Customer Reviews

Gil's All Fright Diner (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm not even sure where to begin. I picked up this book in the bookstore cause I liked the cover, opened it up and next thing I know I'm still STANDING in the aisle and I'm three chapters in. I buy the book, go home and read it straight through! I've never done that in my life (besides "The Giving Tree"), but I couldn't put it down. Who is this A. Lee Martinez? Does he have any other books?

The story is simple: two kinda friends - one a vampire, one a werewolf - agree to help the owner of an all-night diner with her zombie problem. Yea, that sounds simple, but somehow Martinez has crammed more imagination, originality, action, smiles and endearing characters in 272 pages than most writers would in 10 books or their whole career. I am truly impressed.

Earl is a vampire who wears overalls; Duke the werewolf wears jeans and a leather jacket but no underwear. Duke used to be a truck driver, till he ran over a werewolf. So these are not your debonaire, suave, bow-tied and caped supernaturals. They do not drink... wine - but they sure do drink beer. In a pick-up truck.

There are so many funny bits in the book that I was constantly reading a line here, a paragraph there, aloud to my spouse.

We have old gods with far more consonants in their names than Cthulhu (and possibly even more tentacles), not only ghosts but a ghost Scottie, and of course, the zombies. We have cows and chickens, and we also have the latest edition of the Necronomicon, which includes a spell for getting a three-picture deal with any major studio.

There is despair in this diner, but it's not Edward Hopper's despair, that's for sure. Late nights in this diner are downright lively, or at least, undead-ly (though occasionally deadly - which contrast certainly points out some of the weaknesses of the English language.)

Speaking of language, I do have one nit to pick: the author almost randomly uses "you're" for "your" and vice versa; sometimes he's right, sometimes not. A good copy editor would have caught this. Either our publisher needs to hire a copy editor, or our writer needs to brush up on some grammar, because I find it very distracting, and un-funny, to bump into mistakes like this so often.

That said, I have two more words for y'all: Pig Latin.

Optional family reading alert: scattered showers of four-letter words, casual teenage sex (not graphic) and blood and gore (sometimes graphic). They're all very funny, but some parents might not want their teenagers dipping into this, even though it's a light and funny read overall. Personally I had heard and read lots worse by the time I was 15, but it might be a little mature for a 13-year old. So call it a PG-13 book. As vampire books go, that's quite light!

The plot is somewhat reminiscent of Tanya Huff's "Summoner" series, and I think people who enjoy Huff's fantasy would like this book. Likewise, if you read this and are then looking for something else to read, you might check Huff out. There seem to be some odd similarities between Huff's urban Canada and Martinez' rural desert south!

Gil's All Fright Diner... what can I say about this book? I know when I first cracked the covers and started wading into the introduction, I found myself reeling with the folksy dialogue and abrasively Texan characters. The book is just overflowing with what I suppose could be characterized as 'Southern Charm', but until your brain adjusts it can be pretty headache-inducing.

I'm glad I stuck with it though, as there are some genuinely interesting characters and ideas contained in this novel. As the cover-plugs indicate, this is the story of a werewolf and a vampire, traveling companions through the deeply weird American Southwest, who are eventually called upon to fight the undead hordes and apocalyptic plans of a teenage cultist determined to bring the oldest of the old gods back to the world, plunge the human race into perpetual hellish darkness, so on and so forth.

If that sounds both overly complicated and overly simple at the same time, you're getting the idea. This book is meant as a satire, as a laugh-out-loud parody of the burgeoning horror genre, a Douglas Adams for the nuevo-Lovecraftian set. You won't find a lot of actual chuckles here, though, and at times things the author thinks are clearly very witty are in fact dull and repetitive. You never get a very good look at the world these characters inhabit, and you never feel completely immersed in that world, the way you would in a Douglas Adams book, or Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, et al. Few people can write in that league of course.

If you can get past the shallow world and sparse setting, however, you'll find some interesting characters half-hidden by the author. No one in this book is quite as boring or as simple as they appear at first, and there are some genuinely thoughtful portrayals, of people who are caught up in a world that's quite strange and dangerous, and find that their seemingly enviable immortality might in fact just mean an endless life of alienation and abnormality. In spite of that, there's happiness and friendship, and enough of a start to hope for a better fleshed out sequel or two.

Take 2 friends, one am insecure vampire who didn't inherit the most fantastic powers or killer looks, and the other just your average sarcastically close mouthed redneck werewolf. Strand them near penniless at a bizarre but conveniantly nocturnal diner in the middle of the desert and watch them battle ancient gods, horny teenagers, and the abnormally creepy crawly.

Earl & Duke just want to make an easy $100 plus all the pie that Duke can shove in his mouth. But ofcourse like attracts like and since our main charcters aren't the most average joes on the block...they battle rotten corpses, a herd of hungry zombie dairy cows, fall in love with a stranded ghost, fend of a group of inept yet polite gouls, play 18 holes of mini golf, save the world from the before mentioned horny teens who are set on making themselves gods, and still end up getting the girl and her little dog too.

Seriously, this book was well worth reading and definitely a laugh a minute. It's a light read but for anyone who enjoys a "Sean of the Dead" type comedy with lots of warped humor and some zombie guts thrown in on the side this is a winner.

Gil's reads, in many ways, like a debut novel. The ending is not as tight as it could be, and it suffers slightly from a sagging middle. This is not to say the book is bad. In fact, Gil's is probably one of the best debut novels I've ever read. The characters are all unique, memorable, and very realistic. Mr. Martinez has thrown many conventions to the wind, with great effect. The vampire and werewolf are not sexy and debonair. They're a couple of rednecks. Loretta isn't model beautiful, but she's tough and smart and a true heroine.

I can spot stilted or bad dialog from across the room, and it's the one thing most likely to make me toss a book aside. Not one single line of dialog in this book came off that way. Everything is snappy and fun, and I could hear the characters in my head as clear as if they were in the room with me.

All told, I highly recommend Gil's All Fright Diner to anyone who enjoys a fun fantasy/horror tale of werewolves, vampires, and demons. And if you like Gil's, I highly recommend Mr. Martinez's second novel, In The Company of Ogres.

Duke and Earl are rednecks, best buds, and a werewolf and a vampire, respectively, but they're the decent sort. Most undead are - just normal folk trying to get by in a world that's actually a lot weirder than most people reckon. Things get weird even for them, though, when they stop at Gil's All Night Diner in the small town of Rockwood, Texas, just minutes before the diner is overrun with a herd of zombies. It's not the first time that such a thing has happened, however, and the boys decide to stick around to see if they can't get to the bottom of it.

Martinez's story is actually quite dire, as the reader learns who is behind all the strange goings-on, the secret of the diner, and the nature of the threat that hovers over the entire Earth. But the way he writes turns what could be a devilish thriller into a great comedy, with wry observations and plenty of satire. As you can tell from the cover, the main monster in the book seems to be of the Lovecraftian variety, but the swift 268 pages are filled with ghosts, witches, zombie cows and plenty of other pieces of horror convention plucked from b-movies and pulp magazines and gently turned on their ear. Like "Shaun of the Dead," the situation itself is really quite serious, it's how the characters react to it all that generates the comedy. Duke and Earl have been everywhere and seen so much that even a mob of ghouls practically rolls off their back. Loretta, the manager of the diner, is a shotgun-totin' mama who ain't givin' up her diner to no spooks, no matter how many times she's got to rebuild. Even the town Sheriff (named Marshall Kopp, if you can believe it) doesn't take the stereotypical route of suspecting the newcomers in town for all the strange behavior, because he's smart enough to recognize that the strange behavior preceded them by a good many years.

This is a really good book - a strong, funny novel with equal parts gore and laughter, and even a dash of sweetness to it as well. Things are clearly open to revisit the characters at the end, and I for one would be glad to see it happen - a very promising debut for Mr. Martinez.

Loved this book, laughed my way through it. With a zombie-addled diner, a couple of grumpy rednecks who also happen to be a vampire and werewolf, a touching romance with a ghost, a teenager determined to raise the Old Gods and bring about the end of the world and even a ghostly dog, what more could anyone want? It was like Christopher Moore meets Jeff Foxworthy, or a bit like Good Omens with a Texas twang. Certainly no one's idea of a challenging novel, but for a light fun read that will make you laugh, give it a try!

Whenever you have a book with the title _Gil's All Fright Diner_, you can tell it isn't going to win any major literary awards. What it might do is just give you a little harmless fun. _Gil's_ is the literary equivalent of listening to AC/DC or watching _Sanford and Son_. It wasn't written to reinvent the way we look the world. It wasn't written to spur long-winded debates (*hackhack cough _Da Vinci Code_ cough). It was written to entertain. No more, no less.

The story takes us to a community named Rockwood, Texas. It's a one-horse town in which even the horse got bored and left. It's one of those small towns that has its own way proving the Earth is flat - once people leave, they don't return. You get the idea. The titular (once we replace FR with N) diner is ran by a feisty, voluptuous, Daisy Duke wearing peroxide blonde named Loretta. Loretta seems to have her hands full once the previous proprietor (and you know who he is) skips town under mysterious circumstances. Every so often a band of zombies attacks her diner. It isn't so much that she's scared of the zombies as she is of the propery damage they cause - and the fact they scare away what few customers she already has.

That's where Duke and Earl enter the picture. Bringing little more than the clothes on their backs, their rusty gray pickup truck, a dog-eared copy of _Dianetics_, and who knows how many empty beer cans - the two arrive at the diner with no real intention of staying in Rockwood. What happens however is that they arrive just when diner is attacked once again by zombies.

Here we find that Duke and Earl aren't just ordinary passers-through. Duke is a former trucker who became a werewolf when he accidently ran over one with his truck. And Earl is a hundred year old vampire who finds that the vampiric lifestyle is full of more liabilities than assets. After agreeing to help Loretta with her little zombie problem, they find that's just the tip of the iceberg.

_Gil's_ is differnet from so many of the other werewolf or vampire novels out there because it completely deglamorizes without demonizing the monsters. In other worlds, we don't have the gentile, sophisticated vampires like we do _Underworld_ or the Lestat novels by Anne Rice. Instead, we have a tale of vampires as if it were told by Jeff Foxworthy. The creatures here have bad tobacco stained teeth, pot bellies, wear overalls, pork chop sideburns, and bald spots. It's great how Martinez makes them resemble real people more than anything I've read so far.

_Gil's_ is presently the only novel out there by Martinez thus far, so not very much information exists about the author right now. What I can tell you is that Martinez has a second novel entitled _In the Company of Ogres_, which will be released in August 2006. This book will reportedly do for fantasy what _Gil's_ did for horror. What will the third offering from Martinez poke fun at - science fiction, westerns, political thrillers? Who knows? No matter what it is, I'm looking forward to it as well.

First, a disclaimer: I do not typically read books with red, one-eyed monsters on the front cover, however artistically rendered. In fact, I might not have read this one if my husband hadn't raced through it in two days, laughing all the way.

A. Lee Martinez has concocted a wild, ghoul-ridden ride involving teenage mistresses of the night named Tammy, a balding vampire and his best werewolf friend, and a ghost dog with the best personality since Old Yeller.

I loved it. There, I said it. I laughed out loud, shuddered through the squishy parts, and thought back to my childhood Magic 8 ball with a new sense of wonder. Read it, and you'll find out why.

One of my favorite bits: Wacky Willie's Deluxe Goofy Golf, and wacky Willie's paramount struggle to rid the thirteenth hole of bats. It's one of those pages where, still giggling, you grab a friend and say, "You have to listen to this."

Gil's All Fright Diner is the newest entry in the saturated universe of fantasy/horror done in an urban setting. While P.N. Elrod, MaryJanice Davidson, Jim Butcher, and Julie Kenner don't have to necessarily get out of the way, they should, at least, scrunch over one seat to make room. A. Lee Martinez's first book is wild and wacky and certainly offers up some weirdly goofy ideas.

Duke and Earl (at least, the names aren't too contrived, huh?) are respectively a werewolf and a vampire, but not your typically romantic/gothic ones. They're more your low-rent type of monsters. Before they were "turned," Duke and Earl were your basic good ol' boys and they maintain the same sensibilities to this date. Duke is an overweight, beer-guzzling fella, while Earl is a scrawny, wimpy, overalls-wearin' bloodsucker. These dudes wouldn't even be able to go thru the rear service entrance of an Anne Rice character's house.

The story tells of these two buddies who are just driving their beat-up pick-up truck thru the dusty town of Rockwood when, broke and out of gas, they are hired by Loretta, owner of Gil's All Night Diner, to sort out the eatery's recurring zombie dilemma. Duke and Earl resolve this problem pretty easily, but it turns out the zombies are more of a symptom than the actual disease. They stick around to root out the source of the problem, which turns out to involve a cute 17-year old Asian teenager named Tammy who styles herself as "Mistress Lilith, Queen of Night" and is attended by her sole cult follower, Chad, who only hangs around her because he is also a cult follower of his raging hormones. Anyway, it all climaxes with an apocalyptic but tongue-in-cheek battle royale between Duke and Earl and Tammy for the fate of the world, as the Mistress of Darkness attempts to open the Gate of the Old Gods lying beneath Gil's All Night Diner. But, never mind that. More importantly, can a dorky vampire find love with a graveyard ghost and her spectral terrier?

Martinez does come out with a lot of humorously twisted scenarios, most of which I know better than to divulge. But, I'll say this, Pig Latin is more handy than I thought. I did enjoy his version of the ghouls, which gave even Duke a run for his money. Martinez also writes in enough oozy tentacles and multi-syllabically named old gods to satisfy even H.P. Lovecraft. And his book certainly makes an argument for movie theaters being a great preventive measure against the forces of evil.

Gil's All Fright Diner is the winner of the American Library Association's 2006 Alex Award, which is only given to 10 books every year. While A. Lee Martinez doesn't achieve the witty heights of Douglas Adams (what was the Publisher's Weekly reviewer thinking?), he does provide some chuckles and guffaws here and there. I wasn't impressed as much as amused by the book. And, certainly, I'm looking forward to reading his follow up effort In The Company of Ogres.