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The Mambo Wizard: Breakfast is Served!
Meet Jeremy Fletcher, boy wizard and orphan extraordinaire.
After years of study, Jeremy finds himself expelled from Pigpimples Academie of Magick. He only ever mastered the single spell of transforming everyday objects into breakfast food items (a novice trick at best, and one not found in any of the Headmage’s textbooks).
But perhaps Jeremy's luck is due for a change.
Moe and Zippo crash-land their starship on his family's property. They're space pirates on a quest to fish radio broadcasts out of black holes and build the ultimate night club. They also appear to be famished.
Is this Jeremy’s chance to provide a complete and balanced breakfast?
Featuring a cast of wizard school dropouts, small furry animals, and other various weirdos, come join the gang in a swashbuckling adventure through dysfunctional magic academies, dwarven convenience stores, and night clubs on the moons of Jupiter!
The Mambo Wizard: Breakfast is Served! Truly a gem of the orphaned wizard genre!
After years of study, Jeremy finds himself expelled from Pigpimples Academie of Magick. He only ever mastered the single spell of transforming everyday objects into breakfast food items (a novice trick at best, and one not found in any of the Headmage’s textbooks).
But perhaps Jeremy's luck is due for a change.
Moe and Zippo crash-land their starship on his family's property. They're space pirates on a quest to fish radio broadcasts out of black holes and build the ultimate night club. They also appear to be famished.
Is this Jeremy’s chance to provide a complete and balanced breakfast?
Featuring a cast of wizard school dropouts, small furry animals, and other various weirdos, come join the gang in a swashbuckling adventure through dysfunctional magic academies, dwarven convenience stores, and night clubs on the moons of Jupiter!
The Mambo Wizard: Breakfast is Served! Truly a gem of the orphaned wizard genre!
450 pages, Paperback
Published April 1, 2022
2 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Giordano J. Lahaderne
1 book7 followersIn addition to The Mambo Wizard: Breakfast is Served!, Giordano J. Lahaderne is the author of over 200 novels, short stories, and several hit songs, none of which have so far actually been written. Known for his appealing good looks and easygoing charm, he accepts with utmost humility his novel's recent induction into the western literary canon.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 7, 2022
I literally wrote this book lol
May 5, 2022
I will definitely say that this is not a typical style of book I would read but a coworker recommended I read it. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I was pleasantly surprised how much I loved what this book had to offer.
The author did well developing his plot and followed through with a strong payoff at the end of the book. The setting was well presented and built upon enough to give you a solid picture but also allowed you to explore your imagination. Characters were well developed and I left feeling I knew and cared about all the main characters and some of the side characters.
The authors writing style really clicked with me, he did well using goofy humor and a beautiful writing structure that was very enjoyable and consistently maintained.
Overall this book was keen-o 5/5
The author did well developing his plot and followed through with a strong payoff at the end of the book. The setting was well presented and built upon enough to give you a solid picture but also allowed you to explore your imagination. Characters were well developed and I left feeling I knew and cared about all the main characters and some of the side characters.
The authors writing style really clicked with me, he did well using goofy humor and a beautiful writing structure that was very enjoyable and consistently maintained.
Overall this book was keen-o 5/5
May 4, 2022
Pull up chair and grab a fork, The Mambo Wizard: Breakfast is Served was delicious form start to finish! Had me laughing out loud from the first chapter and hungry for more when it ended. Lovable characters, vivid narrative, and an oddly nostalgic tale. Jeremy is the relatable main character I was always rooting for. Whether he was simply saving an adorable hamster named Donut, helping his new-found friends Zippo and Moe on another wacky adventure, or rolling his eyes at being mistaken for copying Tommy Cobblestone (yet again), Jeremy learns how his powers can be used for more than just the most important meal of the day.
October 13, 2023
I was weirdly captivated by this silly, silly story, right from its opening quotey-thing. Love a good opening quotey-thing. The amazing excuse for any lazy writing and bad editing that might occur in the book set the mood - it was what you might, if you were prone to overanalysis, call a keystone theme of the whole work.
What am I talking about? What is Lahaderne talking about, is what I want to know.
The story jumps from its opening notes and clever editorial / footnote device, to a wacky pair of aliens flying by Earth (oh incidentally, the Dinosaur Alarm is one of the best and funniest sci-fi concepts I think I've ever read, and to be honest the rest of the book kind of just coasted by on the residuals from that), and from there to ... some sort of weird Hogwartsian magic school in the year 1919? And this is all supposed to make sense by the end. And, weirdest and most infuriating of all, it does!
So, the story settles briefly on Pigpimples (oh my fucking God, Pigpimples, I just got it) and one-trick wizard Jeremy. Now to be fair, it's a pretty damn good trick. But it's not enough, apparently, to keep him at the school. Jeremy, despite his amusing similarity to comic book hero Tommy Cobblestone (any other similarities he might have to anyone or anything else may be considered staggering cosmic happenstance), is not a good wizard. And he's a worse magician (that's a whole thing that I'm not going to go into, though).
I was mightily confused at this seeming tangent to a weird alternate past-Earth where Franz Ferdinand was trying to get Earth to join the "Planetary League" in 1920. An alternate world with elves and dwarves and magic that actually worked, but when the wizards revealed themselves everyone was too busy staring at the aliens to really notice. The whole thing was just unutterably strange and mildly amusing, but ... well, to call it derivative would be to imply it was trying to pretend to be something original while taking atrocious liberties with existing intellectual properties. This wasn't that. It was more like a parody, but it wasn't that either. It was too clever to be Bored of the Rings, and too stupid to be a brilliant piece of meta-narrative.
Or was it? Either of those things? You be the judge, I guess.
So, with occasional translator-bot-related issue (a monitor lizard becoming an iguana, USian breakfast cereal at the start of the 20th Century being just hysterically anachronistic), the story unfolds in a wild and uncontrolled free-for-all of space adventure, madcap action and - yes - tasty breakfasts. Moe and Zippo, our alien rock 'n' roll scalliwags from earlier in the review, turn up in Jeremy's front yard and sweep him into a bizarre scheme to pirate an assortment of media from alternate universes and timelines by going fishing inside black holes.
I was left baffled, amused, shocked and outraged. And okay, also ultimately entertained, which I guess is the point. The alternate-universe narrative device - to say nothing of the Seashell twist! - which makes this parody function as anything but a blatant rip-off is either lazy beyond belief, or brilliant.
I did like the way the story came full-circle and ended, and the more I dwell on it I have ever-increasing appreciation for the fascinating and worrying implications it has for this wacky old alternate universe in which we live, and the technology with which we are currently attempting to come to grips. It was this little bit of cleverness that left me unable to conclude that this story was a disgracefully lazy parody and barefaced reference-fest, and forced me to consider the possibility that it may also have actually had something to say. But make no mistake, it was also a barefaced reference-fest. But it was funny. The spells, in particular, made me laugh. At a certain point, like a black hole, unoriginality reaches critical mass and then pretty much anything can happen, if you have the right equipment at hand. And no, I'm not talking about The Mambo Wizard: Breakfast Is Served! anymore.
Sex-o-meter
We're treated to some mild canoodling and mooning, but no sex. Despite one incensed Amazon review that stated, "Not a book for small children. This author need to learn what is appropriate. I can’t imagine I could describe this book without violating amazons TOS," I cannot consider this in any way a racy or confronting story. Maybe it was Moe, arguably the most grown-up protagonist, looking like a little child? I don't know. The sex-o-meter is giving this one a dancing baby gif out of a possible gif that I can't actually describe because even if I redacted it, it would get my review dropped.
Gore-o-meter
No gore either. Half a bloody flesh-gobbet out of a possible five. This is family friendly fun for readers of all ages.
WTF-o-meter
There's quite a lot to figure out going in, but it all pans out in the end. The overall concept is high-octane WTF and the assorted cultures, technologies, settings and twists deliver an excellent balance of confusion and exhilaration, but at the end of the day the WTF-o-meter is hovering at 3.5 Matthews McConaughey screaming and trying to push books off shelves out of a possible whatever that weird multiple-hour learning annex rant video thing Matthew McConaughey actually did a while ago was.
My Final Verdict
Lahaderne describes the book as Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets Harry Potter, and the story never at any point pretends to be anything else. As such, it is exactly equal to the sum of its parts. But hey, those parts ain't bad. And if you're feeling generous, there's that black-hole-dipping multiverse explanation just sitting there, with a look of absolutely unwarranted smugness on its face, waiting to be used. I was going to give it three stars, but I am adding a star for the Dinosaur Alarm. Four stars, would commit to tape if I fished it out of a singularity.
What am I talking about? What is Lahaderne talking about, is what I want to know.
The story jumps from its opening notes and clever editorial / footnote device, to a wacky pair of aliens flying by Earth (oh incidentally, the Dinosaur Alarm is one of the best and funniest sci-fi concepts I think I've ever read, and to be honest the rest of the book kind of just coasted by on the residuals from that), and from there to ... some sort of weird Hogwartsian magic school in the year 1919? And this is all supposed to make sense by the end. And, weirdest and most infuriating of all, it does!
So, the story settles briefly on Pigpimples (oh my fucking God, Pigpimples, I just got it) and one-trick wizard Jeremy. Now to be fair, it's a pretty damn good trick. But it's not enough, apparently, to keep him at the school. Jeremy, despite his amusing similarity to comic book hero Tommy Cobblestone (any other similarities he might have to anyone or anything else may be considered staggering cosmic happenstance), is not a good wizard. And he's a worse magician (that's a whole thing that I'm not going to go into, though).
I was mightily confused at this seeming tangent to a weird alternate past-Earth where Franz Ferdinand was trying to get Earth to join the "Planetary League" in 1920. An alternate world with elves and dwarves and magic that actually worked, but when the wizards revealed themselves everyone was too busy staring at the aliens to really notice. The whole thing was just unutterably strange and mildly amusing, but ... well, to call it derivative would be to imply it was trying to pretend to be something original while taking atrocious liberties with existing intellectual properties. This wasn't that. It was more like a parody, but it wasn't that either. It was too clever to be Bored of the Rings, and too stupid to be a brilliant piece of meta-narrative.
Or was it? Either of those things? You be the judge, I guess.
So, with occasional translator-bot-related issue (a monitor lizard becoming an iguana, USian breakfast cereal at the start of the 20th Century being just hysterically anachronistic), the story unfolds in a wild and uncontrolled free-for-all of space adventure, madcap action and - yes - tasty breakfasts. Moe and Zippo, our alien rock 'n' roll scalliwags from earlier in the review, turn up in Jeremy's front yard and sweep him into a bizarre scheme to pirate an assortment of media from alternate universes and timelines by going fishing inside black holes.
I was left baffled, amused, shocked and outraged. And okay, also ultimately entertained, which I guess is the point. The alternate-universe narrative device - to say nothing of the Seashell twist! - which makes this parody function as anything but a blatant rip-off is either lazy beyond belief, or brilliant.
I did like the way the story came full-circle and ended, and the more I dwell on it I have ever-increasing appreciation for the fascinating and worrying implications it has for this wacky old alternate universe in which we live, and the technology with which we are currently attempting to come to grips. It was this little bit of cleverness that left me unable to conclude that this story was a disgracefully lazy parody and barefaced reference-fest, and forced me to consider the possibility that it may also have actually had something to say. But make no mistake, it was also a barefaced reference-fest. But it was funny. The spells, in particular, made me laugh. At a certain point, like a black hole, unoriginality reaches critical mass and then pretty much anything can happen, if you have the right equipment at hand. And no, I'm not talking about The Mambo Wizard: Breakfast Is Served! anymore.
Sex-o-meter
We're treated to some mild canoodling and mooning, but no sex. Despite one incensed Amazon review that stated, "Not a book for small children. This author need to learn what is appropriate. I can’t imagine I could describe this book without violating amazons TOS," I cannot consider this in any way a racy or confronting story. Maybe it was Moe, arguably the most grown-up protagonist, looking like a little child? I don't know. The sex-o-meter is giving this one a dancing baby gif out of a possible gif that I can't actually describe because even if I redacted it, it would get my review dropped.
Gore-o-meter
No gore either. Half a bloody flesh-gobbet out of a possible five. This is family friendly fun for readers of all ages.
WTF-o-meter
There's quite a lot to figure out going in, but it all pans out in the end. The overall concept is high-octane WTF and the assorted cultures, technologies, settings and twists deliver an excellent balance of confusion and exhilaration, but at the end of the day the WTF-o-meter is hovering at 3.5 Matthews McConaughey screaming and trying to push books off shelves out of a possible whatever that weird multiple-hour learning annex rant video thing Matthew McConaughey actually did a while ago was.
My Final Verdict
Lahaderne describes the book as Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets Harry Potter, and the story never at any point pretends to be anything else. As such, it is exactly equal to the sum of its parts. But hey, those parts ain't bad. And if you're feeling generous, there's that black-hole-dipping multiverse explanation just sitting there, with a look of absolutely unwarranted smugness on its face, waiting to be used. I was going to give it three stars, but I am adding a star for the Dinosaur Alarm. Four stars, would commit to tape if I fished it out of a singularity.
Read
January 11, 2024This is not a full review. I read through the beginning of all 300 SPFBO9 contest entries. This was a book I wanted to read more of.
Space weirdos hurtle along their course in this absurd adventure that promises a crash landing and boy wizard and who knows what else.
Though the frame of this begins Sci-Fi, it’s clearly going to blend genres once our intergalactic travelers crash land. I haven’t gotten to that part yet, but the story is nonetheless bounding along ridiculously.
It’s cartoonish and loud and unserious in a good way. The translation notes for the bot that worked this “memior” into English add to the levity.
It’s all a bit mad, but the story feels light and fun and encourages the reader to enjoy the hijinks. I have so far. It’s easy to read and seems like it will continue to be a trip. Have a look for a laugh. This passes my test for sure.
Space weirdos hurtle along their course in this absurd adventure that promises a crash landing and boy wizard and who knows what else.
Though the frame of this begins Sci-Fi, it’s clearly going to blend genres once our intergalactic travelers crash land. I haven’t gotten to that part yet, but the story is nonetheless bounding along ridiculously.
It’s cartoonish and loud and unserious in a good way. The translation notes for the bot that worked this “memior” into English add to the levity.
It’s all a bit mad, but the story feels light and fun and encourages the reader to enjoy the hijinks. I have so far. It’s easy to read and seems like it will continue to be a trip. Have a look for a laugh. This passes my test for sure.
Read
July 11, 2023I read this for my batch of SPFBO9 books under judge Covers with Cassidy. Check out my reading vlog here: https://youtu.be/dl0dFLjXKAg
A funny book that had its shining moments, but I wish it had focused more on the breakfast magic than making it into a space-story.
A funny book that had its shining moments, but I wish it had focused more on the breakfast magic than making it into a space-story.
February 4, 2023
Incredibly fun book I can't wait for THE MAMBO WIZARD: HOT SALSA! to come out.
July 24, 2023
I received a complimentary copy of THE MAMBO WIZARD: BREAKFAST IS SERVED by Giordano J. Lahaderne from the author for the purpose of reviewing it for #SPFBO9 for the team created by @coverswithcassidy. The author also kindly sent me a finished copy!
THE MAMBO WIZARD follows an eclectic group Jeremy is a young human wizard who is good at magically creating breakfast foods, but not so good at other school pursuits, and therefore finds himself expelled from Pigpimples Academie of Magick. Moe and Zippo are space pirates from alien races, but they find themselves crash landed on earth right in Jeremy’s yard with trouble close behind.
I will admit that I didn’t know what I would be getting when a book about breakfast wizardry got put on my #SPFBO list, but I was happy to give it a read and find out. This book was really a lot of fun. The synopsis promises “swashbuckling adventure” and I think it really delivered what it promised.
The whole book is written as a ‘translated’ account of Zippo’s story. Chatterbot 2000 (ver. 3.6) starts the book with translator notes and pops up once in a while during the story to give a bit of additional information about things mentioned. This type of thing can be overdone and distract from the story, but I found that the author did well at keeping these brief and nonintrusive. They added a bit of extra humor as well.
The names in the book have a lot of humor to them. The headmage is named Chamberpot and one of the houses is Fluffernut. I think that gives you a quick idea from the start of the book of some of the silly fun that the author is including. The plot and the twists and turns faced by the characters follow suit. With the original memoir from Zippo supposedly published in 1978, there are a lot of things mentioned which give an older feel (particularly with the slang used) mixed with the scifi technology of space travel and alien races and magic.
I really enjoyed Jeremy as one of our main characters. He starts off strong saving the life of a hamster named Donut and I love the way he melded with Moe and Zippo. The trio are very different people (a human boy, an alien who resembles a short human eight year old, and a six foot hairless cat man complete with paws) but I loved the found family aspect that they created as misfits from the world.
There is a lot going on in this book between the wizardry school setting that Jeremy has been in, video games, music piracy with a black hole time twist, the breakfast food obsessions, and more, but it all worked together well. The book comes to a good conclusion as well, though there is certainly room for more adventure. Chatterbot 2000 (ver 3.6) promises there is more to come in THE MAMBO WIZARD: HOT SALSA!
This isn’t the type of fantasy and humor I necessarily gravitate toward, but I do think it did really well at accomplishing what it set out to do and what the synopsis promised! It was a fun ride and one worth checking out. Plus, I’m always in for a book that gives me a good excuse to splurge on bacon pastries! THE MAMBO WIZARD is available on Kindle Unlimited as well!
THE MAMBO WIZARD follows an eclectic group Jeremy is a young human wizard who is good at magically creating breakfast foods, but not so good at other school pursuits, and therefore finds himself expelled from Pigpimples Academie of Magick. Moe and Zippo are space pirates from alien races, but they find themselves crash landed on earth right in Jeremy’s yard with trouble close behind.
I will admit that I didn’t know what I would be getting when a book about breakfast wizardry got put on my #SPFBO list, but I was happy to give it a read and find out. This book was really a lot of fun. The synopsis promises “swashbuckling adventure” and I think it really delivered what it promised.
The whole book is written as a ‘translated’ account of Zippo’s story. Chatterbot 2000 (ver. 3.6) starts the book with translator notes and pops up once in a while during the story to give a bit of additional information about things mentioned. This type of thing can be overdone and distract from the story, but I found that the author did well at keeping these brief and nonintrusive. They added a bit of extra humor as well.
The names in the book have a lot of humor to them. The headmage is named Chamberpot and one of the houses is Fluffernut. I think that gives you a quick idea from the start of the book of some of the silly fun that the author is including. The plot and the twists and turns faced by the characters follow suit. With the original memoir from Zippo supposedly published in 1978, there are a lot of things mentioned which give an older feel (particularly with the slang used) mixed with the scifi technology of space travel and alien races and magic.
I really enjoyed Jeremy as one of our main characters. He starts off strong saving the life of a hamster named Donut and I love the way he melded with Moe and Zippo. The trio are very different people (a human boy, an alien who resembles a short human eight year old, and a six foot hairless cat man complete with paws) but I loved the found family aspect that they created as misfits from the world.
There is a lot going on in this book between the wizardry school setting that Jeremy has been in, video games, music piracy with a black hole time twist, the breakfast food obsessions, and more, but it all worked together well. The book comes to a good conclusion as well, though there is certainly room for more adventure. Chatterbot 2000 (ver 3.6) promises there is more to come in THE MAMBO WIZARD: HOT SALSA!
This isn’t the type of fantasy and humor I necessarily gravitate toward, but I do think it did really well at accomplishing what it set out to do and what the synopsis promised! It was a fun ride and one worth checking out. Plus, I’m always in for a book that gives me a good excuse to splurge on bacon pastries! THE MAMBO WIZARD is available on Kindle Unlimited as well!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews