and beat her to death before hanging her body from a lamppost.
Later, Elvis urged Riley, the Deadpools’ leader, to join him in Fantastic Future World, but she insisted that the Deadpools stay to fight the Pirates. Seeking safety, Elvis walked toward the World’s Circus but was horrified to find severed heads on pikes at its entrance, prompting him to return to Fantastic Future World. There, he instructed everyone to make weapons and prepare to defend themselves against imminent threats.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
This section of the novel continues to employ its fragmented narrative style, which mirrors the confusion within the park. The narrators of this section were present in the park during and after the storm and offer harrowing insights into the unraveling society. This first-person narration continues to highlight the novel’s use of the unreliable narrator and its importance in Bockoven’s exploration of The Role of Storytelling and Perspective in Shaping Truth. For instance, Sam Garliek believes that he behaved beyond reproach, while the subsequent interviewees describe him as, at best, incompetent and, at worst, a murderer. These inconsistencies compel evaluation of the credibility of each narrator, encouraging readers to piece together the interviews and form their own interpretation of the events.
The Psychological Effects of Isolation and Disaster come into sharp focus in these chapters. The park, originally designed as a realm of joy and escapism, became a battleground of survival and a stage for humanity’s darker instincts. Stuart Dietz, a Mole Man, immediately recognized the need to keep the maintenance workers together for safety, calling a group meeting as soon as the shelter released them. He and Charlie suspected that the younger employees might cause chaos and destruction—as they did within the shelter—so they banded together and separated themselves.
Their actions reflect the human instinct to seek security in familiar groups, reinforcing the theme of The Descent Into Tribalism and Violence in Lawless Environments, which is further explored through the other groups. Jill Van Meveren and Cristobal Abasolo’s stories reveal how tribal identities form as a means of coping with fear. Both mention Brock’s murder of the young man who fell from the roof as the turning point in the park’s descent into violence. Fear spread, triggering a desperate search for safety, and immediately afterward, Jill and Riley banded together and formed the Deadpools. Jill returned to the Disaster Manual, which was intended to guide everyone’s actions, and she points out leadership failures with her comment that “shift managers were supposed to start giving their workers direction and tell them what specific jobs to do, but no one did” (68). This failure in leadership created a vacuum, and other leaders stepped in to fill that role. Within a day of the shelter opening, the “tribes” throughout the park formed, highlighting how, in the absence of legitimate leadership, individuals instinctively create their own systems, with varying results.
This section also raises ethical questions about leadership and responsibility. The leader of the Robots, Elvis Springer, grappled with the moral dilemmas of protecting his group while navigating the increasing brutality around him. His decision to focus on creating weapons for defense reveals the pragmatic but unsettling shift from protection to active preparation for violence. Similarly, Riley’s response to Brock Hockney’s atrocities and her resolve to protect her group at all costs underscore the blurred lines between heroism and revenge. These two examples also highlight a difference in leadership. Elvis took a more defensive approach, pleading with Riley to flee to Fantastic Future World, but Riley wanted to defend their position and stand against the Pirates. While some of the tribe leaders focused on keeping their members alive through retreat and defense, like the Robots and Mole Men, tribes like the Deadpools were determined to retaliate against the Pirates’ violence, setting the stage for escalating violence in later chapters.
The setting of FantasticLand continues to play a crucial role in the narrative as the interviews describe how the park’s sections became defining territories for the tribes, highlighting how environment shapes identity and conflict. Elvis’s journey through the theme park’s sections vividly illustrates the shift from the park’s original purpose to a realm of horror. Initially skeptical of Cristobal’s warnings, Elvis ventured out and returned convinced that his tribe had to prepare for an imminent attack. His horror at finding severed heads on pikes at the World’s Circus epitomizes his loss of innocence and the stark reality of the violence consuming the park. He returned and told his tribe “[t]o believe the worst until [they] heard otherwise. To trust anyone other than the Deadpools would be irresponsible” (100). This shows Elvis’s transformation from a playful mentor figure into a leader preparing for war.
The novel’s main antagonist, Brock, is also introduced in this section of the novel. Brock’s activities as the Pirates’ leader are revealed through other people’s accounts, so his motives remain a mystery in this section, but the impact of his decisions reverberated throughout the park. This section features Brock’s first major act of violence, in which he used a stanchion to bludgeon a dying man. This is viewed by others as an act of mercy, as the man was suffering and would have died regardless. However, this moment also marked the turning point in the park’s community, frightening the witnesses into retreating into their “tribes.” This act of mercy, however, evolves to communicate a very different message, as when Brock caught Tom “stealing” from a Pirate shop, he had Tom’s hands cut off and displayed the severed hands next to a stanchion as a warning. Through Cristobal’s section, the novel explores more detail about the violent initiation rituals of the Pirates, revealing them as an antagonistic group that caused the other “tribes” to resort to violence to survive.
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