Andrew Marc Rowe's Blog, page 2

Review - Angel Trouble (24/7 Demon Mart #3) by D.M. Guay

Preamble

D.M. Guay’s 24/7 Demon Mart is the best series I’ve read in a long time. I’ve spent a lot of time with horror comedy over the years, but there is a poignancy to the ridiculousness of these books that well-done comedy is all about. It’s easy to write off something like a comedy about a clueless slob in way over his head with the supernatural as light fluff, but there is quite a bit of philosophy written into the story, like most great works of mythology. Monster Burger, the second in the series, was more laugh out loud funny than this but this book really cemented D.M. Guay as a damn fine writer in my book.

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. It’s either five stars or nothing these days – if I don’t like it, no review. Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

If you’re three books deep into the 24/7 Demon Mart series, chances are you’re sold on the entire series. That’s me, in a nutshell. I bought paperbacks of all of the main entries, including the recently released (Re)Possessed (24/7 Demon Mart #4). D.M. Guay is pretty much guaranteed I’ll be getting everything she writes at this point.

OK, enough fanboy gushing. Each of the books seems to have a thematic thing going on, and Angel Trouble is no different. This time personal responsibility and the price of jealousy are a couple of the foci. Well, to be fair, personal responsibility features heavily in all of them, since Lloyd is a growing manchild who is finally getting his act together. The whole jealousy thing: well, I don’t really want to talk about it since it might spoil the plot a mite, but Guay tackles the subject well.

Then there is what I see as the main focus: death. From my experience, death and birth are linked. Interconnected, even, or two sides of the same coin. The themes of death and resurrection feature prominently throughout all kinds of mythological traditions, be they Christian, Hindu, Norse, Egyptian. There is a reason for that, and you don’t need to be an expert in symbology or have read Carl Jung cover to cover or even… gasp…  have lived through a metaphorical death and rebirth and come to understand that life itself has a mythological dimension.

It's no secret that this book is about death. Just look at the cover and you’ll see a cutesy grim reaper staring back at you. Guay’s secrets seem to be woven into the fabric of the text, sandwiched between the lines and soaking into your being through metaphor. The truth is, Guay might ostensibly write comedy books, but I think she’s one of those rare writers who are dispensing the mythology of the age. Joseph Campbell said that the eternal aspects of mythology are indeed timeless – it’s the reason we can still glean hints about our own existence through stories and myths from eons past. The parts that are caught in time, though, are definitely of a modern bent.

It's no surprise: Lloyd is a dude working at a demonic 7/11, cleaning up supernatural messes and doing his pathetic best which seems to be just enough. As his demonic boss Faust often says, he has a lot of heart, and heart is what the whole life game is all about. Lloyd holds on tightly to the calling of his heart, never faltering in his attempts to do the right thing, even if he messes up royally over and over again and must face the maw of the dragon as he grows through his pain. It’s this lesson, reinforced time and again in so many ways and so many stories, that really makes these stories impactful.

I’ll be frank: this book had a huge impact on me. You can’t really express some of the things that go on in our own experience of reality. There is plenty that is beyond words, stuff that we can only talk about through metaphor and suggestion. There’s no guarantee that it will impact anyone else as deeply as it has me, but Angel Trouble certainly has certainly lived up to its name in my little neck of existence.

Plus, it’s easy to read and funny to boot.

Check it out on the ‘zon here.

Review - Hellraisin 3: Wrath Of Grapes by Marc Richard

Preamble

This is it, people. The one you’ve been raising for. The conclusion to the epic Hellraiser parody trilogy written by Marc Richard. No more raisins – from now on, it’s figs and dates and perhaps even the dreaded dried apricot.

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. It’s either five stars or nothing these days – if I don’t like it, no review. Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

If you’ve made it through the first two books, you know what to expect with Hellraisin 3: The Wrath Of Grapes. More ridiculousness, more absurdity, more parody of the classic B-horror movie that terrified you when you were a kid at the video store because of all the S&M imagery on the box.

If you haven’t seen the third Hellraiser, you’re not missing a whole lot. It’s alright – schlocky and ridiculous like the rest. Hellraiser 5 will probably surprise you with how it’s actually a damn fine film, and the first one is a classic. And maybe number two gets in there with the first one. But number three was simply not all that great.

This parody, though, is fine. It bounces back and forth between sarcastic smarm, perverse humour, and straight up rando plays on words that are uttered by the characters. You can tell that Tim and Eric have made sweet love to Marc Richard’s sense organs because this is pretty much a Cinco production.

I’ll be honest – I grabbed this because I became somewhat bored with the other book I was reading. Richard has to be commended on the quality of his production here. The editing is pretty top notch, and I’ve read a bunch of self and traditionally published fare that is not quite as pristine as this. I think I might have found a single spelling error among the entire three books, not to mention zero grammatical issues that I picked up (and I’m a bit of a linguistic pedant who ended up doing the law thing for his day job).

I laughed out loud a few times whilst reading this. In my book, there’s hardly higher praise than that.

Check it out on the ‘zon here.

Review - The Lotus Fountain by Nicole Little and JD Ryot

Preamble

I’m slowly making my way through the Slipstreamers series. It’s a series of novellas, published by local-to-me indie genre publisher Engen Books, set in a world where the heroine Cassidy Cane jumps through portals to alternate dimensions, pulling YA Indiana Jones hijinks and capers… and it seems like most of the other worlds are a dystopia of one form or another.

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. It’s either five stars or nothing these days – if I don’t like it, no review. Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

“Cassidy thought for sure that if Marcella had been wearing a string of pearls around her lying neck, she would have been clutching them, meme style.”

Cassidy Cane is back, and this time she’s heading to gyno-dystopia. I’d be lying if I said that I’ve never seen anything like this before – a matriarchal society where it seems like Utopia at first and then something rotten in the State of Denmark is subsequently perceived feels somewhat familiar from a sci-fi perspective, but Little’s version of this idea is quite excellent in its own right.

Let’s be clear – this is YA, so there is a certain level of verboten territory in terms of sexuality, but it definitely seethes beneath the surface in this one. The sexual element is not quite defined – something about women getting pregnant from a well of water that heals, the eponymous Lotus Fountain. The womyn gave the lads the boot because they were big Ds bearing Ds back in the day (and the allegory to our Rick Jamesian ‘man’s world’ gets somewhat heavy-handed here), making it a female-only society. There are no dudes, anywhere. Again, it’s not well explained and is meant to have a bit of mystery about it, I think.

That, or it flew right over my head.

Cassidy gets charmed by the place and its inhabitants, and even considers moving permanently to the place. But then she finds out where all the little boys who are born from ladies boning the small body of water go, and it’s not back home with their mothers from the hospital. Obviously, this doesn’t go over well with the women what pupped the scamps, which is part of where the dystopian element becomes clear. It becomes sad, and I was genuinely moved to tears at one point, which speaks to Little’s skill as a writer.

Like all of Cassidy Cane’s stories, it’s a quick read, which I definitely appreciate these days. It’s well worth the buck fiddy asking price for the e-book here in Canada. Well written, well paced, easy to digest – what more could you want?

Check it out on the ‘zon here.

Review - Space Academy Rejects by C.T. Phipps and Michael Suttkus (Space Academy Dropouts #2)

Preamble

After I finished the review for Space Academy Dropouts, author C.T. Phipps asked me if I was interested in reading and reviewing the upcoming second book in series. I enjoyed the first one so much that I had no problem saying yes, to hell with my TBR pile. First book reviewed here.

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. It’s either five stars or nothing these days – if I don’t like it, no review. Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

“Daddy?” I asked. “Do you mean that in the creator sense or older lover?”

Vance Turbo and crew are back for more jinks that are hi and sci that is fi in this space comedy sequel. Like the first book the story is tight and the comedy plays a kind of a sidecar role, like the plot is on the main bike and the comedy is riding shotgun – I’m thinking of Mr. Burns and Smithers right now, with Burns wearing the goggles and scarf and steering the motorcycle with Smithers with his knees in his chin in the sidecar… anyhoo, it’s story first, comedy second.

Not that the book is unfunny – quite the opposite. But it seems to hold itself a little more seriously than the first – as seriously as a book that jumps between the sexual exploits of more likeable Kirk stand-in Vance Turbo with sexbots and subordinates and the universe-destroying plans of Nazi Ewoks can. This book is very much about the characters and their relationships with each other, though.

New to the roster are Vance’s cousin Danny, kind-of dead Ketra’s daughter and Vance’s love interest Shelly, and a couple of others. Back are reptilian Forty-Two, Trish the AI, and a few more as well. It’s also set seven years after the events of the first book, once Vance has settled into his role in Starfleet as a lieutenant or some such. It can’t last though – he’s made captain of yet another ship in the first few pages. Only it’s like a cruise ship or some kind of pleasure craft that has to be refitted into a military vessel.

As before, there is massive scale conflict between the Elder Races and the newbies in the galaxy. Vance and crew are at the forefront, trying to keep things from falling apart. I have to admit that I lost the plot a little bit near the middle of the book, but it was compelling enough that I did not lose interest. In fact, near the end I stayed up a little too long reading it.

It’s a lengthy read, but not so lengthy that it overstays its welcome. You can tell that C.T. Phipps really put his heart and soul into this, though. He described something in the Foreword – a feeling of emptiness after finishing the first book – that felt all to familiar to me as an author. And so, he wrote this one immediately, making a standalone into a series out of sheer love for it. You can feel that devotion here, an unremitting dedication to sci-fi comedy.

If you liked the first, I’m sure you’ll like this one too.

Check it out on the ‘zon here.

Review - Hellraisin 2: The Raisining by Marc Richard

Preamble

Marc Richard made three of these, after the first three Hellraiser movies. Proper thing, because things start to go off the rails after number three – I couldn’t even finish the fourth one. Like most of these things, number one is the best and then the quality starts to take a nosedive.

The same cannot be said for the fantastic parodies written by Marc Richard.

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. I have gone as low as three stars – anything less than that and I will not review a book (chances are I DNFed anyway). Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

This Hellraisin series is like nothing you’ve read. At least, it’s like nothing I’ve read. It’s hilarious – laugh out loud funny, smirk funny, head shake funny, ‘what the *bleep*’ funny. It’s also basically a scene by scene breakdown of the movie, making fun of all of the cheesy B-horror plot points and characters and bopping between absolutely meta and as granular as Hell(raisin – do you see what I did there?) There are plays on words, plays on taste, plays on film-making.

I’ll tell you what it reminds me of – having a buddy on the couch next to you, both of you blasted out of your minds on the reefer and unable to take the movie seriously, commenting on how ludicrous it is and laughing uproariously. Not because I’ve ever done that, mind you – I’m a good boy, operating purely on pop culture portrayals of cannabis consumption. Kind of like the scenes in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle where they’re watching television and giggling at the D.A.R.E. commercial.

Richard’s style is absurdist par excellence – he lulls you into a sense of knowing where he is going, and then he throws you a curveball. And another. And another. If you’re at all a fan of the Hellraiser movies (which I am, being a die-hard Clive Barker guy who has yet to read his entire library), you might like this. It’s one of those humour things where you kind of think you’re in on the joke but the comedian does or says something that makes you think like you might not be totally in on it. You’re in a weird limbo where you’re laughing to kill yourself but you’ve gotta keep your guard up, because who knows if he’s making fun of you, too.

But that’s OK, because he’s a big ol’ teddy bear who’s going to take you to Hell and back. And there will be taffy-like skin (the best skin – that also happens to be an artifact of practical special effects from the 80s). There will be demons of pain and pleasure. And there, of course, will be raisins.

Lots of raisins.

Check it out on the ‘zon here.

Review - The Fires Of Heaven by Robert Jordan (The Wheel Of Time #5)

Preamble

Book 5 of The Wheel Of Time, read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer is in the pipe. I’m listening to these via audiobook as I get my steps in, and averaging about a book a month, depending on the length. They seem to be getting longer as they go on.

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. It’s either five stars or nothing these days – if I don’t like it, no review. Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

It’s difficult to say new things about this series as time goes on. It’s got a great setting, Jordan does an excellent job of building the feel of an expansive world (notice I didn’t use the word worldbuilding yet used both ‘building’ and ‘world’ in that sentence – I don’t know why, but just notice it). But I have got to say, and I’ve said it in previous reviews, that I’m not sure about the characters.

Full disclaimer: I loved the book, love the series. It's worthy of the 5/5. Nonetheless, the characterization is without a doubt the weakest part. It seems like every single one is as petty and single-minded as they come, and you do need to suspend your disbelief far more for this aspect than all of the fireballs and magic and stuff – at least, that is where I’ve found it. I’ve noticed that others who have read the books have opined about Nynaeve’s childishness, and it does come out in the story a fair bit in earlier books, but really it starts to grate after a while. Aviendha, too, is a bit much. But so are Rand and Perrin and Mat and Egwene and the Aes Sedai and the Wise Ones. Honestly, I cannot see much difference in some of their pettiness and the selfishness that is associated with characters balls deep in the ‘the dark side.’ I’m not sure I would want to spend any time with any of the characters, for how unlikeable they are. For a series that is almost certainly influenced by Taoism, given the yin-yang symbolism, which in some ways is about detachment and going with the flow, the characters are largely as attached as two-year-olds. The word petty comes from the French ‘petit,’ or small, and it’s kind of a weird to see that lack of depth juxtaposed against the enormous scope of the novels.

This book did feel a little more uneven than the previous ones. There’s less of a building to the massive crescendo that happens at the end of Jordan’s novels and simply a ‘suddenly it’s on’ kind of feel to it. I did like that Rand finally shagged someone, because I do enjoy a bit of romance. But there was a lot of ‘dead air’ here – and I know I’m not the only one who has wondered at the pacing with the middle books in the series.

Still, I'm walking the book away so it's not so bad.

Regardless, the effect of the book is greater than the sum of its parts. For all the foregoing complaining, I loved it. Rand’s growing mastery, the relationships between the characters (never mind their personalities), deepening political intrigue, the various different causes and effects that come up – it’s all great stuff. Chances are, if you’re in this deep into the series, you’re going to the end, I would say.

That’s my plan, and this one has not changed it.

Check it out on the ‘zon here.

Review - Legends & Lattés by Travis Baldree

Preamble

A friend of mine read this one, remarking on how much she loved it in an author group in which I find myself. The cover was intriguing, mostly because of how different it was. An orc and a demoness serving coffee. WTF is this s***? Glad I checked it out, because it was one of the most pleasant reads I’ve had in a while (and there have been a few).

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. It’s either five stars or nothing these days – if I don’t like it, no review. Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

I remember the first time I played Harvest Moon on the SNES… actually, no I don’t. But I remember the era – I was a teenager, raised on a steady diet of literature and video games, though many of those would probably be called ‘gritty.’ Sure, there was Dragonlance and Final Fantasy, Baldur’s Gate and The Lord Of The Rings. But there was also stuff like Naked Lunch by Burroughs, with its perverse mugwumps and psychedelic roach gas. One of my favourite authors, whom I read way too early, is Irvine Welsh. The guy writes about the festering septic wound on the underbelly of society in a darkly comic fashion. Murderous psychopaths, drug use, extreme language, pornographic descriptions – anything and everything is on the table with Welsh.

And there, almost a counter-point to all that nasty wasty stuff, was Harvest Moon. Oh, so innocent, it was almost anime-esque in its leanings, and the entire point of the game was to build a farm (and maybe a bit of focus on romancing and wedding some of those pixelated hotties – come on, I was a teenager). It was like a form of mouthwash to the filth that I would guzzle during most of my misspent youth (and misspent adulthood). It has always been one of my most beloved games, though tribute-giving fare like Stardew Valley has replaced it in modern times.

Legends & Lattes is like the Harvest Moon of fantasy literature. It’s been called cozy fantasy and I suppose that’s accurate. The stakes are low: there is a café to build, customers to woo, a hottie to romance – pretty literally in this demonic case. Like Harvest Moon, the physical stuff is mostly ever implied, whether that’s between orc warrior protagonist Viv and her paramour or Viv and her antagonists. Right at the beginning, the skull-splitting action is at an end. Viv hangs up her murdering axe (called Blackblood, no less) after getting a fancy magical bit of monster gut kit. It’s implied to be a good luck pearl or some such, torn from the gizzard of a fantastic beast, and placed in the heart of the café that Viv starts building for her retirement.

I mean, come on, the similarities are strong – in Harvest Moon it’s your grandfather’s farm, in this one it’s a rundown stable, but the arc of improving the place and making friends is quite familiar. The building itself gets tended and built upon, ‘crops’ are sold to the customers, which gives Viv more money to buy more stuff and hire more people and make new social connections.

Admittedly, Viv does have her enemies. And they do more damage than the storms in Harvest Moon. But there is only really a single real ‘enemy,’ and even he admits he was never really out to hurt Viv when he makes trouble for her. Viv imagines that she was always a difficult-to-like hard-ass, but she is much like the pussycat – or rather, dire cat – that turns out to be the inn’s mascot. Fiercely loyal and protective, but with a soft underbelly.

This book reminded me of why I like fantasy so much. It’s imaginative, it gives ‘the rules’ of narrative a bit of an ‘eff you’ (though not entirely – the classic story beats are still there) and decidedly goes its own way. Again, like Viv, the orc warrior who, like some kind of anti-Walter White, breaks good… and stays good.

As good as a latté and one of those o-face inducing pastries the rat-man chef bakes up for the masses.

Check it out on the ‘zon here.

Review - Space Academy Dropouts by C.T. Phipps and Michael Suttkus

Preamble

I will be perfectly frank about how my encounter with this book came about (my ex-wife probably has a few choice words to say about my unremitting honesty and it will not be remitting today). I saw co-author C.T. Phipps talk about Space Academy Dropouts in a Facebook group I’m in, I looked at it, thought it seemed funny, added it to my TBR list, and then literally moments later C.T. Phipps messaged me to ask me if I’d consider doing a ‘review exchange,’ wherein he’d read my stuff and give it an honest review it and vice versa. He had seen my review of Tropical Punch by S.C. Jensen and liked it, apparently. Bizarre synchronicity aside, C.T. offered to give me a review copy but I was seconds away from purchasing Space Academy Dropouts and did just that.

I am glad I gave him and Michael Suttkus the ducats.

The foregoing has no bearing on my review – I approached it as I do all of the books I read and review.

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. It’s either five stars or nothing these days – if I don’t like it, no review. Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

“We really should have gone to visit Doctor No and enjoyed the multispecies brothel.”

Douglas Adams has a lot to answer for, particularly where concerns the mixture of literature and sci-fi comedy. He may or may not be the first, and there is a certain Britishness about his work (don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about), but the litmus test for sci-fi comedy books is probably Adams. I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as a teenager and fell in love. It wasn’t ‘laugh out loud’ funny, but the stuff that makes me chortle audibly tends to be the puerile and bawdy and juvenile stuff people like Christopher Moore in his Pocket series or those degenerates who write the Shingles books weave. The Adams school of literary humour is more of a clever, witty, tongue-in-cheek, ‘do you see what I did there?’ type of humour. It might not leave you in stitches but it does put a smile on your face.

Phipps and Suttkus definitely channel a bit of Adams in Space Academy Dropouts, but it’s far more American than the seminal sci-fi humour series. Like the colonies, Space Academy Dropouts is a melting pot: sci-fi, fantasy, pop culture, and gaming references, as well as being a damn fine action novel in its own right.

First, the character of Vance Turbo, who legally gave himself that name rather than Vannevar James Tagawa (that’s what they call a ‘second paragraph of the book joke’), is eminently likeable. A blatant riff on the whole Captain Kirk thang, he is raised up to Captain status almost immediately, in spite of the fact that he gets dumped from the Starfleet Academy in the first couple of pages. He has a strong sense of morality, though it is skewed by some of the shady stuff he has gotten up to.

All of that is in the past, though, because his captaincy comes about after he is shanghaied, pressganged, and otherwise forced onto a mission with a secret black ops branch of the interstellar government to save the universe from the threat of rogue space nukes on the backdrop of a futuristic iron curtain. Everything feels familiar, even though this is a century or so in the future and is filled with murderous aliens who want to kill Vance and AI infatuated with Vance who find perfect replicant sexbot bodies and shag him.

In spite of doing quite well with the lay-dees, Vance is like Rodney Dangerfield, getting no respect from anyone, and somehow managing to ‘fail upward,’ as one of his alien crew members put it in the novel. It’s one big successful gaffe to another, with a plethora of people invading his mind and having telepathic conversations with him and interrupting his thought processes in a cleverly written way. Vance was raised on a diet of old sci-fi and movies from the 20th century, which means that the references to literally anything any nerd worth their salt would be aware of are everywhere (it’s told in first person from Vance’s POV).

Like I said, it would have been easy for the authors to press the ‘silly joke’ button over and over again and call it a day, but you end up caring for Vance and his team of misfits. They’re all a bit strange – a cat human hybrid bounty hunter, the AI who thinks he’s the best because he isn’t whatever word they used for racist against AI in the book, the old flame who is doing an alien Chad who hates Vance, who is arguably himself a nerd Chad of some sort (like Kirk, maybe?), and even some kind of ‘enlightened’ being called an Ethereal, who is some kind of modified human.

It’s light, it’s fun, it’s worth the read if you at all have even a passing interest in sci-fi or nerd culture. Phipps and Suttkus are clearly intelligent dudes, discussing issues of morality and philosophy at times with tongue firmly in cheek throughout, as well as having kick-ass tech and some pretty hot human on sexbot action.

Sweet, sweet, human on sexbot action.

Check it out on the ‘zon here.

Review - Monster Burger by D.M. Guay (24/7 Demon Mart #2)

Preamble

I previously read and loved The Graveyard Shift by D.M. Guay. I was very much looking forward to getting into this, as I laughed quite a bit at the first book in the 24/7 Demon Mart series. This did not disappoint.

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. It’s either five stars or nothing these days – if I don’t like it, no review. Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

If you’ve ever seen Return Of The Living Dead, the kind-of sequel to Night Of The Living Dead written and directed by Dan O’Bannon, based on a book written by John Russo, one of the co-writers of Night’s script, you’d probably get a kick out of Monster Burger. Aside from the movie having the best opening scene I think I might have seen in any movie, ever, Return Of The Living channels 1980s Americana, hilarious scenarios, excellent jokes, and plenty of zombies.

It didn’t really surprise me to learn through reading D.M. Guay’s notes at the end of the novel that her introduction to the zombie genre came in the form of Return Of The Living Dead. The 24/7 Demon Mart books are mythologically American, with a capital ‘A’. The whole shtick of the series is that it features a fat every-nerd named Lloyd, who somehow manages to bungle himself into saving the world by the end of every book (at least the two I’ve read). This time round, he’s helped along by an angelic magic eight-ball that reads his mind and a supervisor cockroach named Kevin is back for round two. The love of his life, the kick-ass Dee Dee, whose life he manages to save and ingratiate himself towards, is back and is looking past his self-described faults at all times. And maybe even towards loving him?

There are uncooperative heroes, and then there is Lloyd Lamb Wallace. He is such a schlub, it is painful at times to read. But he made a promise to God to get his stuff together. Too bad his mother is sure that he’s on drugs after showing up with mad scrilla after the events of the first book. And too bad he works right next to Monster Burger, the fast-food joint beloved by both Lloyd and Kevin.

I am an avowed buff of zombie fiction, and it was pretty exciting to see all of the references to zombie video games, old movies, new movies. This book is truly a love letter to a genre that is something all of its own. Whereas fare like The Walking Dead is serious business, this is pure horror comedy.

The jokes are funny, largely American culture based, and they come a mile a minute. I feel like Guay really stepped it up a notch with this book, and I loved The Graveyard Shift. The series has a bit of a picaresque feel, in that the plot is not really much beyond ‘save the day’ and it doesn’t really get going until the second half of the book, but I view that as a feature, not a bug. Sure, the eight ball talks about a Hero’s Journey but really, Lloyd doesn’t grow all that much, except to avoid taking a gift from his demonic boss that would have seen him lying to his mother (and to himself).

Self-deception is really the name of Lloyd’s game, which is common among nerds of all stripes. We tend to imagine ourselves lesser than what we are, we are fairly hard on ourselves, and sometimes we are lured by the easy way of burgers and fries and no exercise whilst playing Call of Duty with fellow nerd Big Dan.

I don’t expect Lloyd to grow significantly, as that is part of the charm of these books. It seems he’s not supposed to become the hero who steps perfectly in order to save the world. He’s the schlub like the rest of us, meandering and muddling his way through life, using his heart (or angelic magic eight ball) as a guide to doing what’s right.

And still he bones it up. So much of the plot could have been avoided if he had just read the employee’s handbook he’s been avoiding, or if his boss Kevin (yes, the roach is his supervisor) wasn’t such a dingus himself. But as much as he has to deal with homicidal defecating pixies or demonic plants or giant shrimp eating up the boner pill display and becoming ‘full body boners,’ he still manages to come through alright.

With a traditional hero, with a traditional saviour of the world, we would not have this story. And that would be a shame.

Check it out on the ‘zon here.

Review - Tropical Punch by S.C. Jensen (Bubbles In Space #1)

Preamble

I ‘met’ S.C. Jensen in one of my FB author groups, this one focused on Funny Indie Authors (the name of the group, incidentally). I am a big fan of reading funny stuff, saw she was advertising this one, liked the cover, and so I decided to give her first-in-series a whirl. Extra points when I found out it was inspired by old school detective fiction.

A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. It’s either five stars or nothing these days – if I don’t like it, no review. Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.

Take from that what you will.

Review – 5/5

If you’ve ever seen The Fifth Element, Luc Besson’s wonderful sci-fi myth released a couple of years before The Matrix and one of my favourite movies from my childhood, you might remember Chris Tucker’s character, Ruby Rhod. I was under the impression that he was the most effeminate straight dude ever to grace sci-fi, a foil to Bruce Willis’ hyper-traditionally-masculine Korben Dallas. Rhod was so fabulous, so over-the-top, and yet he was getting adult with chicks constantly, like the super hot flight attendant on the space cruiser. I have to admit it was hard to make sense of to a kid growing up in a society where masculinity was defined by pretending like feelings don’t exist and dudes calling each other the other three letter f word like it was going out of style. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I realized masculinity itself was a far more hilarious butt of jokes. Come on, it was the nineties – name me a movie besides this one without at least one joke where the punchline is ‘ha! gay!’ and I’ll give you a stick of gum.

You might be wondering why I bring all of this up, and why I just mentioned gum. Well, the kick-ass gum-chewing heroine of the story is Betty ‘Bubbles’ Marlowe (yes, almost certainly after Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, private dick star in stories like The Big Sleep), and the new world champion of most effeminate straight sci-fi tritagonist goes to… Cosmo Régale, owner of Cosmo Cosmetics, dude whose description sounds just like Ruby Rhod, self-titled ‘Destroyer Of Masculine Paradigms,’ the guy who names a beauty product after Bubbles… namely, Bubbles In Space, the title of the series. This is after he hits on her and we’re told in no uncertain terms how much of a ladies’ man he is.

It's a funny book, but only every once in a while in a guffaw-y type of way. It’s more of the kind of book that puts a grin on your face. Jensen says in the afterword that she was heavily influenced by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, which is a genre I got into after reading Stephen King’s On Writing, where he essentially recommends going through them to learn how to write descriptively. Probably because it’s so over the top. I’m not sure if you’ve ever read some of the similes in a detective novel, but they’re patently ridiculous at times, something that Jensen channels with hilarious grace. To wit, ‘Rays of intense sunlight beat down and burrowed into my exposed flesh like burning worms.’

Yep, that’s a legit line from the book.

Getting back to the whole masculinity thing, these old detective novels feel like you ate a carton of cigarettes and drank a 40-ounce bottle of cheap Scotch just by reading the pages. Bubbles throws that trope on its head by being a woman who is sober and is tempted by her old demon gin from time to time. She’s also super fab herself, not of the whole ‘I have five black suits in my wardrobe’ type of school as the PIs from the old stories. So much of the story is about fashion and glamour to go with the mystery that at times my eyes started to glaze over (I’m no Cosmo Régale in this sense, and only a Lothario in my dreams). But it’s also about kick-ass robot arms and sarcastic and touchy holographic pigs named Hammett after… well, I think you get it.

The mystery itself is pretty fun, though I have to admit I might have lost the plot. I didn’t really get what exactly happened, maybe 85% of it, though it didn’t really detract from my enjoyment at all, which is a strange thing to write. That’s probably my own issue though. These stories always have a kind of domino type of thing at the end, where all these plot threads come together and you realize ‘aha! aha! aha!’ like some kind of a twist hurricane. Near the eye of the storm, I was kind of like, ‘uh, wut?’

Maybe it was the language. You get absolutely dumped on with the slang, a bunch of words that we are left to figure out through context. Normally, I love this. It was a lot though, more than the ush, and I could see it turning someone off. There is a glossary at the end, which you get to read after you pretty much have the whole thing figured out (or maybe if you’re less of a knobhead than me, you press the Kindle’s Table Of Contents button and check it out first). The first half of the book had me feeling like a bit of a twit, but by the end of it I was like ‘oh yes, I know what you are saying,’ and not in a response to an idiomatic ‘knowmsayin’?’ type of way.

In any case, the book was fantabulous, totally extra, and very glitzy and glamorous. It was hilarious in its own way, and though Cosmo and Bubbles never hooked up (hey, it’s not that kind of book), the relationships between the characters were enjoyable. I loved Ham the holo-pig, clearly the scene-stealer whenever he showed up. He also managed to pull some cool stuff to upgrade Bubbles’ kit near the end, to make her near indestructible.

Oh yeah, there’s cyborg-on-robot violence, too, weren’t you paying attention?

Check it out on the ‘zon here.