Customer Reviews

Death by Zamboni

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Unauthorized Death By Zamboni Reader Qualification Quiz designed to determine whether or not you should be allowed to buy a copy of Death By Zamboni or if you must wait for the Death By Zamboni mini-series on CBC(tm).

Answer these questions:

0. No?

1. Have you ever clamped clothes pins on your genitals?

2. Do acid flashbacks accompany thoughts of the Gibb brothers?

3. Have you ever uttered "Zoinks" without intentionally referencing Saturday Morning Cartoons?

4. Have you ever fantasized about making love to someone in mouse ears?

5. Do you prefer your comedians tripped out on amphetamines?

6. Is your personal contact with sweatshops a weekend "Rollback" the prices excursion to Wal-Mart(tm)?

7. Do you get all angsty when you hear the promo words "Who will be voted out tonight?"

8. Are you a fan of books that are "too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts"?

9. Gouda?

10. Do you see things in a Rorschach test?

11. Have you ever, either in this life or the next, made love to a mime after it mimed its way through a death match with Jewish hitmen?

12. Do you see the connection between "it" and "is"?

13. Pink banana hammocks?

14. Do you hide your reading problem from friends and family?

15. Satan Donuts?

16. Does bowling in and around seminal fluid turn you off?

17. Have you ever ridden a Zamboni (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more)?

18. Do you have a conscience?

19. Are you a superfreak?

If you answered yes to some of these questions Death By Zamboni is for you. Of course, if you answered no to some of these questions Death By Zamboni is for you. If you answered maybe to any of these same questions then Death By Zamboni is also for you -- maybe. But if you answered yes to some of these questions Death By Zamboni isn't for you because you're a half wit who probably can't follow anything more challenging than a really challenging thing. And if you answered no or maybe to some of these questions then you should be ashamed of yourself, but you probably aren't, so maybe you should just give your money to David David anyway because he's earned it by being far cooler than you. Whatever...Death By Zamboni deserves to be read. Can you handle it? Are you man enough to handle it? Do you know what it takes to read Death By Zamboni? It takes brass testicles to read Death By Zamboni. Now sway your hips. Do you hear that clickety clack? Death By Zamboni really is for you.

WARNING: Some spoilers!

There is no way around it: you have to like nonlinearity, digression clever word play, and randomness to like this book. Do henchman-mimes do it for you? If they do, you'll like this book. Do you like the idea of Bruce Willis getting his groin bit off?

Luckily, I enjoy these types of things from time to time. And I can suspend my disbelief long enough to get through a bizzaro book (is that the right term?) like this one.

You have to suspend more than your disbelief, you also have to suspend your sense of scale. You have to believe, for example, that Abrams Tanks can pulled out of someone's pocket on a second's notice.

As for the main character--though the book is abstract and bizzaro, it also has a hard-boiled detective. I'm not sure this is the fairest comparison, but the main character/ narrator reminded me a lot of Fletch. You remember, the 80s Chevy Chase detective with the one-liners (it was also a novel). That's not a bad thing. Fletch was probably the last great Chevy Chase movie ever made.

I also think linguists would like this book. The most enjoyable part of this book for me was having to watch carefully everything I read. The author constantly tricks you into misreading everything. One example is when the character says he comes in "guns a-blazing." You have to be suspicious enough at this point so that you're not caught off guard a paragraph later when he's trying to put out the fire that has started because of his guns.

In short if you like word play, random references, random everything, silliness, and Fletch one-liners, this book will probably be for you.

Death By Zamboni is weird and extremely funny. Don't read it if you want it to be like other books, because it is not! The protagonist, Satan Donut, is obviously a genius and his sister Etta is hot. As a matter of fact, I am currently going out with her. The character's email transcripts alone are worth twice the price of the book.

Buy it!

It makes a great gift too.

Death by Zamboni is crazy, clever, and funny. I laughed out loud reading it! Every page is crammed with wit and humor, and the entire book defies everything you ever knew about genre. It's a mystery, sci-fi, absurdist comedy and social satire all in one. This book has bite. I loved it!

This is not your average sweet American tale about a young man's journey for redemption. No seriously, it's not even close to that...it's better and much more hilarious. My advice is to strap on a pair of Depends undergarments or just read while on the pot because you're going to laugh so hard you'll pee. I'm not sure how Katzman's does it, but his tongue-in-cheek humor is effortless and plays on so many expressions that we've grown up with, listened to, and as children wondered what the hell does that even mean, and when no one can explain, we resign. My favorite parts include the action-interrupting phone calls from Mom, with Dad on the other line. Oh Jesus, if this doesn't make milk come out your nose until you blow milky snot bubbles, I don't know what will! Check your pulse, because obviously a mime has turned you into a humorless zombie during a commercial break. If you don't 'get it' you're probably not old enough and it's past your bedtime anyways. So what do I really think? It's Christmas in July. Go out, or order this book online and stuff it in the stockings of every relative and co-worker. Better yet, display it on your coffee table so your in- laws have something to browse when they visit. Everyone knows a sense of humor is the most attractive attribute and owning this book will prove yours to all!

I kind of want to marry this book. I kind of want to marry it and have its little book babies. If I existed solely as an anthology of modern woes, serious and emotional, pulling my jet-black bangs down over my eyes, this book would be my soulmate, laughing at how doomed we are as it made snide comments that were far too esoteric for my depressed, washed-out mind to understand; kicking businessmen in suits in their shins and then glancing at the sky when they turned around, red faced; making elaborate plans to construct a bullhorn capable of piercing through the armor of stupidity and apathy America wears.

I am in love with this book. I am in love with the layout, the quality. I dream at night about the chapter numbers, large and off-set, sideways and slanted, each one sponsored by a major corporation or religion, which, sadly, are one in the same. I sit and think about the emails between Satan and his sister with a kind of schoolgirl-like grasp on time, which is to say, none at all, as hours pass by and I reminisce about how cutting Etta was in her critique, how realistic, only to have a response from someone calling himself Christopher Marlowlife or Malcom X-Files.

Like all kids in love, there's a lot I didn't understand. Things went over my head, jokes were missed. I was so caught up in the originality and social commentary that some of the puns and plays on words were lost on me. Hey, I'm young. There's gonna be things I, child, don't understand. But there were plenty of pages that had me laughing out loud in the library or cafe where I read the majority of this, with disregard for the decibel levels I was emitting, because if those suckers were reading this, they'd laugh that loudly, too.

This is a book that, I can see, will have its critics, because, despite its appearances, it isn't easy. It requires the reader to push him or herself forward, to dig deeper beneath the surface slapstick, and understand that this was a methodical, well-constructed piece. It's asking a lot of you. And if you can summon your strength, it's a very rewarding read. After all, don't the best relationships also make us better people for having endured? Death by Zamboni is that older boyfriend that makes you grow up a little faster, whether or not you asked to. It's worth it.

Death by Zamboni sleuths in capers like Encyclopedia Brown if he were a noir Bugsy, winking nods at the far side, while doing the pee dance with a Monty Python.

Now that I've gotten your attention, let me just begin by saying that DDK® didn't write this book- I did. At least that's what echoed out of my head as the inside read words he'd placed there. That is to say, it is a book for all seasons and great minds alike. It's quite something to discover your very own twin exists inside the author of a book!

I mean... haven't you ever wondered what the dialogue roving through another person's head looks like? Could another be contemplating the same thoughts as your very own? Read it and find out for yourself!

Also, where did such specifically used references which quantify as deja vu familiar, come from? Things only carry resonance when you've felt them enter your own axis of lifetime- could that be part its magic? What is it "they" say? A genius is one who can illustrate that which we cannot draw for ourselves? Perhaps this is a testament to that very skill.

Bonus: This book also comes dressed up in song and makes its reader jig in its giggle-hardy cleverness.

To whit! This page-turner is liberally sprinkled with it, in every nook and cranny, like a generous dose of salt over your shoulder. I know it brought me a sense of luck as I toted it from place to place in my back pocket. Much like the misfit penny I stumbled upon, I was so glad to have made this book's acquaintance!

Dare I additionally mention falling prey to its puns? Riddled into visual free-form, where once they were naught? Imagine it parallels breathing life into limb. From manna into man or in other words- this takes the cake and IS the body of Christ.

I read a lot of children's books. Mainly to experience the verve and vivacity of imagination. A limitless world, unlike one we live in, which shoeboxes and shelves our creativity- as if it is something we should outgrow. Though, real growth lies in keeping ourselves open to all we can imagine as well as that which we cannot. Katzman's work is syruped in playful imagining, without reducing itself via censorship. It retains a language of our familiars, as adults i.e. the profane may be present but is not apologetically masked. Instead, it waltzes around unabashedly with its hairy Cousin It.

In conclusion, I am a book collector. A purveyor of fine literature who, like the Comic Book Guy, prefers a pristine edition. However, this book (which I prize) rests now, undeniably bent in an arc not unlike McDonalds®. I fell swoop too far into its hinges and in my great focus of it, lost track of my senses. I swam through it complete in a few short sittings and rode through it like a wreck. Or at least that's the shape it's in now, compared to my other novels. Apparently, it's a must-read.. you need not think twice!

You can tell that David David had a hell of a good time writing Death by Zamoboni. This is one funny book. The word play is hilarious, bringing to mind Groucho Marx on crank. The story is a simple enough detective-trying-to-find-missing-spouse story line. The best thing about Zamboni is not necessarily the story line, but, instead the narrative voice (the singer not the song). Katzman is a very funny man. He gets so twisted up in some of his word play and surreal tangents that you wonder if he is going to be able to loop back into the story without it seeming forced. But he always sticks his landing from his bizarre little sidetrips and the story is all the better for such efforts. I look forward to seeing if he plans on writing any other books. I hope so.

Lance Carbuncle, author of GRUNDISH AND ASKEW and SMASHED, SQUASHED, SPLATTERED, CHEWED CHUNKED AND SPEWED

Exhaustively - and often exhaustingly - funny, this novel uses every comico-literary trick in the book: mixed metaphors, wildly over-extended metaphors ("You can't see the metaphorest for the trees"), parody, surrealist riffs on just about anything that pops into the author's head: they're all there. (A technical note: I love the ongoing game with speech verbs and, at one point and to great comic effect, their absence.) Genre-hopping from hard-boiled-private-eye-meets-dark-lady to mad-scientist-saves-the-world-by-destroying-humanity, with the unexpected casting of a group of mimes as the baddies, the book is finally almost too overjoyed by its own weirdness to sustain itself as, well, a book. But if you like the idea of a post-modern Groucho Marx crossed with an off-the-wall pop Oulipiste (and, let's face it, who doesn't?), you'll love this.

Private Eye Satan Donut goes on a treasure hunt to solve a mysterious disappearance. While he's on this fantastic voyage, a lot of very strange things happen including but not limited to the fact that Satan and his sister, riot grrl and writer of bad poetry, Etta Donut, must dress up as Mini and Mickey Mouse respectively in order to hunt down the Hebraic Hitmen, who are the only ones who can tell them where to find the mimes that will eventually lead them to the person they're looking for. Don't worry though the story doesn't end there, oh no, there's a lot more at the end that I'm not going to tell you about.

The number one thing I enjoyed about this book is the tongue in cheek humor. For instance on page 162 Satan realizes he hadn't cleaned his kitchen and he finds a paramecium named Carl who told him a few jokes that were quite cilia. It's these moments that make the book quite good.

I also, liked that each chapter has a sponsor from the commercial-entertainment state of degradation. For instance the last chapter of the book is sponsored by Monsanto-Wal-Mart-General Motors-Shell-Phillip Morris-NBC-Mary Kay, Inc. Owning your soul since 2001.

And last but certainly not least, if you have crazy parents who call you at the most inappropriate times, like when a mad scientist is about to morph you into a cockroach so you can survive the next apocalypse, then you should most certainly pick up this enjoyable book by David2 today! Just don't tell him I told you that, ok? Thanks :)