Bad Monkeys
by Matt RuffSign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
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| Would you kill Bad Monkeys? | 5 | 27 | 07/08/2008 07:54AM |
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
people that like a good sci-fi, thriller, mystery novel now and again
Talk about blown away--this book had all right things going for it: immediately gripping story; morally ambiguous characters; plenty of psychological and philosophical themes; and enough clever plot twists to keep you guessing until the very last page.
In terms of an overarching theme, it's obvious and it's immediately known: Good versus Evil. But on another level, it's a book about the human conscience and what kinds of things it's capable of. But it's how Ruff colors those terms, how he...more
In terms of an overarching theme, it's obvious and it's immediately known: Good versus Evil. But on another level, it's a book about the human conscience and what kinds of things it's capable of. But it's how Ruff colors those terms, how he...more
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Matt Ruff's thriller about the fine line between good and evil isn't amazing. The writing is kind of sub-par. But as a thriller and that meditation between good and evil, it's quite the ride. And a bizarre ride at that.
See what starts out as an interrogation of a girl, who may be crazy, who has just killed someone, quickly becomes something else entirely. She works for a secret organization that kills truly evil people. Only they kill them with these crazy toy guns which give people heart atta...more
See what starts out as an interrogation of a girl, who may be crazy, who has just killed someone, quickly becomes something else entirely. She works for a secret organization that kills truly evil people. Only they kill them with these crazy toy guns which give people heart atta...more
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
This was my first read of a Matt Ruff book. I would read one of his earlier books.
This was an easy entertaining read. The whole thing took 2-3 days.
I picked the title up at Santoro's, a bookseller on Greenwood in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood. I was killing time, wanting to sample a snack at "Olivers Twist" down the block that opened at 5pm. I knew that Santoro's was the meeting place for the Seattle Storytellers Guild, an organization I once patronized. I nearly did not ...more
This was an easy entertaining read. The whole thing took 2-3 days.
I picked the title up at Santoro's, a bookseller on Greenwood in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood. I was killing time, wanting to sample a snack at "Olivers Twist" down the block that opened at 5pm. I knew that Santoro's was the meeting place for the Seattle Storytellers Guild, an organization I once patronized. I nearly did not ...more
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Read in September, 2007
One of those books that starts out great and then totally falls apart. It opens with Jane Charlotte having been arrested for murder in Las Vegas; when she told the police she’s part of a secret government organization (code name: Bad Monkeys) she ended up in the psych ward. The book is comprised of her interviews with the doctor there alternating with her first person account of her story. For about two-thirds of the book, this is fascinating: Ruff—whose Set This House in Order, about...more
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Read in September, 2008
Jane Charlotte is being held in a psychiatric unit and is being questioned about a murder she committed. She tells the doctor the story of her life - kicked out of her house by her mother as a teenager, growing into a life of drugs and poor decisions. In her teens, she has a chance encounter with a serial killer at her school and is saved thanks to the intervention of a secret organization dedicating to fighting evil. From that point on, Jane knows she will one day work for that group.
Alt...more
Alt...more
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
sci-fi & cyber-pulp fans
This was an entertaining and fun read; honestly however I'm not sure if its being bright yellow and fitting nicely into my back pocket was actually a contributing factor, or just icing on the cake. I had read his Sewer, Gas, and Electric which I genuinely loved (and recommend much more emphatically than this merely-good offering), so I knew a little of what I was in for: Mat Ruff genera...more
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recommends it for:
Anyone inclined to break through the wall into the dark side of Imaginationland
I haven't read any of Ruff's other work, and this one makes me curious about his approach to other subjects. But after a great first "half," the ending of Bad Monnkeys let me down. I thought Ruff sold Charlotte short because he really went no further than to suggest Charlotte wasn't the one you'd trust to cull humanity's orchard of its bad apples. I also hoped Phil would re-enter her life earlier in the story as her redeemer rather than at the bitter end as her judge and executioner.
...more
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Read in January, 2008
Nine years ago I was introduce to my husband and then to Matt Ruff, via said husband. I liked 'em both. The Ruff I got then was 'Fool on the Hill' and I was charmed by the fantasyesque side of the tale as well as the many intertwined stories within the book. It was a fairy tale for adults. Sweet.
'Bad Monkeys' has a fantasyesque air as well, only the story? It's basically a version of the (over)tried and (under)true double-double-cross (i.e. The Maltese Falcon) only with surreality and Star...more
'Bad Monkeys' has a fantasyesque air as well, only the story? It's basically a version of the (over)tried and (under)true double-double-cross (i.e. The Maltese Falcon) only with surreality and Star...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
16+ fans of stories with twisties
Jane Charlotte is an inmate at the Las Vegas County Jail Psychiatric Ward. This story is the tale that she tells her psychotherapist in a series of sessions. She tells him about her early unhappy life in San Francisco and how she is recruited into a mysterious group called the Bad Monkeys, also know as The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons. She says that the Bad Monkeys and other divisions like Scary Clowns have a rather radical approach to the problem of major crim...more
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Read in June, 2008
I hadn't heard of Matt Ruff before. The book stood out on the library shelf, though, and the Christopher Moore blurb on the front cover didn't hurt. I wanted something I’d never heard of and this is what I got. Book? Cover?
It isn't a good book, not really. It has a lot of potential, and in that respect it falls flat. But it isn't a bad book either. Overall it works, but it seems like Ruff was only shooting for something that worked rather than something that worked WELL. The main characte...more
It isn't a good book, not really. It has a lot of potential, and in that respect it falls flat. But it isn't a bad book either. Overall it works, but it seems like Ruff was only shooting for something that worked rather than something that worked WELL. The main characte...more
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Read in December, 2007
A pastiche of a Philip K. Dick, which is hard to do, considering that Dick's work is often a pastiche of itself, Bad Monkey grows out a very primal post 9/11 question: what if there were heroes whose task simply was to fight evil? To prevent the harm done, be it by Dick Cheney or Osama bin Laden. Buffy the Vampire Slayer explored this question exhaustively, but Bad Monkeys is a short sharp shock of a book that poses both the pleasures and paradoxes of this scenario well. B...more
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It's sort of like a runner who starts the race strong, first out of the gate, all eyes are on him. Then he kind of stubs his toe, takes a break, and vigorously walks into the stands looking for an ice cream vendor*.
Sort of.
Trying very hard not to ruin the book, the first half I found extremely compelling. Great premise, well-written, exciting action, good dialog. Read the whole thing in two days. But the more I think about it, the less I like it, because the second half is ever-increasi...more
Sort of.
Trying very hard not to ruin the book, the first half I found extremely compelling. Great premise, well-written, exciting action, good dialog. Read the whole thing in two days. But the more I think about it, the less I like it, because the second half is ever-increasi...more
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Read in February, 2008
Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. But as she tells the psychiatrist, murder is her job. Or rather, her vocation. She works with an organization dedicated to making the world a better place, specifically with the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons.
Bad Monkeys.
Well, that’s what she tells the psychiatrist. But it’s a weird story from beginning to end. She tries to grow pot in a community garden and gets arrested by someone named, literally, Officer ...more
Bad Monkeys.
Well, that’s what she tells the psychiatrist. But it’s a weird story from beginning to end. She tries to grow pot in a community garden and gets arrested by someone named, literally, Officer ...more
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Read in August, 2007
I'll admit it, I judged this book by its cover - and I was right! I picked it up because: 1) the monkey on the cover and in the title - I've got a thing for monkeys. 2) the shape/dimension of the book was atypical - it looked more like a guide book or reference manual. 3) the bright yellow cover caught my attention.
Now to the story: We enter with the main character (young woman) being interviewed after her sanity is questioned. We follow her narrative about her recruitment into a secret gr...more
Now to the story: We enter with the main character (young woman) being interviewed after her sanity is questioned. We follow her narrative about her recruitment into a secret gr...more
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Read in June, 2008
Best book I read this year until now.
I always favor unusal story telling, like Palahniuks 'Rant' which is an oral history. Bad Monkeys is in fact an interview between Jane, the main character, and her psychiatrist. Her story is frequently interrupted by the doctor's questions. Jane believes to belong to a secret organization that fights evil. While the doctor tries to convince her that all this appears only in her had, Jane tells him her story straightforward, from childhood to her last missi...more
I always favor unusal story telling, like Palahniuks 'Rant' which is an oral history. Bad Monkeys is in fact an interview between Jane, the main character, and her psychiatrist. Her story is frequently interrupted by the doctor's questions. Jane believes to belong to a secret organization that fights evil. While the doctor tries to convince her that all this appears only in her had, Jane tells him her story straightforward, from childhood to her last missi...more
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Read in August, 2007
Saw this book come through at work the other day, and grabbed immediately. I read one of Matt Ruff's books (Fool on the Hill) long ago and loved it, but then read another (Sewer, Gas and Electric) and didn't like it as much. Knew I was going to like this one, though - the two blurbs from other authors were from Christopher Moore and Neal Stephenson, two of my all-time favorites. If Neil Gaiman had recommended it as well, I would have called in sick and read it it a day.
Tough book to descri...more
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Read in April, 2008
A strange and wonderful book. What the HECK was this book about? It was about good and evil. In this novel, who is good...who is evil? I'm not even sure! It reminded me a big of 12 Monkeys (simian reference just a coininkydink or IS it?) Jane Charlotte is a woman apprehended for murder and is held for psychiatric review...she says she is a member of a secret organization, The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons, whose sole purpose is to kill "Bad Monkey's&quo...more
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Read in March, 2008
Bad Monkeys is a story about the secret organizations that prevent and promote evil in the world. Or maybe it's a story about the life-long guilt a woman feels as a result of a tragedy that befell her little brother while she was supposed to be watching him. Or maybe it has something to do with the Scary Clowns that rule Las Vegas through intimidation, artful hatchet work and physics bending "X-drugs". Take your pick of plots, they're all good and Bad Monkeys is a fun read. I love it w...more
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If there was ever a time I longed to be able to give half stars on this system, this is it. For the most part, the writing, energy and inventiveness here is great - four stars. But the premise isn't wholly original (almost an exact copy of "The Middleman" for those familiar with the comic or TV show), and the story really spins out of control in the latter sections. On the one hand, it is pretty mind-blowing...but on the other, it's also rather unintelligible. So three stars there....more
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Read in March, 2008
Jane Charlotte is arrested for murder in Las Vegas. She admits to the killing, but claims that it was in the process of an investigation she was taking part in on behalf of the secret evil fighting organization called Bad Monkeys. A police psychologist is called in to see if she is telling the truth or is merely delusional. She recounts the story of her wild child life, before being recruited to join the organization and her adventures with the Bad Monkeys. The book starts out slowly, but builds...more
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