Customer Reviews

Bikini Planet

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I thought the cover and one-liner reviews inside sounded promising. But the book turned out to be a bit of a yawn. Characters and ideas are introduced and then never go anywhere. Relationships between characters that had a lot of potential are skimmed over. Strange "science" (eg one character can actually somehow be two different beings at once) are tossed in with no explanation. I finished it, which is more than I can say for some books. But there's way more enteraining stuff out there.

We waste so many tax dollars on things. I saw that because I got this at the public library. I have finished ever book I have ever started reading except this one. It makes no sense. It was painful to read. It's just dumb. It's called bikini planet, but that's not till much later. DO NOT READ THIS BOOK

There are three planets in this book. There is only one bikini. With a title like "Bikini Planet," a 1/3 bikini-to-planet ratio is extremely poor. And the bikini doesn't even show up until the last ten pages or so of the book.

Also, given the title, I expect either campy humour or some titillating fun. This book has neither. While the main character does find a woman with whom he repeatedly has sex, the descriptions of their frolics are ridiculously vague. That would be well enough if there were other reasons to read this book, but it is impressively un-funny.
The plot is poorly developed, and the protagonist bounces from one situation to the next through no merit or impetus of his own. Various mysteries are set up, but the protagonist never makes an effort to solve them, and the author doesn't bother to pursue them. The book has multiple incompatible endings, but despite the author finishing three times, the reader is left feeling unsatisfied and annoyed.

I bought this book becuase I saw it in a bin at the dollar store. As it turns out, I paid too much. Don't waste your time with this wretched book.

With comparisons to Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, and a collection of really amusing testimonials, I was ready to really enjoy this book. I wasn't actually expecting Pratchett, Adams (or Wodehouse, or Verne - all of whom David Garnett is favourably compared to), but I was at least expecting something amusing.

I kept waiting for something funny to happen.

The only really good part is when Wayne Norton (or John Wayne, or Duke Wayne, or James Bogart, whichever hilarious moniker he is using that chapter) is captured by historians, who question him about ancient earth, and seem to have gotten most of their history from cowboy movies.

As far as Bikini Planet, we don't even see the frikken place until about page 230.

The endings are all quite disappointing, and don't wrap up half the loose ends, answer any questions, or even have A SINGLE LAUGH IN THEM!!

Somehow I did finish the book, though, which is the only reason I'm giving it two stars instead of one.

In 1969 Las Vegas, Wayne Norton is proud to be a Las Vegas police officer. Although twenty-one he remains a virgin who loves his girlfriend Susie and hopes to consummate their union soon. Before that can happen he sees Susie's father, a gangster, kill some rivals in cold blood. Her father then punches his lights out and puts him in a cryogenic sleep chamber. He wakes up three hundred years in the future to a world he doesn't know.

He's immediately drafted into GalactiCop and sent to Hideaway, an exotic pleasure playground. He is on such a top-secret mission that he doesn't even know what it is. While trying on some clothes, he meets a beautiful woman named Kiru who escaped a penal planet with a bunch of space pirates. Wayne finally loses his virginity before he and Kiru are arrested. They both escape their captors but become separated which means there won't be a happily ever after ending for this couple or will there?

BIKINI PLANET is a fun science fiction novel that doesn't take itself seriously at all. It is a satire on the entire "grave - save the universe" space opera novels and movies that are so prevalent in fiction today. David Garnett has a delicious sense of humor, which he shows off to perfection in ironically this one of a kind novel.

Harriet Klausner

Billing itself as campy fun, this was, instead, pure kaka. And not in a good way.

It wasn't cheesy, it was simply bad. And with a title like "Bikini Planet", you'd expect some titilation - yet the book didn't even deliver in that department, really.

Dull and disappointing in every way. My biggest surprise was that I actually read the thing.

I happened upon this book while looking for something entertaining to send my brother in Iraq. One of the blurbs said it was similiar to Hitchhiker's. They were wrong. The plot meandered (if there was one.) There were multiple endings which just prolonged the pain. Maybe on some level this was entertaining to someone, but whatever level it was, I didn't find it. Needless to say, I didn't send this to my brother. I decided getting mortared daily was torture enough. If you're looking for funny scifi or fantasy, go with anything by Terry Prachett or go back to the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.