Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League, Et Al: A Compendium of Evils

Buckaroo Banzai & the Hong Kong Cavaliers #2

by Earl Mac Rauch

A world-class hero confronts ancient "supernatural" evils in an adventure that spans entire planets and defies everyday notions of reality!

Still mourning the losses of his beloved Penny Priddy and his surrogate father Professor Hikita, Buckaroo Banzai must also contend with the constant threat of attack from his immortal nemesis Hanoi Xan, ruthless leader of the World Crime League. To make matters worse, Planet 10 warrior queen John Emdall has sent her Lectroid legions against Earth with a brutal ultimatum. Or is her true target Buckaroo Banzai? As the apocalyptic threats continue to mount, only Buckaroo and his Hong Kong Cavaliers stand in the way of global destruction.

The long-awaited sequel to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is finally here after more than 35 years! As told by the Reno Kid to Buckaroo Banzai chronicler E.M. Rauch, this tale follows everyone's favorite scientist-surgeon-entertainer-daredevil as he sets off on a brand-new hair-raising adventure!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Media Tie In

624 pages, Hardcover

First published November 16, 2021

About the author

An American novelist and screenwriter, best known for writing the screenplays for A Stranger Is Watching, New York, New York and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 1 out of 5]

I honestly don't know who is crazier: Earl Mac Rauch, for writing this, or his publisher, for reading the insanity he handed them and thinking, "yeah, this is a book."

For those not familiar with the property "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" was a film produced in 1984 from a screenplay by Earl Mac Rauch. The film was a weird sci-fi action comedy about world renowned scientist/brain surgeon/rock star/secret agent Buckaroo Banzai, who has to prevent the destruction of earth by an alien race out to kill their deposed former dictator who now resides on earth, trapped in the body of a mental patient. To the extent the film works it's because it's very silly but played utterly straight. The film ends with the assurance that Buckaroo Banzai will return in 'Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League.' The film flopped but later found love as a cult film.

Rauch later wrote a novelization of the film which played further into the faux-seriousness: the book purported to be a chronicle written by one of Buckaroo's bandmates trying to explain, in very literary prose, what actually happened when they went up against the evil alien Lectroids as opposed to the dramatization that was the 1984 film. The book touches on Buckaroo's clashes with the evil Hanoi Xan, a "yellow peril"-type villain at the head of the World Crime League. This book, released 37 years later, purports to finally tell that story.

Unfortunately it's utter nonsense, with long, meandering, pointless dialogue scenes carelessly stitched into a threadbare retread of the plot of the film (alien dictator loose on earth, other aliens prepared to destroy world to stop him, only Buckaroo can save the day, etc) with no actual conflict involving the World Crime League. And when I say the dialogues are long, meandering, and pointless, I am if anything underselling them. One argument between two characters goes on across multiple chapters and consists largely of insults and dick jokes, with one of the characters speaking broken English in a way that might be offensive if it wasn't so inept. We're treated to at least two sequences where Buckaroo diagnoses an Air Force general's medical problems (including erectile dysfunction, daddy issues, and a variety of STDs for comic effect.) The general produces no particular effect on the plot, so this comes off as a bad gag at best. There's so much padding here, and while Rauch's writing style can be a bit amusing in an over-the-top way, by the time I was halfway through the book I was tired of it.

A fair bit of the book involves an exploration of the philosophy shared by Buckaroo and his fellows at the Banzai Institute, which I will single out because of how incredible bizarre it is. In the world of Banzai, adherence to scientific reasoning is paramount, but every form of pseudoscience is revealed to be at worst an incomplete grasp of some genuine scientific reality. So we hear talk about orgone energy, and the luminous aether, and the healing powers of energy therapy. The word "quantum" is liberally bandied about to explain anything remotely mysterious. We're also told that Buckaroo's code focuses on honest self-knowledge and improvement coupled with a rejection of merely material things, yet we're also told frequently how adopting his philosophy has made his followers fabulously wealthy: one woman has a seven-figure deal to sell her cookware; another is making bank selling combat robots to the military. So enlightenment is swell, but make sure you get those dollar bills, y'all.

What an absolute, inexplicable misfire. Who on earth read this 700 page madman's opus and decided it belonged in bookstores?

[Tom Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The adventures of famed rock star/scientist/surgeon/adventurer Buckaroo Banzai continue in this weighty tome, wherein our hero encounters generals, popes, and presidents, while doing battle with Red Lectroids and the evil Hanoi Xan, leader of the World Crime League.

This book defies expectations, to say the least, both those of readers looking for a proper sequel to the film "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension" and those expecting a certain type of adventure based on the title of the book. As I stated to friends on Facebook, the book not only defies expectations, it buries them upside-down on sanctified land and takes a whiz on them.

Some may find this surprising as the book is written by Earl Mac Rauch, creator of Buckaroo Banzai and screenwriter of the aforementioned film. Those who've followed his work on the character since perhaps will be less so, as the conceit of his stories is that he chronicles them with Reno, one of Buckaroo's Hong Kong Cavaliers, with the film existing within the larger fictional universe as an in-universe dramatization of one of the great man's adventures.

Rauch is either a certified genius or a complete nut. The book is a slow burn, with much of the actual action occurring in the second half of the book. Much of the novel is gloriously self-indulgent, full of world-building, offbeat characters, and rampant philosophizing. The characters are all writ large, with the main character virtuous, intelligent, and sympathetic (though self-admittedly not unflawed), with the bad guys deceitful, disturbed, and degenerate. The prose is chock full of adjectives and metaphors, such that the reader may at times feel they are having to wade through them like molasses.

The story takes time to develop, at times dwelling on characters and events not directly pertinent to the main plot, and is chock full of absurdities, much more than it's film predecessor. Characters flit in and out of the narrative, some given significant time before disappearing completely, others given little time but notable for having appeared at all (one such being explicitly identified as a cameo), and some characters and storylines fail to be resolved. (Fear not, though, as further adventures are promised, though even that must be taken with a grain of salt given the film's end advertisement of a sequel.)

This is, ultimately, a book that by all rights should not work, yet I found myself engaged throughout, even as characters spent pages in overly descriptive insults of one another, as well as far too many occurrences of characters losing control of their bodily functions. Was it from enjoyment or the fascination of witnessing a train wreck that one cannot tear one's eyes from? I've concluded that there may be a bit of both, though my star rating reflects the personal fun I had in reading it. Fair warning, though, I expect this to be very polarizing, with little middle ground between thoroughly enjoying the book and utterly despising it. For my part. I'm pleased to see Buckaroo and the crew back, even if it's not quite the way I expected.

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Life is too short for bad wine or lousy books. I got to just over 200 pages into this thing before I gave up. I just want to state for the record that I am a big fan of the movie, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension" so I came in ready for overly complicated plots, too many characters, and over-the-top dialog. I loved the ridiculous nature of the movie and appreciated the self-aware too-muchness of it. But this booked just sucked. It is just badly written with dialog scenes that go on for chapters and add nothing to the plot. Most of the characters have the same voice so its tedious to tell them apart. Several pages are devoted to describing bizarre medical ailments of the villains that go on and on. Its full of unnecessary and infantile, generally homoerotic, sexual references -- I've never read a book where so many characters genitalia were described. This, combined with the fact that all of the cuss words are misspelled (e.g., motherphawker, shite) gives this whole thing the feeling that it was written by a 12-year-old boy. Maybe that's what the author was going for. Maybe this is all one massive satire, but it's a tedious one that's over 500 pages long. I don't care enough to go on.

[Derek · Rating 1 out of 5]

I first watched the movie via screen-projected VCR in a college coffeehouse venue, surrounded by raucous enthusiasts but myself only there on account of the campy-awesome title. And I still remember the collective raspberry at the movie's final placard notifying the view of the imminent sequel Buckaroo Banzai Against The World Crime League. (And this was a campus whose main computer center lab had systems named after the major characters.)

Fast forward to January 2022.

There's no getting around the fact that the quirkiness of the original material has turned Hunter S Thompson feral and is starting to gnaw the furniture. Rauch was apparently allowed to indulge his pent-up Banzai ideas and is clearly taking every possible opportunity to flood them forth.

Practically none of it lands. The Reno Kid narrates with a dense style that is hard to muscle through. Lunatic characters fill their stage time with incoherent ranting. Phantasmagoria surrounds simple-seeming events. Everything seems dipped towards vulgar displays. And at page one hundred where I gave up, it was impossible to say what has actually transpired or where it was going, other than characters jabbering at one another and being unnecessarily weird.

Admittedly the author takes a unique angle to get through this without turning Hanoi Xan into yet another repellent Fu Manchu figure: he is apparently not Asian and even more unhinged than the rest.

I can't say what I was expecting out if this. Certainly another freewheeling adventure modeled after Doc Savage and the like, and with a coherent plot-based story. But this felt throw-it-at-the-wall experimental and not in a way where there are depths to be plumbed. This is crass, unstructured, and excessive. Possibly "everyone is crazy" parodic and maybe the intent was to set up Buckaroo as the gravity well around which this insanity orbits but that doesn't happen or doesn't happen early enough.

[Books Over People · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tapping out. There is a 250 page book in here that I would read.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bonkers sprawl of a novel!
The moments that gleam come together like many flecks of mica to make this massive granite boulder a thing of wonder.

[Drew Freak · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a deconstruction of fandom. Of life as seen from someone born in the twentieth century and makes you feel like you took a hallucinogenic that was stronger than you anticipated.

This book is so far the only thing that seems to be an adequate summation of living in the post trump (hopefully it will stay that way) era.

A glorious trainwreck of a novel with some interesting ideas and possibly the single most condensed euphoric-inducing level of lunacy I have ever read.

I like getting messed up on weird and or bizarre fiction but I am in this case more akin to say not sure if it was surreal or just phawked up.

Words fail me for the first time in my life (I read the last hundred pages of the novel at a gallop and am utterly overwhelmed and going against my best judgment to not wait to write a review.)

The writing is overwrought and drawn out but is so funny that there can be no doubt E. M. Rouch had complete control of himself when he wrote this novel. The message remains the same but he more than humanizes Banzai by the end of the book, making him a flawed character unable to react to what is going on like everyone else (including this reader). Then ends the book by making the guy a god-emperor.

Certainly, I think I know what the basic idea was. Do a deconstruction of pulp/superheroes all the while staying true to the form of that particular genre. On these terms, I can not argue that he succeeded.

The metagames of Buckaroo thinking at one he was a character in a fiction or the character in an RPG are cute. The main metagame seems to be on the reader of which the punchline last sentence most closely surmises this whole story is supposed to be set in our world and so is true... At once playing on the absurdities of our current reality and also on the idea of Buckaroo Banzai himself.

I wish things had wrapped up in any sort of significant way but honestly, I have more questions about the characters, Realty, and my own sanity than I did before reading this book.

Not sure I can recommend it but it is readable. Not for everyone but I loved actually reading it myself. I enjoy lowbrow humor and this made me laugh a lot. It's almost like Rauch couldn't decide what direction to take the story so he decided to go with all of them. For better or worse, this is what we got. To quote the God emperor of the earth "no matter where you go there you are."

One last thing if you got stuck on the first two hundred or so pages like me... keep reading at the risk of losing your own sanity.

[Julie Bozza · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow. Well. After decades of hoping for the impossible dream of a new Buckaroo Banzai novel - and by the original author, too - this has been one hell of an experience. I spent most of it thinking, "If it wasn't Earl Mac Rauch, I'd say commit the man."

The novel started well, with a grand introduction, which established Hanoi Xan as (possibly) a creature who has lived 6000 years, with a tour through his various appearances in human history. Then a relatively banal chapter establishing B. Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers in their current form, set maybe two or three years after the first novel. OK, I thought, now we have the exposition out the way, it'll pick up from here.

But then we have four chapters dealing with a plethora of villains, all madly rambling and fixated on the scatological... Which all seemed pointless. Yes, it set up a global life-or-death challenge for Buckaroo, but very little of it seemed of any other interest.

Once we get back to Buckaroo himself, we find he seems broken by the loss of Penny - and that was interesting, to see the great man brought so low and vulnerable. He finds the inner strength to rise to the global challenge, which is all well and good. But for such a long book, very little actually happens. There's very little actual plot (and I know I'm not a plotty author myself). This is all ramblings and digressions, from both the villains and the BBIs - and I got no sense at all that a second reading would tease out meanings that would only come clear in full context.

There are good bits - a clever observation here, or turn of phrase there, an entertaining exchange of dialogue elsewhere. But these were few and far between. I liked Penny and how she handled her situation, and how this foreshadowed what later happens to Buckaroo (but we never got back to Penny later in the book, and I suppose we must wait for the promised / threatened sequel). There were suitable respects paid to the departed Rawhide. There were more women characters, and the introduction of intrepid reporter Mona Peeptoe. But even the BBIs hanging out together at the bunkhouse was spoiled by a male BBI going on and on at an uninterested Pecos about how much he loved her, backed up by "Perfect" Tommy. Maybe a realistic account of relations between men and women of the time, but not something that makes for a great read in the 2020s. And even back in the 1980s, would Buckaroo really recruit such immature people or let that sort of thing go on?

The penultimate chapter is told on a grand scale, balancing out the grand intro - and it's weirdly compelling (and unexpected!) at times. But if this novel wasn't about B. Banzai and his team, I wouldn't have made it past the second chapter.

I am more baffled than bitter in my disappointment. If the sequel is ever published, and isn't just a tease, I'll read it. (Do you hear me, Dark Horse Books?) And you can just try prying my BBI badge from my cold dead hands (along with the Oxford comma). But... wow.

Now, where's the fix-it fan fic, and what can it possibly do with this?

[Jean-françois Virey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thirty-eight years ago, my (much) younger self was made a promise: that his hero Buckaroo Banzai would return in Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League.
A few years ago, director Kevin Smith appeared to be about to make good on that promise, but it all petered out.
So when this bloated tome of more than six hundred dense pages (probably four times as many words as in the printed report that accompanied the film), I owed it to my younger self to read it, though it was only to discover at the end that this is only half of what was coming, and that our hero is expected to return in "Buckaroo Banzai Emperor of the Earth" (though if that takes another thirty-eight years, I very likely will not be around anymore.)
It's hard for me to say what I thought of this True Story (as it says in the text) told by the most literary of the Hong Kong Cavaliers, who was a firsthand witness of the second time Buckaroo saved our planet from an alien invasion (remember that commotion on St Peter's square?)
My big disappointment is that although Reno himself considers his book to be juvenilia, and therefore fit for innocent minds, it is actually full of profanities, with virtually no page exempt from either the f-word (transliterated "phawk") or references to genitals, bodily orifices, excrements and natural functions. This was a little too much for me, and I do wish the editors had insisted on keeping the novel more in line with the language of the original book and movie (the only precedent I can think of for below-the-belt references there was the mispronunciations of John Bigboote's name.) Perfect Tommy in particular was so foul-mouthed that I ended up picturing him as some cranky seventy-year-old redneck rather than a bleached top model. This is sad, for me, because the Hong Kong Cavaliers are associated with a certain kind of mid-eighties elegance, bordering on foppishness. Even Mona Peeptoe, the foot-fetish model Reno lusts after, is dragged down into the author's obsession with body fluids at one point.
The whole thing is a kind of hallucinatory, surrealistic, tongue-in-cheek, epic mess of a book, with glorious moments and quite a few tedious passages (such as several pages of Perfect Tommy's childish bickering with another team member, Jhonny (sic).)
The World Crime League actually has very little to do with the sequence of events, and its chief, Hanoi Xan, a cross between Lo Pan and the Marquis de Sade, is so lost in the general mayhem that I just had to check his name again for this review (admittedly, I'm very tired right now.)
Reno's writing style is generally excellent (especially in the deliciously old-fashioned "Author's Preface") but one of his tics quickly became annoying: that of ending a paragraph with suspension marks, and starting the next with suspension marks and the word "as". Since the book is full of literary allusions, I wonder if that's a convention of pulp literature or something (was that the way Kenneth Robeson wrote?), in which case, I'd be more lenient.
I read the whole thing, without skimming, and I will probably be reading the sequel, if it ever materialises, so I couldn't give it less than three stars, and some of it did feel like five-star material (there are whole chapters in there that I used to think only A. A. Attanasio could have written.) But I am well aware that much of the appeal of the book to me is that it enables me to reconnect with my teenage self, just like the people in their late fifties who still like to listen to New Wave albums.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an extremely frustrating book. On the one hand, it's a delight to step back into this world and revisit these characters again. On the other, the story feels too unfocused and unwieldy, and the writing is just flat-out awful. It feels like Rauch was trying to emulate the florid dialogue of Deadwood, but he just doesn't have the knack to make it pop like the writers of that great show did. I also feel like the decision to bring back John Whorfin was a mistake, as he takes the spotlight away from Hanoi Xan and the World Crime League, who barely fit into the narrative despite getting top billing in the title. I would have much preferred to follow Buckaroo and the Hong Kong Cavaliers as they quashed a completely different threat rather than one rehashed from the film. Here's hoping the next book is better.

[Scott Mattson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was horriby disappointed in this book. I love the Buckaroo Banzai movie, I have seen it dozens of times. This book is no where near as good. The story is a lot longer than needed. There not a lot of Action. It's called against the World Crime League, but whoever they are, we don't know since they are not really involved in the book. Hanoi Xan started out as a main focus of the story, but then he kind of gets left to the wayside. There is a lot of hard to follow dialouge and odd characters that take away from the story. I got the movie for the movie, but am now leary of reading it.

[Jefferson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Buckaroo Banzai fans are likely to be disappointed by this convoluted, unreadable mess of a sequel. The characters have the same names but are otherwise unrecognizable -- this book contains none of the charm or style of the original film.

[Erik · Rating 1 out of 5]

A fine collector's item.

A terrible book.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good grief, but this is one gaud-awful train wreck of a book. Like others who have provided reviews, I am a long-time fan of all things Banzai, starting with multiple viewings of the film when it was in its original release way back in the day. I pinned great hopes on Kevin Smith's ill-starred attempt to resurrect the IP about ten years back, only to be disappointed. So it was with great enthusiasm that I purchased a copy of this latest adventure when I became aware of its existence.
If you have read the original Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension book, originally released in conjunction with the film, you need to be aware that this book is vastly different in structure, length, and style, even though both books have the same author. What changed? I dunno. Maybe it has to do with the fact that EM Rauch is about 40 years older than he was when the first book was penned (in his 70's now versus his 30's then). I'm reminded of the differences in Robert Heinlein's writing between his early days and his much later, "dirty old man" phase near the end of his career. And "dirty old man" certainly seems to be Rauch's mindset in this book. Scatalogical references, digestive upsets, descriptions of genitalia, and all manner of deviant musings pervade the book. It is densely written, yet so much of this densely-packed material does not propel the narrative but wanders off on tangents and down rabbit holes. A showdown between the Hong Kong Cavaliers and the World Crime League, foreshadowed in the book's title, never materializes. Hanoi Xan is depicted as more of a brain-addled pervert than the scheming overlord of a world wide crime syndicate. Penny Priddy appears, but her presence adds nothing.
Is the book a total loss? Not total to me, but beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. I gritted my teeth through the first half, determined to finish, and in the next quarter of the book a stride seemed to be established, only to veer into a totally inane ending. A few sections I found quite amusing (for the right reasons), but overall, what a disappointment. The last page promises another installment to follow. Not sure I'll buy it, if and when it appears, and if it takes as long to appear as this volume did, then I likely won't be around to see it anyway.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Intercepted message. Transcript begins) “…kes, Blue Blaze Irregular, Texas chapter. Dr. Banzai: Greetings! Thank you for soliciting my commentary (and that of select other Irregulars) regarding the historical narrative titled Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League et al. This proved to be a thrilling account of what arguably may be your greatest adventure. I do not think I’m going out on a limb by saying this tome will most likely be of more interest to those of us who are already inculcated into the “Banzai culture” rather than those who are not. And I must add that there is an element of sexual sadism present I found distasteful and I am no prude. However I also comprehend the necessity of presenting an unalloyed account of events (warts and all as they say) and find myself applauding your integrity, as always-I am sure you insisted on a frank factual book. In the shorthand of book reviewers everywhere I have given this four stars, and hope my comments have been, if not insightful then at least constructive. Always a pleasure to communicate with you-due to current events however I must reign in my normal loquaciousness. We may have a Hanoi Xan sighting in…” (Transcript ends.)

[Dave Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really loved the original Buckaroo Banzai by Earl Mac Rauch, then loved the film created from the book. Fun, silly, not too self-important. This ostensible sequel, however, written by "The Reno Kid" with Mac Rauch is just awful. Really disappointing, it's so poorly written in a "look how erudite I am writing with so many polysyllabic words" style that the prose is impenetrable and there might not even be a storyline. I got about 50 pages in and just couldn't stomach any more, asking myself "is this fun? Is this worth continuing to read?"

Easily the most disappointing book I tried to read this year. I hope that someday an actual book editor might slash through this dreck, rewrite it to have a narrative arc, and pull out a fun 250-page book on the continuing adventures of cult hero Buckaroo Banzai, but it'd be quite a job. Meanwhile, avoid this like the plague; even if you love Buckaroo, this is just a fail.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Starting this review with the caveat that I have a great fondness for Buckaroo Banzai's movie- indeed, the whole concept of a rockstar-surgeon-super genius engineer.

This sequel, however, was bad. It was overly long, rambling, and obsessed with scatalogical humor- it felt as though every page or so had long descriptions of how so-and-so character passed gas, for example.

I powered through the full book just to say that I gave it a fair chance. And after 600+ pages, I was weary and just ready for the book to end.

[John Evdemon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am very sad to report that the book is bloody awful. I love this film so much that it actually hurt to realize that this is such a poorly written book. There are also several disgusting and tasteless moments in the book that have a very different tone from the film. I sadly donated the book to my library. #NotMyBuckaroo

[Rebecca]

Written in a sort of academic tone that I just couldn't get into.

[Dan Becker · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've been waiting for this story since the movie's end credits teased it in 1984... but I couldn't make it even to p100. Hard pass.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am so disappointed with this book. The story underneath the needlessly wordy, dry, and convoluted narration is interesting, but it's a complete chore to push through.

[Kirby Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5/5 I’m not even mad. I’m just disappointed.

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of interesting ideas, but really dense and a slog of a read.

[Monica Farfan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, but also a slog in some places due to dialog. The reader gains more insight into the workings of The Banzai Institute the Blue Blazer Irregulars, and the complexities of the villian Hanoi Xan.

[Tommy]

DNF Page 107. This is a mess.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, many mixed feelings about this one.
Love Buckaroo Banzai and have been waiting for this sequel for about 35 years that seeing the cover art offered on amazon gave me goosebumps.

But, while there are moments of magic, it's not a great book.
and part of the problem is this isn't the sequel book we would have gotten if the movie had been made.
This is the book we get when the author has been scribbling and thinking about BB vs WCL for 35 years and who has also realized this may be his only chance, so decided to empty his file cabinet.

It's a mess, every scene goes on for three pages longer than it needs to, ideas tossed in that add nothing to the main story or are that interesting, end up going nowhere, too many moments where Rauch thinks he's Kurt Vonnegut and/or throws in a bunch of sex and bodily functions, just because he can get away with it.

BB is one of my favorite things in the world, but at its heart, it is pulp, yes, it's pulp written by a science/philosophy major who has eaten way too much sugar, but it was never meant to be 600 pages long.
Pulp is tight and focused.
This is bloated, meandering and convinced it's so clever that we are hanging on its every word.
and we aren't.
By page 400, we are skimming.

But, when the story clicks and when Rauch focuses on BB, the cavaliers and the actual plot, rather than the rambling philosophy and smirky humor, you remember why you love this stuff.
They are great characters, and the surreal pulp vibe and sense of adventure are so much fun and he does some interesting things with familiar tropes.

Buckaroo has been through some stuff, and is having a bit of a mid-life, which is a bad time for his arch-foe Hanoi Xan to be up to something, a secret government cabal is collecting left over Lectroid tech and John Whorfin might not be as dead as we thought.
Its going to push him to his limits, as he races around the world, and beyond, to deal with it.

One of those tropes that Rauch does interesting things with is Xan.
He dives deep into his Fu Manchu type vibe and give him some depth and history and a sense of menace.
Xan, who also is having a bit of a mid-life, which is a bit fascinating, and almost makes up for how little he actually contributes to the plot and how involved he is in the whole arc of how problematically bad Penny is treated.

So, basically this is only for obsessed Blue Blaze Irregulars, as it is dense and self-indulgent beyond belief, but if you put up with Rauch, you will stumble on some moments of magic.

Maybe, if he gets to do a third book, Rauch will have an editor and we'll get a better book.







.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will be a big time WTF experience for anyone who has not read the original Earl Mac Rauch novelization of Across the 8th Dimension. If you have only seen the movie I warn you, this is next level crazy with a very particular and peculiar narrative voice supplied by the Reno Kid. I loved this book, but I guarantee many who come to this unprepared will flee in horror and disappointment. You have been warned.

[Ken Jones]

Terrible

[Charley Todd · Rating 1 out of 5]

Words cannot express how awful this book is. I started reading this book two days of after it came out, in 2021. I simply could not make myself read it, but I finally finished it today. It is a mess with very little plot, poor sentence structure, and crude sexual references. In addition to that, there are scenes of drugging and rape of Penny by Hanoi. He also becomes a hero at the end saving Buckaroo, Tommy, and a few others. The Catholic Church, including the pope, are described sexually, including anal penetration by John W., resulting in a merge of the two. Buckaroo ends up being forced into sexual relations with Empress John, and then portrayed to enjoy it physically. The last straw was when Buckaroo is portrayed to be a Jesus character, including being treated as such by the pope.

[Dawn-Lorraine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Such a disappointment after such a long wait and so much hype. I somehow made it through more than 100 pages before giving up. The writing is a mess and everything is so random, but not in a fun "I can't wait to see how this ties together" kind of way.