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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Chock full of dumb!, July 19, 2002
This review is from: Bikini Planet (Mass Market Paperback)
Oh, so this novel was supposed to be funny. Well let me tell you, I read this while I was waiting for a flight out of Chicago O'Hare and I would have to say that this novel was roughly as amusing as the random search and pat down I got to go through before boarding the plane. David Garnett is trying to be Terry Pratchett or perhaps Harry Harrison. Unfortunately writing science fiction is hard and writing funny science fiction is even harder. This book is a pointless waste of money. One of the cover blurbs on the book says that "A billion monkeys working for a billion years couldn't come up with this one" I take that as a testimony to the writing abilities of the lower primates and not as a recommendation for this book.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Blurbs Lie, January 30, 2003
This review is from: Bikini Planet (Mass Market Paperback)
The blurbs on the inside front page were the funniest things in the book. It is not even remotely on the level of PG Wodehouse or Douglas Adams, and I doubt any of the people giving testimonials even read the book. It simply isn't very funny. The author develops bizarre settings and situations, but the joy of reading Wodehouse or Adams is the way the sentences are constructed, the craftsmanship used, the delightful metaphors and similes. The writing here is pedestrian and largely unimaginative. Garnett may develop into a humorous writer, but right now the book is painless, but NOT VERY FUNNY. The reason I am mad is that I was mislead by the promising blurbs. Those writers were ..., and should be taken to task. If any of them think this comes close to Hitchhiker's Guide, they immediately lose all credibility. The plot is crazy, which is fine, but it is not logical within its own definition of reality. A character can exist as a man and a woman, separately, with no attempt at an explanation. How can this be? Just because. Sounds like something I'd hear on a playground in elementary school. Just because. Lots of things don't make sense. Keep repeating' "Just because." Incidentally, this book will most appeal to lust-crazed juveniles, as it describes how the main character (a virgin until the middle of the book) and his gorgeous companion manage to end up naked and copulating over-and-over again. Never in a mainstream SF book have characters been naked so long. I guess that's the farce angle of the book. However, the sex is PG-13 rated, and the situations truly are out of a teen-ager's fantasies. Is it farce? Is it satire? Is it interesting? Maybe, no, and no. Not what I was expecting, and not on the level of PG Wodehouse or Douglas Adams. And finally, not very funny.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Goofy, but poorly ended., January 23, 2002
This review is from: Bikini Planet (Mass Market Paperback)
Wayne Norton is a cop in 1968 Las Vegas; he's as reliable as a brick wall, and pretty much as thick. When a gangster puts him on ice, he does it by chucking him into a cryogenic sleep chamber. Revived some three hundred years later, he finds himself submerged in a world beyond his comprehension. Struggling to come to grips with this brave new world, Wayne finds that he can't makes sense of things, no matter how hard he tries. This book is very hard to describe. In the beginning, the author succeeds in making Wayne's confusing meanderings quite humorous and interesting. Towards the end, though, the story becomes surreal to the point of absolute chaos. Three different endings are offered, none of which really tie up the story. This book had a lot of potential, but missed out on it. If you want a goofy book, then you might like this one (the first three-quarters are absolutely priceless!). Otherwise, I would just give it a pass.
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