Go, Mutants!

Aug 18, 2010 Keri rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I received Go, Mutants! by Larry Doyle as an advanced readers’ copy.

Having never read anything by Larry Doyle before, but having heard his name quite often, I was so happy to get Go, Mutants! in the mail. On top of that, it has the theme of B-movies - sci-fi/horror specifically - of which I spent a scary amount of time watching. Yes, I am one of those people who goes to Pathmark and browses through the $1 movie section. Yes, you can find real winners there!

A brief summary of the novel: J!m is th...more I received Go, Mutants! by Larry Doyle as an advanced readers’ copy.

Having never read anything by Larry Doyle before, but having heard his name quite often, I was so happy to get Go, Mutants! in the mail. On top of that, it has the theme of B-movies - sci-fi/horror specifically - of which I spent a scary amount of time watching. Yes, I am one of those people who goes to Pathmark and browses through the $1 movie section. Yes, you can find real winners there!

A brief summary of the novel: J!m is the son of the alien who made First Contact during the middle of the ‘51 World Series. He goes to Manhattan High School, which is a not-so-integrated mix of mutants and humans. You’ll meet Russ and Rusty Ford; Johnny, the son of King Kong; Jelly Sweeney, gelatinous mass in the shape of the stereotypical fat kid; and Marie Rand, daughter of a mad scientist and the girl who wants to be Class President to make the not-so-integration much more integrated.

I found, in my search of the author, that he wrote a lot of TV/Movie scripts including The Simpsons. That humor I can see in every page of this book. I also learned the novel will be filmed, and in my mind’s eye, it would be better animated. There were cameos of characters that came in and out of the story that you could just see as the brief glimpses on a TV show that serves up laughter.

My initial reaction was that this is a book perfect for teenaged boys. Especially those in that awkward age of high school. You know what I’m talking about; what every teenager complains their way through (and as someone who is in her early twenties, I can related). It’s a sexed up book, but as we’re in J!m’s POV, what stereotypical teenaged boy isn’t sexed up? It comes with the hormones.

This, though, makes the pacing suffer. The beginning of the book was slow because we have to learn about J!m (better known as just Jim because that ! is subsonic) and his past and his feelings. World building a-plenty here, and necessarily as this is an alternate 1962. You will see people you’ve learned about in school, just a bit twisted.

The beginning is akin to a mutated version of The Catcher in the Rye but since we’re not in J!m’s first-person POV, we’re distanced a bit. We go to school dances, witness the bullying, and even see how his mother simultaneously gets on his nerves and comforts him.

The end of the book, however, speeds through in a high action paced B-movie-like plot. I couldn’t put it down, even in the slow part, but especially after the Intermission. The way things happen is a domino effect into the ending that satisfies everything I wanted to happen to everyone by the end of the novel. The ending is one of those things that make you pause and go, “Wait? Huh?” which is never a bad thing.

One thing I liked especially was the use of songs in the novel. You’ll have fun recognizing the original tunes and seeing just where they are now that aliens and mutants have invaded the world. I also enjoyed the vocabulary in the novel. It’s a breath of fresh air to see words fitting of the SATs used in a novel. Too many novels I’ve read use more common words and I think it’s just more educational to read something which makes you crack the spine on the dictionary. Especially if I don’t have to read much fiction from the 18th century to do so.

There is one thing I’m a bit torn about. Some teenage matters that could be considered series are brought up, but brushed over with humor or associated with people a teenager would never want to be like in a million years. On one hand, I think addressing these issues with humor could be a good way of saying, “See? These aren’t even conceivable except to laugh at so don’t do it.” On the other hand, some of these things can be serious problems and may end up hurting someone. As this is a humor book, I didn’t let it detract too much from my enjoyment.

So after this incredibly long review, I will say that I enjoyed the book. While sometimes I was a bit confused - mainly when it was a lot of world building or in a few spots, when the plot made me blink - I kept reading until the end and was honestly interested in what happened to J!m and his friends. I give this book a 3/5.
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Sep 03, 2012 Meagan rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars.

If anyone was expecting this to be like I Love You, Beth Cooper, they would be disappointed in many ways. It does take place in high school, but mutants aside, this story is still completely different. J!m is an outcast, but mostly due to his currently soft skin and the what everyone believes his father did.

What this review is going to boil down to though is that I found the story and social commentary very interesting but the prose and pacing to be a bit much and often irritating.

Th...more 3.5 Stars.

If anyone was expecting this to be like I Love You, Beth Cooper, they would be disappointed in many ways. It does take place in high school, but mutants aside, this story is still completely different. J!m is an outcast, but mostly due to his currently soft skin and the what everyone believes his father did.

What this review is going to boil down to though is that I found the story and social commentary very interesting but the prose and pacing to be a bit much and often irritating.

The story itself is brave in many ways in that it uses this alternate universe where monsters and aliens are very real and shoves them into the hostility of our current political environment. Commentary on Racism (or really prejudice of any kind) is the most prevalent thing to be gleaned from the text, the lessons often being what we expect and then taking it a little bit further. Then comes the commentary on the internet, our use and trust in it. The Plex being the thinly disguised mode for this. Political atrocities abound, the stereotypes of government rearing their ugly heads: The republicans as tricky, malicious, and far too invested in keeping the fanatics happy. The democrats quiet and useless, letting it all happening whether they agree or not. The Government as a whole is criticized, as both having more and less power and knowledge than they should. Humans take the biggest hit though, or rather, humanity. Our greedy selfish instincts. Our need to be both unique and exactly the same and accepted at the same time. Our gullibility and fear.

Commentary aside, the story is refreshing and different, even if it is riddled with predictable and stereotyped characters -- likely a result from including so many of them. Even J!m and Marie have their cardboard moments.

So regardless of whether I agreed with all that was implied or all that happened, it sure made it interesting. The intrigue surrounding J!m's dad also kept me turning pages toward the end.

But the prose was almost a monster of its own. At times fun and different, but more often just annoying.

Since J!m is obsessed with movies, there are often parts (usually dreams) that are literally written in movie script. It is interesting, and perhaps on its own or if used with a bit more discretion wouldn't be so bad. Similarly, the round-about ways that Doyle explains things can sometimes be insightful and amusing, perhaps even a bit sarcastic, but sometimes it is over done resulting in an annoying or unclear description of events. There are a lot of characters, so we jump from scene to scene, sometimes never returning to fully close up one we left. In the greater scheme of things, this is ok, and sometimes it helps to build suspense, but others, especially toward the end, it just gets irritating and feels like a lack of focus.

I understand that Doyle had envisioned this very detailed and different world, but it almost seems like a movie would have better fitting for this story (ironic considering his other book and the style of parts of this one). A picture is worth a thousand words, and well, by page 76 barely anything has happened but I have clear picture of the world it hasn't yet happened in yet. Some details are more fun than they are important or add to that almost B-movie appeal he seems to be going for, but they are also tiring.

In the end, after everything (and there is SO much), I found the end somewhat disappointing. When J!m finally acts, we are no longer in his close third person view, but clearing in the p.o.v of the revealed narrator, which unfortunately makes the whole thing feel anticlimactic, and the ending (what is agreed upon) is not entirely clear, but peace is suggested, while the final words suggest the exact opposite. An attempt to make us question everything?

This could be worth the read, but just be prepared for pinata of ideas. (less)

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May 14, 2012 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Happy mutants

Recommended to Alan by: The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Or, "I Was A Teenaged Mutant Alien Monster Baby from Beyond."

Larry Doyle's Go, Mutants! pops from the page in lurid, livid 3-D, a nearly pitch-perfect sendup of the Fifties of our imaginations (the 1950s, that is), as they never were but always should have been.

It all starts with J!m, just about as normal a teenager as could be (never mind that exclamation mark in the middle of his name)—working up his nerve to ask pretty Marie Rand to the big harvest dance; nodding off in classes at Manhattan H...more Or, "I Was A Teenaged Mutant Alien Monster Baby from Beyond."

Larry Doyle's Go, Mutants! pops from the page in lurid, livid 3-D, a nearly pitch-perfect sendup of the Fifties of our imaginations (the 1950s, that is), as they never were but always should have been.

It all starts with J!m, just about as normal a teenager as could be (never mind that exclamation mark in the middle of his name)—working up his nerve to ask pretty Marie Rand to the big harvest dance; nodding off in classes at Manhattan High after staying up late at the drive-in; dodging big, mean Russ and the other bullies on the football team; worrying about his straight-leg Lees jeans and plain white tee-shirt; hanging out with his friends Johnny and Larry over fried carbohydrates at Googie's... Of course, Johnny's a radioactive ape-boy, and Larry's nickname is Jelly because he's a mountain of gelatinous goo—and J!m himself is a blue-skinned double-domed being whose father once tried to take over the world and whose mother is a catwoman named Miw—but that's as normal as life gets, in the bucolic town of Manhattan in the glorious tenth year E.I.

See, J!m was born on Earth, but he's not from this Earth. J!m's planet Earth got invaded—multiple times—by pretty much all of the aliens, giant monsters, radioactive mutants and ridiculous B-movie menaces that in our timeline were confined to the silver screens of the local cinematheque or drive-in. Every thing, from Gojira and the 50-Foot Woman to the deadly Mantis and the Ro-Man, seems to have put in an appearance. These cataclysmic events both spurred this Earth's technological development and, paradoxically, held back its social evolution. All the best stuff from the future of the Fifties, the things we didn't get, like the nuclear-powered Ford Fissionaire, houses you can hose down to clean inside and out, and 3-D color home visualizers (herein called the Plex), are realized—but America's pretty much frozen into its big-finned, paranoid, jingoistic Atomic Age mindset as well.

Doyle used to write for The Simpsons, and it shows. By turns raunchy, bloody, touching and tender, radioactive, toxic and vitriolic, Doyle manages to keep up the hectic pace pretty much throughout this satiric novel, mixing in cinematic effects like script fragments, title cards, and even an Intermission in the middle of the book.

Sometimes it's really hard to see how J!m's going to get out of the scrapes he gets into, and sometimes all that typographical exuberance comes across as trying too hard... but there are also occasional moments of brilliance, like this one from p.97:

The world never stopped spinning, though, except that one time.

The website for the book is also worth a look (warning: embedded autoplaying YouTube video!). Doyle's collected snapshots of the movie posters, music and other cultural detritus that inspired him—what isn't already a remembrance of things past may be a guide to further entertaining research. And, who knows, maybe being familiar with this stuff will help you when the flying saucers attack our dreaming Earth.

Keep watching the skies...
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Aug 09, 2011 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Earth has survived numerous invasions by aliens and attacks by ancient monsters brought back to life. Some of these aliens are in high school.

J!m Anderson is your typical sullen, brooding teenager at Manhattan High School. Well, maybe he's not so typical, because he has a large, megacephalic head, and oily, blue skin which he occasionally sheds like a snake. Along with Johnny, a motorcycle-riding radioactive ape, and Larry, a gelatinous mass playing the role of the "fat kid" (Son of the Blob), J...more Earth has survived numerous invasions by aliens and attacks by ancient monsters brought back to life. Some of these aliens are in high school.

J!m Anderson is your typical sullen, brooding teenager at Manhattan High School. Well, maybe he's not so typical, because he has a large, megacephalic head, and oily, blue skin which he occasionally sheds like a snake. Along with Johnny, a motorcycle-riding radioactive ape, and Larry, a gelatinous mass playing the role of the "fat kid" (Son of the Blob), J!m really does have a hard time making his way through the world of high school. Maybe people really are out to get him; after all, his father is the one who led the alien invasion of Earth.

The Harvest Dance is coming, and J!m is supposed to ask Marie Rand if she would like to go with him. Her father is the school's biology teacher, and one of those people who likes to tinker in his garage. Mrs. Rand is a disembodied head who is constantly nagging Mr. Rand to find a body to which to attach her head. The body she was using is no longer viable, but it's kept in a freezer for posterity. Despite numerous opportunities, J!m never gets around to asking Marie to the dance, so she goes with Russ, J!m's bitter enemy.

J!m has a permanent exemption from showering after gym class, for anatomical reasons that are forcefully revealed by the local bullies, led by Russ, at the local drive-in. Later, during another Russ-led attempt to get rid of J!m, once and for all, J!m catches on fire, is severely burned, and dies. But not really, because he recovers in a couple of days, and is now a solar-powered being with skin as hard as diamonds (puberty rears its ugly head).

Larry is thrown into an animal cage during a field trip. Approximately a cupful of his mass is retrieved. Mr. Rand is able to do something about that, with help from some jumper cables and a car battery. Later comes the climactic scene, where Russ forces Marie into his atomic-powered car, with J!m in hot pursuit. Just before the car goes over a cliff, Marie is thrown from the car, and severely injured. Does Marie survive? Does J!m learn the truth about his father? Can Larry be resurrected?

This is an absolute gem of a book. As a former writer for "The Simpsons," Doyle certainly knows how to do satire. It's got everything a 1950s teen story needs: a sullen, rebellious main character, bullies, a chase scene and a drive-in. This is very highly recommended. (less)

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Jul 28, 2010 Amanda rated it 2 of 5 stars

A messy, if somewhat amusing, book. I love love love the premise of this book. An alien Rebel Without a Cause + a coming-of-age in a Superman-esque style? Hilarious. J!m's brooding character sort of makes you hate him at first, but as his quest to find out the truth about his father and his love for Marie takes shape, his character evolves, literally and figuratively. The bromantic relationship between J!m is Johnny is fairly adorable as is the amorphously affable Jelly.

So what was my problem wi...more

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Oct 06, 2011 Dale rated it 4 of 5 stars

SPOOKTOBERFEST 2011!!! Throughout the month of October I plan on reading nothing but stories of the monstrous and the macabre, and I've kicked things off with Go, Mutants!

This is a very quick-read, brain-candy kind of book which essentially mashes up 50's B-movie monsters and high school coming of age melodrama, the twist being that instead of teenagers fighting against weird aliens and scientific experiments gone wrong while also dealing with the end of innocence etc., the protagonists int he...more

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May 13, 2011 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was such a fun read, though definitely not for everyone. I was not a fan of I Love You, Beth Cooper, but I was still drawn to this book simply because the cover illustration was James Dean as an alien. I ended up surprised and impressed by all the references to Rebel Without a Cause; I bet a lot of it went over the heads of readers who aren't James Dean fanatics like I am (what is wrong with those people?)

The book is a parody of 1950s monster movies set in an alternate late 60s/early 70s in...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Kelsey Jayy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Go Mutants! by Larry Doyle is one of the best books I have read for a while.

I don’t usually read YA (Young Adult) novels, because I have just never found the plot lines particularly relevant or interesting. But this one managed to combine social issues, romance and humour into one delightful science fiction package.

The novel takes place in 1950’s America after an alien visitor has shared his secrets with the world. However, he also unleashed an army of monsters upon the world and has become ea...more

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Jul 25, 2010 Danimal rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Sci-fi nerds, monster movie fans

Reading the other reviews of Larry Doyle's follow up to I Love You, Beth Cooper got me thinking two things:

1. Why the hell aren't I getting free books from Good Reads?

2. Have these people never read sci-fi before? Many of them complain that the first 75 pages or so are slow going, that he's taking forever to set up the characters and the setting. Helloooo, he's creating an alternate universe here. God may have done it in 6 or 5 days (depending on your religion) but in a book it takes time. And I...more

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Jul 09, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: supernatural

I received an ARC of Go, Mutants! through Goodreads First Reads. I think this is the first ARC Ive gotten that I really didnt enjoy.
It felt like I was dropped into the middle of the book, with no introduction to the main characters or knowledge of their history. It made the beginning rather confusing and left me not wanting to continue reading.
Throughout the book I could hear my 8th grade English teacher's voice in my head. "Too many big words makes the writer come off as a child trying to impre...more

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Apr 03, 2012 Bill Krieger rated it 1 of 5 stars

I got about halfway through this one, but I couldn't finish it. Mutants is a hodgepodge of old sci-fi movie references, many from the 50's and 60's and few of which I knew. In fact, there's a detailed 25 page index in the back of all these obscure (to me) references. So, I guess it's a fun idea, but it just didn't work for me.

The humor in the book is really dry, ala The Hitchhiker's Guide. I'm definitely jealous of the guy's great vocabulary, and that was cool (you can see how I would appreciate...more

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Sep 17, 2010 Doug rated it 3 of 5 stars

Go, Mutants! has a lot going on. It’s set a genaration after pretty much every 50’s sci-fi/horror flick ever made actually happened. J!m, the son of a prominent but disgraced and deceased alien invader, is in high school, struggling with high school issues like how to fend off bullies and get a girl to go the big dance with him.

Two thematic thrusts vie with each other for prominence. One one hand, Doyle twists the familiar trope of adolescents with fantastic abilities. Usually there’s a strong c...more Go, Mutants! has a lot going on. It’s set a genaration after pretty much every 50’s sci-fi/horror flick ever made actually happened. J!m, the son of a prominent but disgraced and deceased alien invader, is in high school, struggling with high school issues like how to fend off bullies and get a girl to go the big dance with him.

Two thematic thrusts vie with each other for prominence. One one hand, Doyle twists the familiar trope of adolescents with fantastic abilities. Usually there’s a strong component of wish-fulfillment in identifying with the protagonist of these stories: you are special and unique; you do carry the weight of the world; you’re not related to the intensely embarrassing creatures that raised you. Instead, Doyle pushes his characters’ natural anxieties about what the adolescent hormonal storm is doing to their bodies to absurd, even nightmarish extremes. Doyle is not particularly subtle about serving this up; one of his characters is revealed at one point to literally not have a penis; another suffers a malady in which secondary sexual characteristics assume unbalanced prominence.

The other major thematic aspect is more generalized socio-politcal satire. The actual monster/sci-fi flicks of the 50’s were clearly informed by the twin fears of nuclear annihilation and the Red Peril; in Doyle’s version the saucer folk literally replace these fears, with Joe McCarthy ranting against Hollywood’s secret aliens. Doyle’s PLEX, a sort of Internet with Orwellian and Tesla-esque attributes, arises, representing the loss of faith in the benevolence of our government with which often we endow the idealized retrospective view of the fifties.

Both of these angles seem well capable of supporting a novel on its their own, so it didn’t surprise me that Doyle, among other credits, has written for The Simpsons, a show which often managed to cram what on almost any other show would be an hour-long plot into a half hour. And Go, Mutants!, like The Simpsons, is ridiculously dense with explicit allusions to other creative works. The Day the Earth Stood Still is probably the most important touchpoint for Go, Mutants!, but there are sly nods to literally dozens of other sci-fi/horror movies — everything from classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers to schlocky, sub-B-grade fare like Robot Monster. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone with a Mystery Science Theater 3000-flavored appreciation of cinema not fun playing “spot-the-reference.” (I suspect nods to juvenile delinquent cinema are nearly as thick on the ground in Go, Mutants! as the sci-fi, but I’m not nearly as well versed in the arcana of that.)

I can’t write about this book without mentioning how gorgeous a physical object it is, and just how note-perfect the design choices are. The cover is a wonderful pastiche of one of the sleazier paperback houses (Beacon, for instance), right down to the relative position and size of “A novel by” and “Larry Doyle.” And the left-side drop-shadow. The opening page of each chapter is printed in white-on-black, with titles like “Science Gone Wild!” and “Charged with Million-Volt Excitement!” in the same screamingly dramatic typefaces as the posters and movie title frames they evoke –sometimes the crazy typefaces even creep into the main body of the text. (The book’s website, gomutants.com ably embodies its aesthetic, but might spoil some of the surprises.)

Doyle’s language is frequently colorful and dramatic. I clogged up the book with strips of paper identifying especially noteworthy passages, from the opening “Enter right, SCREAMING: THE GIRL, in high distress and heels,” to

The story on [her] was that she had been engaged to a soldier before the unpleasantness, and when her fiancé was devoured by a tree that ate women but was bi-curean, she went to work for the CIA, using the nom de guerre Ida Day, where she seduced and tortured hundreds of alien combatants, often at the same time, which led to her career in higher education.

and

Like most of Manhattan’s matrons, [she] had been a great beauty in her youth, but time and decapitation had taken their toll. Years of meanness were gouged into her face, which no amount of cosmetic troweling could ameliorate.

or just lovely coinages like the, “Rattarachirotacacean, a rat-spider-bat-crab from Mars.”

I loved a lot of things about this book, but still found it less than completely satisfying. I’m sure that’s partly because the opening handful of chapters set my expectations stratospherically high, but I think the book also has some pacing/structural issues. It would be stronger if it was shorter and punchier, or alternatively if the plot delivered more actual surprises, or perhaps even if Doyle didn’t hold his characters at such an emotional remove — the narrative voice is arch and omniscient, which seems appropriate, but is more than a little distancing.(less)

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Jul 06, 2011 Joe rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this novel on the strength of the author Larry Doyle's name. Doyle also wrote I Love You Beth Cooper, winner of the Thurber prize and certainly one of the funniest books I have ever read.

Go Mutants! is not quite as funny, but is more interesting. Doyle imagines an America in which the weird sci-fi of 50's monster movies has actually occurred. Go Mutants! is set one generation past the advent of fleshy-headed alien arrival, alien immigration, human mutations, and attacks by sentient blobs....more

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Jul 22, 2012 Will McGee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not as funny as I Love You, Beth Cooper, Go, Mutants! tells the story of J!m, an alien-hybrid teenager in a 1950s-flavored post-alien invasion USA. The setting is a clever mash-up of real life people and "what if?" possibilites, where Howard Hughes is president (yet still insane and bottling his urine), Simon and Garfunkel are still called "Tom and Jerry," and a main character drives a Dymaxion car--plus, being a post-alien invasion world, the suburbs are home to a housewife (with a resemblance...more

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Feb 17, 2011 MB Taylor rated it 4 of 5 stars

Tonight I finished Go, Mutants (2010) by Larry Doyle. It’s outrageous and a quick read. The novel takes place in an alternate late 1960s, where the 50s SciFi movies were documentaries.

The main character, J!m, is the son of some apparent alien bad-ass who came in peace, but who like in a 60s SF comic book was killed for his troubles. J!m’s in high school now, and the victim of the high school quarterback and his gang. The only thing that has saved him so far is his best friend Johnny, whose fathe...more

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May 21, 2010 Neil rated it 3 of 5 stars

The plot is a mashup of 1950s and 60s teen culture and classic science fiction/monster movies, but that's not really the point. In fact, the plot is kind of a mess, predictable in spots, jumbled in others. The opening exposition--which reveals a world which diverged from the historical timeline as we know it when aliens revealed themselves, arriving at the 1951 World Series--is a bit too slow to develop, making the first 75 pages or so confusing. And I'm still not quite sure what happened at the...more

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Jul 05, 2010 Greg Allan Holcomb rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, first-reads

Space Aliens and Monsters from the B Movies of the 1950's stayed on Earth and sent their children to High School.

I think the tone was set with the back cover summary. Personally I struggled through the first few chapters where Larry Doyle worked to set the tone for the book. He used Alliteration like crazy and the first few chapters reads like a "Stan's Soapbox", and I found those tedious. Sometime later in the book Doyle mentions Stan Lee so fans would be happy with the influence and tribute.

A...more Space Aliens and Monsters from the B Movies of the 1950's stayed on Earth and sent their children to High School.

I think the tone was set with the back cover summary. Personally I struggled through the first few chapters where Larry Doyle worked to set the tone for the book. He used Alliteration like crazy and the first few chapters reads like a "Stan's Soapbox", and I found those tedious. Sometime later in the book Doyle mentions Stan Lee so fans would be happy with the influence and tribute.

After I got to the meat of the story I loved it. The characters were great, I liked Jelly (son of the Blob.) The trick the mother played on her son's bully made me cackle. Some of the changes to history were gigglers, some were horrific (No Ringo in the Beatles?). The world which _Go Mutants_ takes place was wonderful.

A few bits-
Chapter 26 had the first use of triple quotes that I had ever seen, and I loved it. " """World's Smartest Human""" ". That reminded me of wrestler talk. I'm going to start using triple quotes as much as I can. """Oh Yeah!"""
Chapter 7 had an unanswered question that I didn't figure the answer to later. It's gonna drive me mad. "And Sarah Jane, who had yet to be told her nickname, which was based on an unattractive cut of meat." Being a vegetarian I have little frame of reference; being a troublemaker I'm disappointed that I can't figure it out.

Liked the book. It's going on my autographed bookshelf (even though it's not signed) next to _I Love You Beth Cooper_, which was way better than the movie. And I'm gonna read the next Larry Doyle book as soon as I can. If anybody gets a chance to get to a reading, get there. Doyle's autograph off his last book was one of the better signature's I've seen.

Government Mandate: If you get a book for free you've got to tell people about it. Keep your Guvment off my book reviews. Got my copy from the Ecco div. of Harper Collins thru Goodreads.com

*********************Earlier post follows*********************************

I won a copy of this.

_I Love You Beth Cooper_ was a fantastic and funny book. (don't hold the movie against it) and I look forward to reading Doyle's newest book.

Oh Yeah, My sister got me a signed copy of Beth Cooper and Doyle's signing was in my top ten of autographs. (less)

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Jul 07, 2010 Christine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, read-in-2010

Yay for book giveaways on Good Reads!

I was anticipating reading this novel when I read a joint review for it over at The Book Smugglers. Hilariously enough, the very next day after I read that review, I was notified by GR that I had won this book in a giveaway!

Go, Mutants! is a hilarious send-up to the 1950s B-horror movie obsession. Imagine that the aliens really did land in Red Scare 1950s America. Now imagine it's twenty years later, and the aliens are living comfortably in suburbia, their ki...more Yay for book giveaways on Good Reads!

I was anticipating reading this novel when I read a joint review for it over at The Book Smugglers. Hilariously enough, the very next day after I read that review, I was notified by GR that I had won this book in a giveaway!

Go, Mutants! is a hilarious send-up to the 1950s B-horror movie obsession. Imagine that the aliens really did land in Red Scare 1950s America. Now imagine it's twenty years later, and the aliens are living comfortably in suburbia, their kids attending high school along with the rest of the human populace.

J!m is one of those alien kids, suffering through high school like any other loner kid. Except he's got blue, oily skin, his brains are on display for the world to see, and he's a budding empath. J!m's an outcast. His status as an outsider is further defined by humanity's collective memory of his father as the alien that nearly caused the apocalypse. Yeah, it's a lot to live up to.

The premise of aliens injected into angsty high school is a perfect metaphor for those awkward teenage years. When you feel different than anyone else, when you feel like you'll never fit it, when you think you'll never find who you really are. J!m is experiencing all of that and more. And he's got a few friends to help him out: Larry, aka Jelly, an anthropomorphous blob of goo, Johnny, a radioactive half-man-half-ape-beast, Rusty, the guy's gal, and Marie. Marie, the source of his heartbreak, his best friend, his biggest crush... Marie, who's pseudo-dating the resident jackass and king jock, Russ.

Go, Mutants! is a really fun send-up to the cult classics of yesteryear. It's got satire, wit, and smarts. The vocabulary in this book is twisty, and the sentences at points seem to be bleeding violet. While I love a little word play, Go, Mutant!'s complicated language and syntax can sometimes be a deterrent. The overstylization at points ends up mucking up the meaning of some of the sentences. There's actually a narrative explanation for the verbal gymnastics (and I won't spoil it), but it doesn't make the book any less complicated to read. I kept wavering between loving all the little intricacies and being mildly disgruntled when obtuse descriptions were weighed down by the heavy prose.

The entire cast is lovable, the structure of the story is intriguing (gotta love the random screenplay elements) and the design is fan-freaking-tastic (complete with classic B-movie fonts and structuring at points). There's a lot to really sink your teeth into a love about this novel.

Besides some clumsy wordplay, Go, Mutants! is a fun and filling piece of genre fiction. It's smarter than it looks.(less)

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Jul 09, 2010 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: science fiction fans, B-movie fans, horror fans, MST3K fans

Shelves: first-reads

Note: This review is based on an uncorrected proof. Changes may have taken place in the published copy.

This was a very slow read at first. It wasn't until a hundred or so pages in that I really got a feel for the characters and their relationships. Happily enough, I was able to sit down and finish the last hundred or so pages in a single go, a sign that this was definitely worth reading.

I was attracted to this book by the promise of a mixing of 50's and 60's schlock horror and sci-fi B-movies wi...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

So you think it’s tough being a teenager these days? Alienation, oily skin, watching your childhood sweetheart go out with your lifelong enemy; it’s all part of the package. Try putting yourself in the shoes of J!m (no, not a typo), the hero of Larry Doyle’s hilarious send-up of the B-movies and pop culture of the fifties and sixties, “Go Mutants!” (HarperCollins, 2010).
J!m is the son of an alien who appeared on earth during Bobby Thomson’s 1951 “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” game-ending home-ru...more So you think it’s tough being a teenager these days? Alienation, oily skin, watching your childhood sweetheart go out with your lifelong enemy; it’s all part of the package. Try putting yourself in the shoes of J!m (no, not a typo), the hero of Larry Doyle’s hilarious send-up of the B-movies and pop culture of the fifties and sixties, “Go Mutants!” (HarperCollins, 2010).
J!m is the son of an alien who appeared on earth during Bobby Thomson’s 1951 “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” game-ending home-run to win the National League pennant game for the New York Giants against the Brooklyn Dodgers. J!m’s father came to tell the world that he could offer them scientific and technological advances, if only they agreed to destroy their atomic weapons.
This being the Cold War era, the proposal went over like a plutonium balloon. Nuclear war left in its wake a world populated by humans, B-movie monsters, and aliens. J!m’s father soon “disappeared,” but not before mating with a lovely cat-woman and creating J!m, a blue-skinned son whose “forehead was quite high, approximately ten inches, and bulging with brains, but even this evoked the slick upswept hairstyle favored by singers and delinquents, without the hair.” J!m, a James Dean-style rebel, is in love with his childhood sweetheart, Marie, the human daughter of a mad scientist, Dr. Rand, and his wife, a severed head who constantly nags her husband for that new body he’s been promising her for years. Along with Johnny, a half-human radioactive biker ape with strong connections to King Kong, and Larry “Jelly” Sweeny, a gelatinous blob posing as a fat kid, J!m navigates the politics of high school with humans, mutants, and aliens.
The book abounds with pop-culture references in this alternate universe. Democratic presidential nominee Jack Kennedy denies that he is having an affair with his running mate, Marilyn Monroe. Elvis performs with his conjoined twin Jesse (a reference to Elvis’s real twin brother who died at birth).
Even the construction of the novel is fun. Each chapter title appears in the style of old B-movie taglines: “Your flesh will crawl.” “A SAVAGE LUST…to Kill!” There’s even an intermission.
Larry Doyle, the author of “I Love Your, Beth Cooper” (which was made into a movie starring Hayden Panettiere and Paul Rust) and former writer for The Simpsons, has written a hilarious sci-fi romp that’s just lots of fun to read.

I won this book from the GoodReads giveaway. This review was published in the News-Gazette (Champaign-Urbana, IL) September 5, 2010. (less)

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Aug 02, 2011 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, humor

I want to love this book but I'm going to have to settle for like. Normally I love satiric, irreverent sci-fi comedy but this suffers from messy world-building and disjointed asides and too many pop culture references that aren't weaved into the plot well enough in my opinion. This book is clearly an homage to '50s sci-fi and monster movies and takes place in a world where the denizens of those flicks are all real. But it isn't clear until too far into the story that it doesn't actually take pla...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Caanan Grall rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

I almost gave up on this one after just one chapter, but it got better. (Though not that much better. Its no Beth Cooper, that's for sure.) The non sequitur jokes come too fast and too repetitive in the beginning, creating a kind of narrative where anything is possible, which is kind of dull. If you're going to world-build, there needs to be boundaries, and there's too many throwaway 'gags' at the beginning of this book (with the same pattern, always a wild left turn at the end of a sentence) th...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Jonathan Smith rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Although I wasn't always a fan of the writing style--a little too informal, too zippy, and too prone to neologism--I found this very entertaining, if a bit predictable. Hard enough being an unpopular teenager, much less one who sees his fate as inevitable public execution for trying to take over the world. In the end I wasn't sure if I was reading a commentary on internment, McCarthyism, civil rights, or gay pride, and I'm not sure it wasn't a little bit of everything. Also, maybe I'm confused,...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Craig Leimkuehler added it

Go Mutants----and take this sorry excuse for a book with you. Sadly there was no alien invasion, no deranged scientist with a robotic gorilla to prevent Mr. Doyle from writing this dull. boring and pointless tale of teenage angst. At no point did Ieven remotely connect with any of the characters. I couldn't have cared less what happened to any of them. I have not read "I Love You, Beth Cooper" but I heard good things about it and I foolishly believed this book would be on the same level. I will...more

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Nov 22, 2010 Nurshafiqa rated it 4 of 5 stars

a very entertaining book that made me laugh out loud at more than a few times.

the author's way of writing is unique.. i am not very sure how to describe it but i have never read anything with quite the writer's style.

the only thing that kept me from enjoying this book to its maximum was the big words the author used. okay it may not be very big for most of you here, but for me.. yes. conversational lacunae, postcoital, pinguid.. anyone?

but all in all.. a very good book read. i wouldnt mind alien...more

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Sep 24, 2011 Holly rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: before-2011

Occasionally I visit Goodreads and enter giveaways that allow people to win books before they are released in stores. After a couple of months of not winning anything I stopped for awhile before visiting again in May. I now restrict the books I enter to win to only ones that have 10 copies or more available unless the ones with less copies seem interesting. As I was scanning the list last month I noticed Go, Mutants! I probably noticed this book because I'm a X-Men fan and the word "mutants" wa...more Occasionally I visit Goodreads and enter giveaways that allow people to win books before they are released in stores. After a couple of months of not winning anything I stopped for awhile before visiting again in May. I now restrict the books I enter to win to only ones that have 10 copies or more available unless the ones with less copies seem interesting. As I was scanning the list last month I noticed Go, Mutants! I probably noticed this book because I'm a X-Men fan and the word "mutants" was in the title, and also because the cover catches your eye. There were also 25 copies of this book available for giveaway, so I entered to win. It's obvious I won the book since I'm now reviewing it, which is what the publishers hope people will do after recieving this copy that other reviewers are given to read.

The book has an interesting premise. Aliens, mutants, ancient beast, and humans are finally living peacefully after years of fighting one another. The story mainly focuses on the alien J!m who is the son of the alien who is blamed for almost destroying Earth. There is also a dozen other characters who seem to be important to the story. Since there were so many characters, the character development is slow. The main character J!m doesn't seem to be developed until almost halfway into the story, and his friends more till the end. The characters remain shallow, and whenever something serious is presented it is handled without much depth at all. I know this must be apart of the way a comedy book is, and I guess that's why I tend to read more serious books. I believe characters are the most essential part of the story, and the better developed the characters are the better the audience will recieve them.

The story switches POVs constantly, and at the very end we have one character in the first person telling the story. The transitions contributed to the story being confusing at times. The story does have a unique way of dividing the chapters adding to the era of the 50s element. Since I haven't explored much pop culture from that era though the jokes in the story were not obvious to me. The story wasn't boring, but the transitioning would make it easier to follow.
The thing that was the most difficult for me to get past in this book was the
offensive subject matter. I have read books with vulgar and bad language, but this book goes beyond just that. It was so much that I had to at least mention it in a review. I can't tolerate when my beliefs are attacked in a book.

I learned this book might be possibly be made into a movie. I assume since he was a writer for a television show before books that he already has a step in doing that. I haven't read Doyle's other book, I Love You, Beth Cooper, but from what I know it didn't do the best at the box office, which is why I'm surprised they are already considering this book for a movie. I find this unfair to other authors who have bestselling books that fans would like to see translated on screen, but they haven't yet because Nicholas Sparks and Larry Doyle are already being paid to write books that are guaranteed movies. I will admit that Nicholas Sparks movies do perform better at the box office, so it at least makes a little more sense.

Go, Mutants! has an interesting story, and after the story progresses it becomes clearer. The story remains bogged down by a lot of other faults that keeps it's potential held back. The book went on sale today. For further information you can check out the book's site at http://gomutants.com/ . (less)

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Sep 05, 2010 Cid Tyer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-books

This has got to be one of the most intelligently written funny books I've read since Lamb by Christopher Moore. I started this book before I went to bed one night and the first chapter made my head spin; it wasn't the vapid, sarcastic story I was expecting. It's intelligent and even I pulled up dictionary.com a few times - not going to lie!

The Setting -- is Manhattan. But not the Manhattan you or I know! Oh no. In this world, aliens really did invade, quite a few times. There really are mutants,...more This has got to be one of the most intelligently written funny books I've read since Lamb by Christopher Moore. I started this book before I went to bed one night and the first chapter made my head spin; it wasn't the vapid, sarcastic story I was expecting. It's intelligent and even I pulled up dictionary.com a few times - not going to lie!

The Setting -- is Manhattan. But not the Manhattan you or I know! Oh no. In this world, aliens really did invade, quite a few times. There really are mutants, some created from bio-hazard ooze, others science experiments gone wrong, and some we just don't know where the hell they came from! This is a technologically advanced world, but still very retro, in that Cry Baby, sarcastic kind of way. Much of the story takes place in the normal sort of haunts teens frequent; home, school, and work, each uniquely flavored with the new, modern conveniences and other-worldly needs of the inhabitants of earth.

The Characters -- are racially diverse. Humans, humans who think they're human - but secretly aren't, aliens, half-ape-men, gelatinous goo creatures, and gigantic insects. The main character, J!m, is an adolescent alien, the product of two different aliens to be exact. And he's going through high school! Only, think of the anti-mutant form of the KKK type hazing. J!m experiences many normal teen problems; awkwardness, trying to ask out a girl, bullies, failing classes - oh, and his dad is possibly the one universally acknowledged super villain!

The Plot -- starts off with lots of hints. I think that this book really should have been shelved in YA because so much of the material resonated with that type of audience. Granted some references to the Presley Brothers, Jesse and Elvis singing together, probably will not hit the desired target with YA. Somewhere in the middle I lost sight of the overall plot and became very engrossed with the person, J!m. I knew from the foreboding hints where the book was going but in favor of what happened then I didn't much care about that. I thought that the end of the book played out fairly quickly in comparison to everything else, but I found it highly enjoyable nonetheless.

It's an intelligent, funny read - and if you know you're history well enough you'll enjoy it all the more.

(less)

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Oct 13, 2010 Chad rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I really enjoy 1950s/1960s history along with all the sci-fi and monster horror movies that were made back then, so I was really excited to receive this uncorrected proof. After the first few chapters I was concerned that I might put this book down and not finish it. The first half of the book does not flow well. I understand that Larry Doyle is trying to develop the characters and set-up the storyline for the reader to follow, but it was difficult to stay with all the moving parts. Many charact...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Lindsay rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

"Go, Mutants!" is, above all else, just fun to read. It's a satire of the old sci-fi films from the 1950's, and packs plenty of references and homages to "The Twilight Zone" and most of the films featured on "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" ("The Brain that Wouldn't Die," "Gorgo," and "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" are among the many). Though the characters are aliens, mutants, and monstrosities, they're all relatable and - dare I say it - human in some way.

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Jul 03, 2010 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

Captures the vast flaws and prejudices' of humanity, be it teen or adult. In the midst of the "odes" to old sci-fi movies, historical events that have been shrouded by conspiracy theories and the very real condition of mass hysteria you remember what it was like being a teen. Feeling like an alien amongst other species of aliens whether it be due to social class or the emergence of puberty. The intensity of first love and seeing everything as a do or die situation. Intertwined with the humor is...more

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