Simulation

Ian Bloom wrote Simulation at age 25, stationed in the dream-state of Los Angeles, post-Atlanta film haze-ripping golf carts across Universal Studios, smoking in trailers, collecting commissary rituals and movie-star smiles like shrapnel. A war poet in paradise.

Simulation is a war movie inside a war movie inside the war: identity, fame, trauma, and resurrection run through a projector loop where a veteran becomes a stuntman, then a movie star, then a national myth - then something stranger. In the lineage of Network, The Manchurian Candidate, and 8 1/2, the story dissects the simulation of American power with a grin, a blade, and a camera rolling.

From the wreckage of Iraq to the backlots of Hollywood, Bloom's alter ego Cal Vallens rises - and comes apart - in a story where every line might be ADR, and every gesture might be a cue. Manufactured consent. Tabloid crucifixions. Existential showbiz. A metaphysical epic that plays like Catch-22 by way of Kubrick, then Tarantino, filtered through a soldier's haunted conscience.

Written in the high style of lived hallucination, Simulation is a transmission from inside the machine.

Ian Bloom is an American musician, actor, producer, and author born in Hollywood, Los Angeles. His books, records, films, paintings, photographs, and editions form one controlled canon under his own name. He is the author of Screwdriver, Savage Recreation, Raw Canvas, and King Kong. His films include Driver, Star Vehicle, King, and Big Time. His music includes Swagger, Golf, Laid, and related recordings.