Where Carl Has a Long Road Ahead

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It was really good. Just like they said.

I have kind of a distrust for highly-recommended books on TikTok. I find my tastes and the tastes of most reviewers--even in the genres I like--are usually so different that we just aren't compatible. Except we agree here. Well done, booktok.

The premise of this book and series, that the MC and many, many others are trapped in a Dungeons & Dragons live action to-the-death reality show is pretty funny to begin with. And there is lots of humor, lots of tongue-in-cheek dialogue, lots of comic book-style action. But it's also all real, at least in the universe of the book, and the people really are living and dying based on how they react to the dangers in this manufactured arena.

Without belaboring the details of a much-reviewed book, I'll just say it was almost exactly as entertaining as I hoped. I hoped it would have interesting action; it does. I hoped for humor; it's 21st century funny; I hoped for characters to care about; they're here, and they're quirky, and they don't just grow on the reader but they develop over the course of the plot.

The odd characters that somehow become very real reminds me of 60s and 70s and 80s-era Clifford Simak. He always had goblins and robots and neanderthals and ghosts in his science fiction and fantasy, and they were strangely compelling and sympathetic. It should have felt bizarre, but but somehow it works. There's a lot of that here. And the blend of action plot and ironic humor puts me in the mind of John Scalzi's science fiction. It's a very close match, with LOL dialogue and snark mixed with earnest, working-together-to-stay-alive action. So my guess is that you will like this if you like Scalzi. And if you don't like Scalzi--what's the matter with you?

JK. To each their own.

I'm gonna get the next one pretty quick. I read this faster by far than I usually read a book. That's my testimonial. Recommended.

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Where Charlie Gets Friggin Dolphins

Starter Villain by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very entertaining book.

I always like John Scalzi. It feels like he's using straightforward, plain language, but nobody makes me laugh more. The dialogue, the tone, the clever, smart-ass quips--never jokes--kill me. Scalzi taps into the zeitgeist in a way nobody else quite does, and he makes it work for him.

I almost gave this a 5, and still could, but it feels a little smaller than some of his other books. Lots of fun still, but I wish he gave his MC more to do. He's a good character, but his role could have been played by almost anyone. Except for a few good scenes with the other villains and some stuff with the dolphins (I won't give more spoilers than that) he doesn't contribute a lot.

That's alright. It still works.

I kinda wonder what genre this really is. I read it like SF, but it's not really. Speculative fiction still, I guess. Satire, for sure. Closer to a James Bond novel than SF, though. And again--that's alright. He can write in any genre and I'll read it.

A regular dude getting tossed into the role of a super-villain, having to face other rich villains, is a clever idea, a novel-worthy idea. Giving him friggin dolphins and friggin smart cats is just too funny.

If you like Scalzi, or if you like SF (is it SF?) that also makes you laugh, this is your book. And he's got others.

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Where Wednesday Faces Darkness and Light

Wednesday: A Novelization of Season One by Tehlor Kay Mejia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was very fun.

I'm not naturally a fan of dark-themed shows or the macabre, and I didn't really watch the show back in the day. (A little. The Munsters, too, a little. Wasn't a big thing for me.) But I felt like the TV did a good job of threading the needle between humor, macabre, camp, and mystery, creating a solid, entertaining show that honored its roots. I enjoyed the whole first season. And I think the novelization is, in some ways, even better.

Tehlor Kay Mejia does an excellent job of turning the shows and scripts into punchy prose with great pacing, and some of that can be attributed to the source material, for sure. But he also gives us Wednesday's interior monologue as the narrator, and her voice is perfectly captured, IMO. She's dark and funny and sardonic and brutal and just just barely caring. We get a perfect dead black rose with just a sprig of green, and I thought it was [chef's kiss]. The only thing I miss much is the cello and the dancing, which are hard to do in prose, but I think it was well-balanced by the revelations in Wednesday's own voice, page by page.

If you haven't seen the show, it's about Wednesday getting sent to Nevermore Academy, home to outcasts of all kinds, the school her parents attended. She doesn't care about fitting in, and makes friends and enemies without really trying--or allies and enemies, probably. There is a monster in the woods, randomly killing people in the area, and Wednesday gets involved, trying to solve the murders. She has to do this while navigating school, gossiping classmates, strange people in town, teachers and administrators who are split between helping her and controlling her, and Nevermore's own strange secrets. It's still a bit like a 60's sitcom, but it's a little more like modern dark academia.

The writer (adapter?) is primarily a YA author, and I would say that the book is aimed at a YA audience the most, but I'm an old, and I really enjoyed it. Highly recommended for fun people.

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Where Ryland Goes Way Out of His Way

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You've probably heard that this is a good book. Tons of Booktokers and Booktubers have all said so. They're so right. It's really good. I usually read a few pages a day from a book (well, 20--it's my normal chunk) but I read the whole thing in a couple days. It's the fastest I've read anything in ages, because it's too fun to set aside.

The world might be dying; a worldwide effort to crew a starship and find a solution sends our MC to one of the closer stars, where most of the story takes place. Like The Martian, this is both a hard science fiction book (with accurate physics and science in general) and very funny book (like a John Scalzi SF novel), but it's also about character and important themes and deep ideas.

And it's super fun.

No need for a synopsis with spoilers. You've probably either read the book or run across the spoilers already, but if not I'm not gonna mess with it. If you like reading books, especially science fiction, it's very unlikely you won't love this. Sweet, funny, tough, touching, exciting, terrifying--it's all in there. Too good a book not to give my highest recommendation.

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Space Opera With a Sense of Humor

The Cruel Stars by John Birmingham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the most fun I've had reading in a while.

This is the first thing I've read by this author, and I'm psyched, because I enjoyed every page of this and there are more books out there for me to grab.

Set in a future where humanity has spread out among the stars, split into a handful of polities, the story follows several interesting POV characters. These include a royal young woman, a starship commander, an old hero, a group of pirates, and others. They introduce us to the setting at different levels of society and, fortunately, start to connect pretty early in the book, pretty much right when the enemy is set among them.

Most of the humans are genetically enhanced or aided by brain implants or both. People download and install software on a moment's notice to give them skills and knowledge in a much easier way than most of us acquire it. The enemy is made up of purists who despise these changes, and they exploit the vulnerabilities of the system to start a war with a devastating first blow.

I found the characters well-drawn and sympathetic, with no POV I didn't enjoy, and they're written in a hugely entertaining way, with big personalities and excellent dialogue. Not to compare, but it made me think of John Scalzi all the way through, like his Old Man's War series or maybe Redshirts, because this has a fantastic, exciting plot with fun characters and hilarious dialogue, set in a star-traveling future with a galaxy-spanning war. There are no jokes here--just really snappy dialogue and excellent SF action.

I've read some really good books this year in several different genres, but this really hit the sweet spot in the genre that first made me a reader. I haven't read near as much SF in the last couple decades as I used to, but this kind of book will definitely bring me back.

Highly recommended.

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Where It Wore Me Out

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I thought it was some heavy going, tbh.

I've come around some on Dickens; things I once found dry as dirt can now seem charming and goofy and moderately humorous. And most of his novels have characters I can care about and hope to see have a happy ending. You root for David Copperfield or Pip or Oliver Twist, and some of his books can evoke strong feelings. I even shed a tear or two reading A Tale of Two Cities.

But this book tried my patience. It is about nothing. It's more about nothing than any book I've ever read. Some guys hang out. They go to some places. They meet some people and get invited to their place. They drink--all the time they drink--and eat some stuff.

Somebody says I have a story, and we hear the story, even if it has nothing to do with anything else in the book. (A couple of the stories were significantly more entertaining than the main plot. The ghost story set in warehouse of old carriages was actually pretty cool.)

So what's the plot? What do they want to do? What is anybody's intention? Goal? Purpose? Is there a plot in the normal sense? (My opinion is no, unless you're willing to stretch the definition of plot a long way.)

Dickens always includes a lot of nonsense, partly for the sake of satire and partly (I suspect) to pad his word count. He likes to belabor meaningless incidents and transcribe every word in every pointless conversation. It's in all his books. He really liked having minor characters talking about random stuff, especially if they have impenetrable accents. I think it's meant to be funny, and I expect there are people who actually find it funny, but I never ever ever ever do. I try to work though it patiently to get to the parts that matter in my estimation, but that pointless nonsense is the heart of this novel. If you took out the eating and drinking and irrelevant conversations, the book would be about 50 pages.

I liked his servant, who was smarter than everybody else and did some good stuff while nobody was looking. He was more often entertaining, and his contribution let me give this a barely-passing 3 in good conscience. And I liked the happy endings, though I could not tell any of the minor characters apart enough to care who was Wardle or Winkle or Tubman or Snodgrass. It didn't really matter, though. That was the problem.

This was an early work, and he makes enough adjustments to let me enjoy his later writing more. I found this pretty hard to like.

Not recommended unless you really love Dickens in general.

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Where I Liked It Better Than His Other Stuff

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this perhaps a little more than my rating suggests; I almost bumped this to a 4. But there are things Twain does that bug me enough as I read that I could only say 3 out of 5.

I mean, outside the book itself, he is critical of Jane Austen (one of my favorites) and critical of Sir Walter Scott (another favorite), and in addition I never enjoyed either Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, though I appreciate some things about both. So I came in pretty ready to be harsh.

In many ways, it's a fun book, though. Kinda science fiction, kinda comedy, plus a whole bunch of satire. I absolutely align with his criticism of medieval society, superstition (including religion), the institution of the monarchy, the reverence for "nobility," the institution of slavery, the treatment of common people in general, and the two-tiered system of justice in particular. A discouraging number of these ills still exist. But they are rightly portrayed as evils in the book--humorously, in some cases, but directly--so I stand to applaud all that.

But the book is a bit of mess when it could have been awesome. Twain's folksy aphorisms and silly slang were a tired joke long before he wrote this. (Ironically, he skewers an old joke that I have actually heard live at least once, so he's aware that humor can go stale.) He's got decent action with serious stakes and suddenly he's joking around, his MC purposely talking in incomprehensible 19th century jargon to a confused medieval man, trying to make the ridiculous juxtaposition a laugh line. I would have liked it so much more if he had played it straight with the story. Or, conversely, if he had made the whole thing a joke without any stakes, more like Daffy Duck or something, I would have enjoyed it more. The extreme literalness and naivety of the people, believing every lie, was sometimes pretty funny. But then you have slaves chained together, dying in horrible ways, like a grimdark story, and you get emotional whiplash. The mixed tones don't work.

A concrete element of plot related to this: the MC is angry at the treatment of peasants and slaves, genuinely horrified by the beatings and common application of capital punishment, but then in a few places he lets innocent people be hanged or otherwise put to death (like some mediocre musicians he didn't care for) in throwaway scenes that are meant to be ridiculous and funny. The transition from realistic to cartoony, over and over, makes it feel like nothing matters.

So--I like this better than anything else I've read by Twain. And I applaud his stance on many issues and agree with his criticisms. But it's an odd book that could have been better.

In my opinion.

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Where Only Brainworm Was Any Fun

Every Man in His Humour by Ben Jonson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was the hardest slog I've ever had reading old plays. Wow.

I'll admit, I just didn't get it. Broadly, sure--different people represent different "humours," or personality types, like those prone to anger or jealousy, and we see how that works out for them. But scene by scene? I didn't know what anybody was on about. I googled it and could hardly believe everything that had gone whoosh past me... So much cultural subtext that I thought reading Shakespeare had prepared me for. It didn't.

It was like I was watching a Monty Python sketch where everybody is talking gibberish but then start fighting. With swords. Or sticks. What is happening? Is this Punch and Judy? What are they even talking about?

The very last scene with the justice sorting out what was going on with everybody, especially what Brainworm had been up to with a whole bunch of disguises, was sort of okay. A tiny little payoff for a deep slog of a play.

I would have said much worse about the play, a full-on rant, except I looked to find a version of the play on youtube and found a couple very nice old gentlemen discussing the play with such deep interest and pleasure--for like 90 minutes--that I couldn't bring myself to hate it as much as I had to that point. I guess it makes sense to some folks. Bless 'em.

Anyway, unless I find some highly annotated version of this play, I'm never gonna give it another look. I wish there was a "No Fear Ben Jonson" series like there is one for Shakespeare...

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Where Scalzi Amuses Non-Curmudgeons

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Come on. You can tell. Just from the title (and the author) you can tell that this is gonna be awesome.

And it is.

John Scalzi has a knack for telling real science fiction stories that have an entertaining plot and characters easy to root for while still managing laugh out loud killer dialogue. Funny. Pitch perfect (it's in the book) modern voices.

Smart people (who also like each other) messing with each other.

It's my favorite.

Another thing I like about Scalzi books, beyond the way they entertain me and make me laugh, is the social critique layered in there. I'm sure it triggers sad puppies (look it up) and others of that sort, but that's a bonus. His books are heavy on diversity and light on talking about it. He has as many great female characters as male. It's just how he puts his stories together. It's a Star Trek universe way of seeing the world, and while he can still have lots of dark stuff, with bad guys and painful events, that sense of hope remains and is key.

If you know Music and Lyrics, you'll get the reference, but even without you'll understand: this book is dessert, but it's also dinner.

5 stars. No notes.

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Where Everything Will Kill You

What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like the first one, this book is awesome. Funny, informative, scientific--what else you want in a book?

A former NASA employee who knows a lot of sciency stuff, the author responds to ridiculous questions with serious (hilarious, but still serious) answers based on math and physics. For example, "What if all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops?" That idea, like a lot of them in this book, sounds pretty awesome, but the final result (spoiler, kinda) is a runaway greenhouse effect, boiling oceans, and the end of all life. Check it out--it'd be super bad. He has receipts. The whole book is kinda like that.

He's good at science, but he's also a good writer, and his tone cracks me up. The book is full of stuff like this: "The Earth is big, [citation needed]..." or a reference to the "swinging blade of death" equation, or his reply to a strange question with "Why if? Deeply ungrammatical answers to unanswerable philosophical questions." But it's all in the service of intriguing science, like how tall a swing can be that a person can still power by pumping their legs, or what would happen if you constructed a laser that vaporized incoming droplets, or whether you could make a lava lamp out of real lava. Taking goofy ideas seriously turns out to be pretty fun.

So this is a science book, and you could read it for the learning, but I enjoyed it most because it's also laugh out loud funny, which is super rare [citation needed].

Recommended.

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Where I Dig the Middle Book

The Lord of Castle Black by Steven Brust
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the middle book in the trilogy that ends this 3-book (or 5-book, depending how you look at it) series. As a result, it starts at the beginning of the middle and ends at the end of the middle, but that's cool--it works. I'm enjoying this series from start to finish, and although it doesn't give me the closure i'm eager to get to, it moves the story along well, and does so with a lot of humor and entertaining action.

I'm Team D'Artagnan from way back, and that makes me, inevitably, Team Khaavren, too. So the cataclysm at the end of the book before this trilogy, leading to Khaavren's subsequent retirement--hiding, really--and giving up on life was hard to take. We see signs in the previous book of him coming around, and in this novel he follows after his son Piro, who left home on a quest some time before. He's meant to be active and energetic, so it's good to see that change in him.

Zerika returns with the Orb in this book, a key to re-establishing the empire of old, but setting herself up as Empress is still a hard path, with thousands of troops and various enemies between herself and her partisans and their goal, the capital city of Adrilankha. An additional conflict is the love between Piro and Ibronka, one unacceptable to either set of parents. Since this series is patterned on The Three Musketeers and the succeeding volumes, one can guess how that love affair will prosper (or not), but the author isn't being slavish to the original, so I guess we'll still see.

The quaint language and ironic tone of the series still cracks me up, even after 1500 pages or so, and I'm delighted that Brust has kept it going throughout. Passages like this:

"My dear friend, you seem agitated."
"Do I?"
"So it seems."
"Well, I confess I am disturbed."
"Tell me what troubles you, then, and perhaps together we will be able to ease your mind."
"Very well, I shall do as you suggest. This is it, then."
"I am listening."

So mannered and belabored. I actually LOL while I'm reading this, which I rarely do with any other books. Well played, sir.

I will shortly be on to the last book in the trilogy. Looking forward to it. Meanwhile, fans of fantasy, especially those who admire Dumas, should hurry up and find these, if they haven't already. Super fun.

Recommended.

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Where I Laughed But Also Felt Something?

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is a success, IMO. I'm not surprised how much I liked it, because I've liked everything by Christopher Moore so far, but I was surprised at how well the risky premise worked. I feel like he really pulled it off when it would have been easy to screw it up. It's a very complete, well plotted novel that is not only funny but emotionally satisfying.

Telling the story of Jesus (Joshua here, for good reason) from the perspective of his best friend Biff (otherwise lost to history) allows Moore to do what he does best: tell irreverent, improbable stories with wit and something approaching scholarly cleverness. He does his research, and then uses it to subvert whatever play or legend or--in this case--Bible he is sourcing his ideas from. Subverting religious ideas can upset some folks, and for all I know some people were angry about this, but I found the version of Jesus here to be relatable, respectable, and genuinely believable.

Biff, meanwhile, is hilarious. His vibe is very turn-of-the century slacker, and he supplies most of the fun. But he's not stupid, and his loyalty to Jesus/Joshua, especially at the end, is emotional and touching, actually.

In the years of Jesus's life that the gospels are pretty silent about, from the age of 12 to 30, Moore has Jesus/Joshua traveling and studying in the East--in Afghanistan, in China, in India--and learning many lessons that inform his later teaching. It's not an absurd idea; there are many who think the historical Jesus could have traveled to India, where he might have acquired some of the ideas that set him so firmly against the powerful men and institutions of his time. In any case, he had 18 years where we don't know what he did, so it's kinda fun to speculate. Or straight make it up, like here. Some of the action in the story happens just to be funny, but the plot is pretty tight. The call-backs and tie-ins connect up events across the whole novel in a way you might not expect in a novel about Biff, Christ's childhood pal.

I enjoyed this all the way through. A younger version of myself might not have read it, being deeply observant of my religion until my 30s, but present me found it to be very entertaining while still being strangely respectful of the life and teachings of Jesus. I liked this Jesus/Joshua. Others might try the novel and be offended; I dunno. I wasn't.

So--recommended. Not quite for everybody, but for lots.

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Where Big Concept SF Is Funnier Than You'd Expect

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like every John Scalzi book I've ever picked up, this book is fun to read. Nobody does clever, funny, biting dialogue like him, and nobody keeps a story rolling like him. This one clicks along at a good pace and gets better as it goes, leaving me wanting the third book right now.

It's in the mail, so I'm good. :)

I saw a very negative review of this book when I was starting it, and I thought about it as I was reading. It was strange that I could sort of see the reader's point; yes, the plot often feels condensed; yes, looked at a certain way, it can feel like summary that has not been fleshed out. No, you don't get the elaborate, gritty world-building you get in some other SFF brick-like tomes. It's true. If it doesn't pertain to the plot, it's mostly not there. (The world-building we get is more than adequate, IMO, but leave that aside.) Instead of a fully-realized-down-to-the-dirt type of setting, what you get is fast-paced, witty, engaging, keep-reading-to-see-what-happens action with brilliant, laugh-out-loud dialogue. Like damn near every one of his books.

No. All of them. Seriously.

It's a good tradeoff. Kinda makes me think of Asimov, now that I'm reflecting. But Asimov was seldom this funny. And I am horribly underselling the incredible intellectual work that makes up the setting and history and background of this story and series. It's very cool and super thought-provoking. We just don't see what kind of fluorescent lights are in the grimy homes of the working class schmoes in this series; we don't see what kind of street-food regular people enjoy when they're not engaged in back-breaking labor; it flies over all that in ships like resort hotels.

I think maybe I'd like to see a big fat science fiction novel from John Scalzi, a Wheel of Time sort of creation filled with the minute details of intense world-building, because I'm sure he could pull it off. But there's almost nothing better than his 300 page books. If you're a reader stuck in a reading slump or a regular person just wanting to find a fun read, you just can't go wrong here.

IMO. As always.

This is the second in the series. Highly recommended, especially read in order... :)

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Where I Liked It and Didn't, All at Once

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this a light, brisk read, and rather enjoyed it. Fun. Funny. Some good moments. But it seemed thin, in a way, though, and I cannot be more enthusiastic, even though I don't have any heavy criticism. (I sorta feel like I do when I drink diet soda--it's sorta good, and I kinda like it, but then I don't. Not really. Same here.)

The writing is clever and witty and sort of cracked, like Willy Wonka for adults, and the action feels like a cartoon in sensibility--serious events are treated as fodder for humor. Death and damnation for laughs. That kinda works, making it possible to read a story about a monster without throwing it across the room, but it makes me a little unhappy just the same.

I liked the ending and found it satisfying for the kind of make-a-bet-with-the-devil story we find ourselves in. And though I acquired some sympathy for the main character, I still don't like him, which makes it a harder sell for me to go on to the sequels.

I like the premise, at least--a necromancer making a bet with the devil to try to win back his soul--and if the thought of that contest in a humorous fantasy sounds good to you, you might be the exact audience for this. I'm close, but not quite it.

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Fantasy Three Musketeers. Come on! What Could Be Better?

The Phoenix Guards by Steven Brust
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't know how it happens that I haven't read anything by Steven Brust yet. I've seen his books hundreds of times. Having passed by his books once or twice, I made a habit of it, I guess.

Big mistake.

It was only when I finished the D'Artagnan romances that I discovered that this group of books is modeled on them but set in his usual fantasy world. That sold it for me. The plot has echoes, for sure, but the most perfect correlation is between his main characters and the original Three Musketeers plus D'Artagnan. With loving satire, he recreates them and their milieu--reimagined, to be sure, but still unmistakable--and, especially, the fearless, nonchalant violence you find in the original.

I loved the cadence of their dialogue, which resembled (and exaggerated, perhaps) the original, but was perfect for their devil-may-care attitude throughout. Here's a sample, with Aerich talking to Khaavren:

"So, you wish to hear my plan?"
"Kieron's Boots! I've been asking for nothing else for an hour!"
"Very well, here it is: instead of taking this road, turn rather to the north."
"How, the north?"
"Exactly."
"That's your advice?"
"In its entirety."
"Yet, I fail to see how that will solve the problem."
"Then I will explain."
"I am most anxious for you to do so."

I laughed out loud many times, but even though it's clever and amusing it's never absurd. There's a perfect internal consistency throughout.

I'll admit, the plot is somewhat ragged. IMO. But the story rolls along with so much to enjoy (like a Dumas novel) that I didn't miss it. Just let the four guards and do their thing.

Recommended 29 years after the fact. Sorry it took me so long. :)

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Where I Contemplate a More Hopeful World

The Mouse on the Moon by Leonard Wibberley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On rereading this book after about 40 years--I still liked it.

It's a slim book and a quick read; somewhat realistic and somewhat farcical; quite satirical and quite funny. Taken together, it's a winner.

This isn't biting satire, but whimsical, though it isn't less effective for that. It still forces the reader to think from the perspective of citizens of small nations and maybe reconsider (as an American) how much we walk on other people without considering their rights.

In some ways, the first novel and this sequel are both science fiction, imagining a world where a tiny nation develops some key new technology and uses it to leapfrog the superpowers in importance and genuine power. This science--a type of nuclear bomb in the first novel and a new type of nuclear power in the second--dismantles the power balance of the time (1960s).

It's a nice thought experiment, and the author uses it to tell a gentle satire on the politics of that time. It's also got a little comedy, a little romance, and international politics, making it easy to see why it was made into a movie.

So, good fun. I almost would give it all the stars except I don't want to oversell it. It's pleasant and amusing, and you would probably like it.

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Shakespearish, but Just the Naughty Bits

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I must be the right audience for this. I found this very funny, very amusing, very entertaining, all the way through. I even went and re-read Merchant of Venice to make sure I knew the source material. Worth it.

This novel blends characters and plot elements of Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and Shakespeare's "Othello" and "Merchant of Venice." I enjoyed the clever weaving of those elements into one plot just as much as I enjoyed the banter and silliness.

Some reviewers decry the constant sex-themed humor. I get it. Not for everyone. I might point out there is also bathroom humor.

Actually (pushes up glasses) the humor that really lands for me was the way Pocket annoys people and frustrates them with his constant joking. (Made me think of Hawkeye in M*A*S*H.) That's who he is. The rudeness is the point, and everyone else's reactions is what made me laugh. (Yes, I laughed.) Jessica's bad temper and pirate talk is the same thing--funny on its own, but funnier in the way that it shows her character and exasperates others. And the giant Drool, childish, profane, and incorrigible, is a crowd pleaser. One would imagine.

I also found the 4th-wall-breaking chorus hilarious.

(Like I say, I was the right audience for this.)

And there were some happy ending surprises to the story that I really appreciated. That's spoilery enough just to mentioning it, so I won't go on, but if you prefer your stories to have happy endings, this is the book for you.

So, turns out this is sort of a sequel to a book I haven't read, but I took the precaution of buying it already, so it's TBR. The main character, Pocket, inhabits the story of King Lear (apparently) so I need to go reread that one, too. It's been a long while. But I'm looking forward to both.

If you like Shakespeare and NSFW humor, check this out. Recommended.

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A Fixer-Upper Spy

The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that is pretty good all the way through and then really good in the last 50 pages or so. I liked it, then I really liked it.

It's a clever premise--a sort of eons-long spy-versus-spy struggle taking place under our very noses, with eternal beings piggybacking on certain humans throughout history (back to the dinosaurs, even) and fighting for supremacy. Many famous people hosted one of these beings, but this story is about an unlikely hero who gets chosen at random. He's out of shape, awkward, uninspiring, unmotivated, and not a good candidate for clandestine work. His gradual acceptance of a weird situation and a long, painful training is both realistic and funny, though I identified with the poor sod enough to feel pretty attacked through a lot of chapters.... ;)

When the drama gets personal, the action gets really good, and I read it with a lot of pleasure. I think book two has a good shot at being even more fun, and I'm gonna take a look to see if I'm right.

Recommended. Follow the author on twitter, too

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I Should Just Say "Scalzi" and Dispense with Further Comment. Of Course It's Awesome.

Head On by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is called a stand-alone novel, which it is in a way, but it's second in the Lock In series, and it's a solid sequel, IMO. Based on my highly objective method of evaluation, scoring a book on whether I have to make myself read more (just good enough to finish, 3), enjoy but have to push myself a bit in places (good, not ideal, 4), or read it whenever I can because I'm having a good time (there ya go! 5!), this is a 5. Scalzi is always fun to read, and this is no exception.

The premise of the series--a future where a fraction of the citizens, after being stricken with a disease, are unable to move themselves but are able to interact with the world via robot bodies--is creative and thought-provoking. The plot here, an investigation into the strange death of a famous locked-in person, is partly science fiction, partly police procedural, and an enjoyable, fast-moving example of both. But, as always, it's Scalzi's language and humor that sets it apart.

(Though I considered it, I'm not going to try to give an example. Like any good TV show [Deadwood, I'm looking at you], the humor emerges from the characters and their interactions, not the punch lines, and that is the case here. The main character's smart, often ironic tone is a permanent setup for humor.)

I'm sure a book club could spend a lot of time talking about deeper issues the novel deals with--the power of money and corporations, the position of sports in society, the general ignorance about people with disabilities, and many more--and I like that the book poses some questions and offers some thoughts about them, but that's a bonus for me. Reading it generated quite a bit of thought, and if one is looking for that, well, here ya go. Lots to think about.

For me, though? I mostly just liked laughing at Agent Vann intimidating everybody she dealt with. She's scary, and it works.

Recommended.

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Where I Forgo Any Effort at Understatement

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think John Scalzi is some kind of genius.

He's got all the tools to write amazing science fiction--creating clever plots with incredible characters, spot-on pacing, rapid-fire dialogue, stimulating ideas, and always, always with sparkling wit. This is science fiction, not humor, but he's funnier than any of the guys writing humor. (You know, IMO.)

This is the story of a future human empire in space, one where ships go only where the flow runs, so only a few dozen systems are inhabited. The premise of the novel, emblazoned on the cover, is that their empire is on the verge of collapse. The flow is going to stop, making travel between systems impossible, which will condemn most communities to a slow death.

So that's fun.

For reals, though. It actually is. That's his genius. He makes science fiction fun and funny and a pleasure to read. Kiva Lagos, with her potty mouth and terrifying personal style, is scary and hilarious. Cardenia Wu is great. Her friend Naffa is a crackup. Marce, his sister, his father--all cool. The plotting and dialog--dead on. Scalzi writes funny, clever science fiction with terrific characters and a fast action that makes me want to keep reading. Just for fun.

That's a gift is what that is.

Five stars. I think it's clear I'm recommending this.

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