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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another hilarious romp through some strange reality, April 5, 2010
This review is from: Divine Misfortune (Hardcover)
All authors occasionally write books that just fail to measure up to their previous works. Trying to maintain the quality is difficult and authors just can't write a hit every time.
Martinez isn't one of these authors.
Everything he's written has been a hit, and nothing he's written is like anything else he's written.
Martinez's worlds are located in some strange universe where soldiers can't seem to stay dead, killer robots become Sam Spade, werewolves and vampires are good ol' boys, and the kobold housekeeper has more sense than anyone else.
In this romp, the gods are real, and for subscription to their services and minor fees of sacrifice will give you the benefit of their powers. Just log on to the internet and pick your god, you'll soon have all the advantages of having a genuine immortal god in your personal corner. (Just don't forget to ask about the the often fatal disadvantages).
In this case Phil and Teri are just trying to get ahead and decide to sign up with a god who looks like a raccoon wearing jeans, the loudest Hawaiian shirts ever seen and sunglasses even when it's dark.
Unfortunately their new god fails to inform them about some personal baggage from his past, such as another god who's a jealous former lover who's been stalking him for hundreds of years and a dark god who's been trying to destroy him for a thousand years but can't seem to remember why.
It all gets complicated with the raccoon god's new girlfriend, a woman who makes a mistake in sitting down on the bench at a bus stop, a former Aztec god who needs a place to crash (and who's great at making breakfast) a vengeful dark god who refuses to obey the new rules, and an assortment of disciples who are more like the Keystone Kops than effective henchmen.
I always watch for Martinez's next book, and I'm never disappointed. Each is a unique adventure in strange worlds with (mostly) likable people. These strange worlds are strange but in some odd way are quite recognizably similar to our own.
You sort of don't expect this level of fantasy writing to come out of Texas, and perhaps that's why it's so fresh and interesting.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Prartchett, Adams, Wong, etc - If you like these guys, you'll like this, May 19, 2011
I find it difficult to commit to trying out a new author. I am a huge fan of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, and am a hopeful fan of the two relatively new authors David Wong (John Dies at the End) and Jonathan Howard (the two Johannes Cabal books out so far). I like my humor slightly warped, slightly cerebral, and slightly fantastical. And while I love Adam Sandler movies, I'm not a fan of fart jokes or sophomoric humor in books, and I hate puns for the sake of plot devices (ie, those Piers Anthony pieces of crap that pass for books).
I immediately liked this book, and when I finished, the first thing I did was went and added just about every other A. Lee Martinez book to my Kindle wish list so I could keep track of the books I wanted to download. I'm about halfway through my second book of his (the Automatic Detective), and I have to say that both books are right up my alley. The worlds he creates are more along the lines of Adams, Wong, and Howard. That is, he builds off of our current existence and spins that in a sci-fi / fantasy way. Unlike Terry Pratchett who invented a brand new universe for his Discworld series (which I absolutely love).
This is one of those books where I found myself, while not laughing out loud, at least smiling to myself and maybe letting out a little chuckle (anything more would have brought some worried looks from my fellow commuters on the train). If you like the authors I've listed, you should definitely give this guy a read.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Raccoon Headed God of Luck, April 24, 2011
A. Lee Martinez specializes in "soft" satire...where things get blown up like a balloon rather than cut with a knife. The result is gross distortion but very, very funny. In DIVINE MISFORTUNE, he tackles the modern approach to religion with, well, irreverence. Which is pretty much half the modern approach to religion, the other half being extreme commercialization of it. These days, religion seems to regard prayer as a Pez dispenser--click a prayer button for a piece of candy--and this attitude is what Martinez takes dead aim at.
DIVINE MISFORTUNE is about a nice couple, Phil and Teri. They both work and are getting by okay, but when Phil gets passed over for promotion and Teri runs over a cat, they decide that they need to bring religion into their lives. So they embark on their "spiritual" quest the way any modern person would by searching for a god on the internet. Teri rejects Anubis because the jackal head is just too icky. Eventually they settle on Luka, because he seems cool--Hawaiian shirts and a casual attitude, no need for messy or painful sacrifices, just "allow me into your home". So they click "Accept" on that long agreement and then...
A raccoon shows up at the front door. Yep, there were a few "non-disclosed" items in the agreement...one of which is that Luka or Lucky as he likes to be called is caught up in a war with a creepy god of chaos and the goddess of romantic heartbreak...there really being no room in the modern world for a goddess of Love anymore...and then it is OMG, OMG, OMG and ROTFLMAO.
Martinez has come up with a solid satiric fantasy. One could even say it is inspired. It's the kind of book that after you stop laughing, you start thinking. Very nice...
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