False Fronts

As promised by its title, Julia Schulz-Dornburg’s book often reads like a travel guide. Tourist season—in select parts of Combat City—is year-round, despite limited opportunities for sightseeing. What attractions there are include an archaeological dig and a folkloric festival, plus a heavy emphasis on boot-camp workouts and other intense exercise regimens. There’s information where visitors can find pizza and coffee, though foodie heat map this is not. Immediately after teasing the city bazaar, with “butchers, backers, and pushcart vendors” offering an “ample” array of street treats, Schulz-Dornburg opines that many of these comestibles are indigestible. After all, they’re plastic.

The city’s unblinking, rubbery denizens come, commendably, “in all shapes and sizes.” When they are inevitably drawn into the line of fire, the dummies will emit blood and realistic groans; the more “sophisticated, high-end medical dolls,” meanwhile, “will not only bleed, blink and b…